Caffeine Increases Symptoms of Heart Problems Sometimes

If you drink lots of coffee and your diet's not as healthy as it should be you're more likely to have the symptom of a heart problem, abnormal heart rhythm (atrial fibrillation), according to some recent Italian research presented at the 2009 European Society of Cardiology annual meeting in Barcelona.

Atrial fibrillation is a heart condition where the two upper chambers of the heart quiver instead of beating, as they should. This surprisingly common malfunction can lead to heart palpitations, shortness of breath, fatigue and increased stroke risk.

For this work, patients just diagnosed with the common heart arrhythmia were asked to give information about their dietary habits, including how much caffeine they consumed.

A control group of patients without atrial fibrillation also supplied dietary information. The data came from self-reported food frequency questionnaires that covered 116 different items, followed up by an interviewer asking subjects about the foods (and drinks) they consumed on a regular basis.

The subjects in the study were also ranked according to how faithful they were to the Mediterranean diet, an eating plan full of whole grains, fruits, veggies, nuts and seeds with olive oil as the source of fat, no eggs and limited amounts of red meat, fish and poultry and wine drunk in moderation.

Compliance to this eating plan was ranked from 0 (no compliance) to 55 (following faithfully) - the higher the score the greater the adherence to the Mediterranean-style eating plan.

This increasingly popular way of eating has been shown in earlier research to offer benefits to health in terms of death rates, coronary artery disease, blood pressure and cholesterol metabolism.

Those with atrial fibrillation were significantly less likely to stick to the Mediterranean diet than those without this cardiac condition. These subjects reported eating more red meat and full fat dairy products. Even more damaging, these patients got more of their total dietary antioxidants from coffee as opposed to other food sources like fruits, veggies and wine.

Daily coffee intake for the subjects was divided into 4 categories - no coffee, low (one cup/day), medium (2-3 cups/day) or heavy (more than 3 cups/day) intake.

Caffeine is a natural part of the leaves, seeds and fruits of more than 60 different plants - including coffee beans, tea leaves, cocoa beans and kola nuts. The researchers looked at all caffeine sources in evaluating the daily intake of the participants.

The researchers found that those who drank the most amount of coffee each day were more likely to have atrial fibrillation than those who drank less. "Our study suggests that high intake of coffee increases the risk of arrhythmias in people without known cardiac disease," says study author Dr. Anna Vittoria Mattioli of the University of Modena in Italy.

This Italian research isn't reason enough to cut your morning (or after dinner) coffee, but the results do suggest that getting antioxidants from other food sources is important to keeping your body healthy, and hopefully avoid symptoms of heart problems like the one in this article.