Coffee’s Paradoxical Blood Pressure Effects

Usually, when we talk about coffee (and/or caffeine) and cardiovascular health, the question is more about potential increase of health risks, often because of dipterpenes such as cafestol and kahweol, which can raise LDL cholesterol:

• Machine-Dispensed Coffee & Heart Health
• Make Your Coffee Heart-Healthier!

However, that’s not the whole story…

A matter of time

The crux here, when it comes to “is coffee good or bad for blood pressure?”, is the question of “in the moment, or generally?”

Because most of coffee’s interesting effects come from:

• its stimulant qualities in the moment
• its antioxidant qualities in general

The stimulant qualities are relevant in the moment because they will invariably increase adrenaline release, narrow blood vessels, and sometimes (depends on the person) raise heart rate, all of which can increase systolic pressure by about 3-15 mmHg and diastolic pressure by about 4-13 mmHg for several hours after consumption, especially in people who are caffeine-sensitive, infrequent users, or already hypertensive.

Note: caffeine levels peak 30–120 minutes after oral intake and/but caffeine’s half-life is 3–6 hours, hence the “for several hours” qualification.

You can read more about this, here: Timing of Blood Pressure Measurement Related to Caffeine Consumption

The antioxidant qualities are relevant in general because of how they improve endothelial function and nitric oxide bioavailability in the arterial vasculature.

You can read more about this, here: Antihypertensive effects and mechanisms of chlorogenic acids ← this paper is just about the chlorogenic acids, but the broad principles apply to most if not all of the many antioxidants found in coffee.

Indeed, in a recent meta-analysis of 13 studies:

❝We included a total of 13 longitudinal cohort studies, which involved a total of 64,650 incident cases of hypertension among 314,827 participants. In a random effects model meta-analysis of all the studies, coffee intake was not significantly associated with the risk of hypertension (relative risk [RR], 0.97; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.90–1.05; I² = 58.0%; n = 13). In the subgroup meta-analysis, coffee intake was associated with a decreased risk of hypertension in studies conducted in America (RR, 0.93; 95% CI, 0.87–0.98; I² = 4.6%; n = 5) and in low-quality studies (RR, 0.92; 95% CI, 0.88–0.96; I² = 0.0%; n = 7). In the remaining subgroup meta-analyses by amount of coffee intake, gender, type of coffee (decaffeinated vs. caffeinated), smoking, and years of follow-up, coffee intake was not significantly associated with the risk of hypertension.❞

Source: Coffee Intake and Risk of Hypertension: A Meta-Analysis of Cohort Studies

In other words: coffee can temporarily raise blood pressure, but moderate consumption is usually actively heart-healthy for most people; your overall cardiovascular will still depend on your baseline blood pressure, genetics, and other lifestyle factors, though.

What else does coffee do for us?

As a quick recap:

• 43% reduced risk of liver cancer for coffee-drinkers
• 53% reduced suicide risk for coffee-drinkers
• Coffee is the world’s biggest source of antioxidants
• 65% reduced risk of Alzheimer’s for coffee-drinkers
• 67% reduced risk of type 2 diabetes for coffee-drinkers*

*See also: The Other Thing Coffee Does To Your Blood Sugars

As well as other benefits, such as Coffee & Your Gut ← gut bacteria do not, by the way, have a preference about how you make your coffee or whether it is caffeinated or not

Aaaaaand, we recently shared new research on how coffee appears to be protective against frailty in older age. We say “appears to be”, because it was a longitudinal study and so technically we cannot say categorically that the link was causal, but the association is very strong, to the point that it’d take quite some explaining if it’s anything other than the coffee consumption that caused it.

You can read about that here: Coffee vs Frailty!

Not a fan of coffee?

If you’re not a fan of coffee, but also not a fan of high blood pressure, frailty, cancer, Alzheimer’s, suicide, diabetes, atrial fibrillation, and more, fear not; there is a supplement option available:

Green Coffee Bean Extract: Coffee Benefits Without The Coffee?

Enjoy!