Take heart, coffee drinking gets a big tick

WASHINGTON - Go ahead and have that second cup of coffee - or third, or fourth. A study published on Monday shows heavy, long-term coffee drinking does not raise the risk of heart disease for most people.

The study, which followed 128,000 men and women for as long as 20 years, showed that drinking filtered coffee - not espresso or French-style brews - did not raise the risk of heart disease.

Heavy coffee drinkers did tend to smoke and drink alcohol more often and those two factors clearly do raise heart risk, the researchers report in the journal Circulation.

"We believe this study clearly shows there is no association between filtered coffee consumption and coronary heart disease," said Esther Lopez-Garcia, an instructor in the School of Medicine at the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid in Spain, who worked on the study.

"This lack of effect is good news, because coffee is one of the most widely consumed beverages in the world."

Researchers also found no link between heart disease and how much caffeine, tea or decaffeinated coffee people drank.

But Rob van Dam of the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston said the association between coffee consumption and heart disease could not be excluded in some people.

Several studies have shown a link with heart disease and copious drinking of French press coffee, made using a mesh filter instead of a paper drip filter, or perked coffee.

- REUTERS