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Go ahead, have another cup of coffee. A newly published study that followed some 120,000 men and women for up to 20 years has found no link between coffee consumption and higher risk of coronary heart disease (CHD).
The researchers, at Harvard University and the Universidad Autonoma in Madrid, did find that heavy coffee drinkers tend to have a lot of unhealthy habits. Java junkies were much more likely to smoke and drink alcohol, and less likely to exercise. But when those and other risk factors for heart disease were accounted for, simply drinking coffee—even lots of it—did not prove to be related to higher risk of CHD. The strong correlation with smoking, the investigators speculated, may explain why a previous study using data from the British National Health Service found a link between coffee drinking and heart disease, since smoking is a known risk factor for heart disease.
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