Study Inconclusive As To How Coffee Affects Blood Pressure
March 10th, 2010
A recent study in Finland was designed to determine, among other things, if drinking coffee caused high blood pressure. Unfortunately, even though the study revealed a lot of information, it was imperfect in that it failed to account for and isolate other variables that have been proven to affect blood pressure.
An interesting example is the demographic are people who drink coffee. Coffee drinkers, as a rule, tend to also be cigarette smokers. It’s been well proven that smoking tends to harden the blood arteries and constrict blood flow. The heart has to pump harder to force the blood through the narrow arteries and blood pressure rises as a result. In addition, studies have also demonstrated that discontinuing tobacco smoking will likely lead to a decrease in blood pressure. The study did not control for smoking.
Other lifestyle factors that come into play are eating habits, gender, weight, exercise, and salt sensitivity and intake. Diet, as we know, has a great impact on whether a person develops hypertension. Is a person who drinks coffee more likely to also have bad eating habits which can lead to high blood pressure?
We know that exercise is extremely beneficial to the heart and arterial system. Is a coffee drinker more likely to be sedentary than a non coffee drinker?
For more than a few decades, it seems like we’re constantly being told that some food or other that we have become used to eating is somehow harmful to us. Fish is good for the heart but are we willing to risk ingesting too much mercury. A vegetarian diet is good for health, but are we willing to risk bone loss? Fruits have loads of healthy antioxidants, but will the sugar content in them rot our teeth?
But there is one piece of good news from the study. It seems as though coffee drinking actually lowers the risk of getting type 2 diabetes. At this point, we’ll take all the good news we can get.
Melissa Chow is a freelance writer who writes articles for her website on topics such as how to lower high blood pressure naturally, easy to find herbs that lower blood pressure, and some natural cures for high blood pressure. Please visit her site for more details.
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