Have A Heart Condition? Drinking This May Help You Prevent Another, Says New Research

One little-known fact about heart health: Once you develop one cardiovascular condition, your odds of developing another are higher.

It makes sense. Whether related to genetics, lifestyle factors, or some combination of the two, many of the same risk factors underlying coronary heart disease are the very same risk factors underlying stroke and Type 2 diabetes.

To that end, some scientists have focused their research on the ways a person might lower their risk of developing multiple heart-related conditions once they’ve developed a first. An August 2024 study, published in the journal Nutrition, Metabolism & Cardiovascular Disease (NMCD), led by public health researchers in China, determined that drinking a particular beverage could deliver such benefits.

Moderate coffee consumption has long been known to have protective effects on cardiovascular health. In just one example, a 2022 study published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology found that drinking two to three cups of coffee per day was associated with a lower risk of cardiovascular disease and premature death, compared with abstinence.

Now, the NMCD study has added important insights that could affect anyone with a history of cardiovascular disease: It appears that coffee consumers have a lower risk not only of developing a single cardiometabolic disease, but also a lower risk of transitioning from a single cardiometabolic disease such as congenital heart disease (CHD) and stroke to cardiometabolic multimorbidity (CMM)—the co-occurrence of two or more cardiometabolic illnesses.

To reach those findings, the researchers studied 185,112 subjects whose data was collected through the U.K. Biobank. Their coffee consumption was collected using a dietary questionnaire, and the research team used Cox proportional hazards and multi-state models to show the relationship between coffee consumption and CMM.

“Coffee consumption was associated with lower risk for almost all transition phases of CMM development,” the researchers wrote in their conclusion.

The team notes that while the findings were consistently observed when the subjects reported drinking unsweetened coffee, “sugar-sweetened coffee was associated with some transitions at low levels of consumption. The associations between artificially sweetened coffee and CMM were less consistent.”

However, it’s best to speak with your doctor before making coffee a regular part of your diet if you already have a cardiovascular condition. For individuals with heart rhythm disorders, caffeine may worsen their condition.

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