(Herald-Dispatch.com) — Love coffee in the morning? Even more than your spouse? But a little worried that it (the coffee, not the spouse) could make your blood pressure go up? Go ahead, have a second cup. Turns out sipping moderate amounts of joe limbers up stiff arteries, doing your heart a big favor.
Compared with people who skip coffee, those with high blood pressure who enjoy one to two cups daily have better “artery distensibility.” Translation: Your blood vessels are better at expanding and contracting. Beneficial compounds in coffee make your blood vessels nearly as flexible as a Cirque du Soleil acrobat.
Researchers discovered this new coffee benefit in Greece, where it’s often made simply by tossing finely ground beans into the pot (think cowboy coffee, refined). One snag: unfiltered coffee raises LDL (the lousy kind of) cholesterol. So we recommend two or three tweaks: Choose lightly roasted beans. Go with decaf if regular keeps you awake or you know it regular raises your blood pressure. And use a paper filter to brew coffee. (By the way, caffeine decreases type 2 diabetes and dementia risks, so choose caffeinated if it doesn’t affect you adversely.)
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Caffeinated coffee raises my blood pressure like you wouldn’t believe. And I’m sure it does for millions of others. Glad you at least put in that caveat.
Some years back, preliminary results from the large RN study indicated to me the seeming paradox of coffee reducing BP. While it is well known caffeine is a vasoconstrictor, in at least it’s short term effect, yielding increased BP; it seemed plausible that by inducing cyclic contraction of vessel wall musculature some type of vessel wall atrophy (associated with a relative disuse) was being slowed. Perhaps such cycles increased vessel wall contact with antioxidants, and/or inhibit damaging vessel wall accumulations – the physical action itself may be a salutary modality (independent of the + variance of an elevated phenol titer). R.Carlson
There is a study just published that indicates that contrary to previous recommendations a cup of coffee in the morning and one later in the day have no discernible effect on hypertensive patients. Yes, the pressure will rise slightly after ingestion but it quite quickly reverts back to it’s original levels. The mental boost, in particular of the morning cup, outweigh the temporary side effects of the temporary elevation of bp.