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Coffee and health: explaining conflicting results in hypertension

Journal of Human Hypertension volume 20, pages 909–912 (2006)Cite this article

It is well established that dietary intake and other lifestyle factors play an important role in hypertension.1 Available evidence suggests hypertensive patients should follow a weight-reducing diet, restrict alcohol and salt intake, reduce smoking and incorporate regular physical activity into their lifestyle. Another area of much interest relates to the impact of coffee consumption on blood pressure (BP), which was first debated nearly 30 years ago.2 Coffee is one of the most widely consumed non-alcoholic beverages in Western society, although research pertaining to its effects on health, and particularly hypertension, remains equivocal.

Previously reviewed evidence from a variety of cross-sectional and longitudinal epidemiologic studies of the effects of coffee consumption on BP appear to be inconsistent, demonstrating no effects, positive relations and inverse relations.3 There are only two prospective cohort studies to date that have examined the influence of coffee intake on the risk of hypertension development, which present conflicting findings. Winkelmayer et al.4 demonstrated no relationship between coffee intake and incident hypertension in 155 594 US women followed up over 12 years. However, in a cohort of 1017 men followed up over 33 years, coffee drinkers had a greater incidence of hypertension in unadjusted analyses and consumption of one cup of coffee significantly raised systolic and diastolic BP by 0.19 and 0.27 mm Hg, respectively, in adjusted models.5 The nonsignificant association with incident hypertension after multivariate adjustment may therefore suggest that coffee drinking plays only a minor role. However, a confounding problem with such prospective studies is that individuals with heightened BP may be advised to moderate their coffee intake, thus impacting upon the findings.

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  1. Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College London, London, UK

    M Hamer

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Hamer, M. Coffee and health: explaining conflicting results in hypertension. J Hum Hypertens 20, 909–912 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.jhh.1002076

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