Drinking coffee may protect people against irregular heartbeats, despite the conventional wisdom to the contrary, according to a new study.
The Does Eliminating Coffee Avoid Fibrillation (Decaf) clinical trial found 200 patients with persistent irregular heartbeats had a “significantly” lower risk of the condition recurring if they belonged to the study group that was allocated coffee consumption rather than the one abstaining from it – 47% to 64%.
The Journal of the American Medical Association on Sunday published those findings, which were also presented at the American Heart Association conference in New Orleans.
Gregory Marcus and his team’s research comes as more than 10 million people in the US have been diagnosed with atrial fibrillation, a condition colloquially known as A-fib that causes palpitations as well as potentially heart failure, blood clots and strokes.
