News:No cardiovascular risk associated with coffee consumption after MI

December 16, 2007 By Benjamin A. Olenchock, M.D. Ph.D. [mailto:bolenchock@partners.org]

Almost every baseline characteristic and dietary habit was non-randomly distributed across coffee quartiles. To generalize: heavy coffee drinkers were more likely to be young, obese, men, and smokers. They were less likely to be diabetic, hypertensive or have heart failure. In both the unadjusted and multivariable analyses, there was no association between level of coffee consumption and cardiovascular events (p-trend for multivariate analysis = 0.18). If any trend could be seen, it is that all best point estimates for hazard ratios in the heavy coffee drinkers were less than 1, i.e. trend towards benefit, although confidence intervals easily included 1.

This was a very large study, incorporating data regarding dietary confounders that previous studies did not. Many questions remain – what type of coffee, how was it brewed, does it matter? Does caffeine content matter? This was an Italian study, so it is possible that these results don’t apply to American drip coffee. The public interest in the relationship between coffee and adverse health effects appears to be insatiable. Like all agents for the public good, coffee has been placed under the microscope. Thankfully, to this point it has remained in good standing.

The GISSE-Prevenzione coffee analysis did not receive corporate funding.

Caffeine content of coffee by type Drip coffee: 115–175 mg, Espresso: 40 mg, Brewed/Pressed: 80–135 mg, Instant: 65–100 mg, Decaf, brewed: 3–4 mg, Decaf, instant: 2–3 mg (Data from Ref. 2)

1. Maria Giuseppina Silletta, RosaMaria Marfisi, Giacomo Levantesi, Alessandro Boccanelli, Carmelo Chieffo, MariaGrazia Franzosi, Enrico Geraci, Aldo Pietro Maggioni, Gianluigi Nicolosi, Carlo Schweiger, Luigi Tavazzi, Gianni Tognoni, Roberto Marchioli, and on behalf of the GISSI-Prevenzione Investigators Coffee Consumption and Risk of Cardiovascular Events After Acute Myocardial Infarction. Results From the GISSI (Gruppo Italiano per lo Studio della Sopravvivenza nell’Infarto miocardico)-Prevenzione Trial Circulation 2007: published online before print December 3, 2007, 10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.107.712976

2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee