Scientists Now Claim Coffee is Leading to Heart Attacks (my perspective)

It could be easy to look at caffeine and coffee and say, this is not good for longevity. It's a drug. It's something that you're taking in that's changing your chemistry. I could see where that argument comes into play, right? But when you actually look at the concrete data and you look at the net effect of caffeine, it's actually quite interesting. Unfortunately, there's a lot of people talking about how caffeine could be really bad when it comes down to longevity, how it could be bad for even heart disease. And I can see where that discussion comes into play. I mean, you're taking in a compound that's altering your chemistry. It's altering neurotransmitter function. It's getting your heart rate high and this and that. But I think we do need to look at a lot of the real data before we jump to these conclusions. Caffeine in excess, sure, could be problematic for cardiovascular health. I can see that. But if you look at the large scale data, like a study that was published in the European Journal of Preventative Cardiology that looked at 449,000 people pushing a half a million people, we understand some things a little bit more. And it's not just about the caffeine when it comes down to coffee. So we'll break down this study and then we'll talk about some other ways that caffeine is affecting us in terms of longevity, good and bad. I put a link down below for a free sample variety pack of Element Electrolytes with any purchase. So if you check them out, check out Element Electrolytes. If you make any purchase through that link, you will get a free sample variety pack. So this is a sugar-free, calorie-free way to get electrolytes in. 1,000 milligrams sodium, 200 milligrams potassium, 60 milligrams magnesium. Interestingly enough, I know a lot of people that have actually kicked coffee and switched over to electrolytes and having some salt in the morning seems to have this impact on energy levels. Can't explain 100% why, maybe it's an adrenal thing. I don't have science to back that up. I just know anecdotally, it seems to have an impact. So if you're trying to reduce caffeine consumption, might be an interesting thing. Otherwise, it's just a great way to start the day, great way to kind of feel alive and awake without having to take in any calories. So that link is down below. They also have their new sparkling line, which is awesome. It's same element formula, but in a sparkling can ready to drink beverage. So that link down below underneath this video. So the European Journal of Preventative Cardiology, looking at 449,000 people. But what's is they looked at ground coffee consumption, regular ground. They looked at instant coffee, and they looked at decaf. And they looked at varying amounts of this. They looked at zero cups per day, one to three cups per day, three to four cups, or I think it was actually one to two, two to three, and then three to five, and then five plus cups per day. Here's what's wild. They were specifically looking at cardiovascular disease risk. They even looked at atrial fibrillation and other things like that, and even certain arrhythmias. Here's what's wild. They found that decaf coffee, decaf with very little or no caffeine, because decaf still has a smidgen in there, ended up having a 6% reduction in cardiovascular disease risk just by having decaf. Okay, that's interesting. But then they looked at ground coffee. Ground coffee had a 20% reduction in cardiovascular disease risk, 20% with ground. Instant had a 9% cardiovascular disease risk. What's the deal with instant? Well, when we look at instant and we look at decaf, we can kind of understand some things. How is it that decaf coffee has an impact? Well, decaf still has the chlorogenic acid. It still has the antioxidants. Did you know that in America, the highest concentration of antioxidants that Americans get each day is coming from their cup of joe? Most people in America, and realistically, that's the only cohort within that study itself, it's probably a lot of the world. The highest concentration of antioxidants that we get and polyphenols is absolutely by a landslide from our coffee and or tea, but in this case, coffee. So that means throughout the entirety of the day, people are consuming all kinds of things and trying to maybe make good choices, but it doesn't even come close to trumping the effects of the polyphenols and the antioxidants you're getting out of one cup of coffee, decaf or not. So we see that with the decaf being like, okay, people didn't even consume decaf. Now there's a lot of different things there. A lot of people that consume decaf, maybe were consuming fully leaded coffee for a majority of their life and then switched to decaf. So maybe the caffeine had a protective effect. And we understand this when we look at the instant side, because the instant coffee obviously has caffeine in it, but it only had a 9% decrease in cardiovascular disease risk. Well, because when you heat the instant coffee, when you're making it, it does denature some of the antioxidant effects. Antioxidants in instant coffee are lower, still there, but lower, less chlorogenic acid, some of these other compounds. Now with that, it still has the caffeine. So clearly the caffeine is having an effect, but then when you look at the ground coffee, you have the caffeine plus the higher amounts of antioxidants, you have a 20% reduction in cardiovascular disease risk. And they found that the sweet spot was actually four to five cups of ground coffee per day. That had the best impact on cardiovascular disease risk, but the sweet spot for instant coffee was actually less. Now, not a lot of people are going out and just having instant coffee. I know that it used to be much more of a thing. I know it's decreased in popularity as just the accessibility of coffee in general has just increased much more, but it's interesting to look at. Now here's what's really interesting too, is that this paper actually found that caffeine consumption improved arrhythmias, whereas a lot of people online will tell you that caffeine is going to mess up heart rhythm. And yes, you could definitely get some anxiety, you could definitely get some tachycardia, you could definitely get a racing heart. But as far as arrhythmias, sometimes it actually improves that. There's also an improvement in atrial fibrillation. So some of these things, they fly in the face of what we may have been taught. And when you look at the large data, it makes some more sense. Now, there was a paper a while back, and we can pull it probably from our queue of older videos, but as I'm recording this, I don't remember where it was published. Maybe we can pop it up on the screen. It was looking at caffeine and frailty. We found that as people got older, those that consumed more caffeine were less frail and ultimately had better quality of life and arguably would live longer. Now, why do you think that is? Was caffeine having an impact because of the antioxidants in coffee and whatnot? In this case, it's probably an active user bias. And I made that term up because there's this thing called the healthy user bias, which is where, okay, hey, people that consume watermelon live longer. Well, maybe the people that consume watermelon are also just healthier people, right? That's called a healthy user bias. Well, in another side, there's also an unhealthy user bias, right? So like saying like, oh, people that eat chicken sandwiches die sooner. Well, it just so happens that people that eat chicken sandwiches also smoke. It's not necessarily true. You don't have to smoke if you eat chicken sandwiches. But the point is that there are these biases that occur. So when you look at this, I made up this sort of active person bias because people that consume caffeine are not necessarily more active per se, but they are more active than if they didn't consume caffeine. So if you have a 70-year-old person that's sitting down and they don't consume caffeine and they don't want to get up because they don't have that dopaminergic effect of caffeine, they don't have the physical effect from the caffeine, but then you have this different 70-year-old person that's sitting down and they consume a cup of coffee and they have the impetus to get up and move around a little bit more, that's going to contribute to less frailty. And when it comes to longevity, so much of this stuff is a use it or lose it thing. So if you increase that heart rate a little bit, that's probably good for your heart. If you drink some coffee and it gives you the impetus to go out and exercise even a little bit, that's probably good for the heart. It's also good for the musculoskeletal system. Okay, let's also not forget the sheer fact that caffeine is very good at increasing fatty acid oxidation. Okay, when you talk to people that really know what they're talking about, a whole lot of longevity comes back down to how much fat mass is on your body. If you can reduce your adipose tissue, there's a good chance you can increase your longevity. That's probably one of the biggest levers we can pull, specifically in the liver too. There's evidence that caffeine can help oxidize fat in the liver. So it doesn't mean that everyone that drinks coffee is healthy, but it means when you look at the big picture, most coffee consumption or caffeine consumption is a net positive, especially when it comes down to cardiovascular disease, metabolic health, and longevity. So as always, keep it locked in here on my channel, and I'll see you tomorrow.