What to know about new research on coffee and heart risks

By Jonel Aleccia AP Health Writer

Coffee lovers — and their doctors — have long wondered whether a jolt of java can affect the heart. New research published Wednesday finds that drinking caffeinated coffee did not significantly affect one kind of heart hiccup that can feel like a skipped beat.

But it did signal a slight increase in another type of irregular heartbeat in people who drank more than one cup per day. And it found that people tend to walk more and sleep less on the days they drank coffee. Coffee is one of the most common beverages in the world. In the U.S., two-thirds of Americans drink coffee every day, more than bottled water, tea or tap water, according to the National Coffee Association, a trade group. Coffee contains caffeine, a stimulant, which is widely regarded as safe for healthy adults at about 400 milligrams per day, or roughly the equivalent of four or five cups brewed at home.

Otieno

From 3

28, came to the U.S. from Kenya at the age of 4 but he “was as American as apple pie,” his mother said.

As a child in school, he was the type of guy who would invite a student eating lunch alone to join him, and classmates who needed someone to talk to were drawn to him, she said. He was a leader and a listener, someone who took the time to process what was being said and would then “lean back in,” Ouko said.

“He cared that people were treated right,” she said. “That was at the core of his upbringing in our home. He cared that people were treated equally.”

She added that Otieno wasn’t afraid to offer different perspectives in conversations, to go the other way “when everybody else is following.”

Otieno began dealing with some mental health issues during his last year of high school, his mother said. But she said he also went to college in California, and “had long stretches where you wouldn’t even know something was wrong.”

There were times, though, when he went “into some kind of distress” and needed to see a doctor, she said.

Ouko declined to share her son’s diagnosis, saying only that he had gone to a mental health facility before and “came back home.”

“That’s the question that I’m asking: why he didn’t come back home,” she said.

Otieno was taken into

Coffee has been associated with multiple health benefits and even a lower risk of dying, based on large studies that observed participants’ behavior. Despite research that has shown moderate coffee consumption doesn’t raise the risk of heart rhythm problems, some professional medical societies still caution against consuming caffeine.

The latest research:

THE EXPERIMENT

Researchers outfitted 100 healthy volunteers with gadgets that continuously monitored their heart function, daily steps, sleep patterns and blood sugar. The volunteers, who were mostly younger than 40, were sent daily text messages over two weeks instructing them to drink or avoid caffeinated coffee on certain days. The results were reported Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.

This type of study, which directly measures the biological effects of drinking or not drinking caffeinated coffee custody March 3, according to a timeline provided by Henrico County Police, a separate entity from the Henrico County Sheriff’s Office.

The police department said in a news release that officers encountered Otieno while responding to a report of a possible burglary in suburban Richmond, and that based on his behavior, they put him under an emergency custody order and took him to a local hospital for evaluation.

Mark Krudys, one in the same people, is rare and provides a dense array of data points, said study co-author Dr. Gregory Marcus, a cardiologist at the University of California, San Francisco, who specializes in treating heart arrhythmias.

THE FINDINGS

Researchers found of Ouko’s attorneys, said that Otieno was experiencing a mental health crisis at the time. He said a neighbor called police over concerns about him gathering lawn lights from a yard. that drinking caffeinated coffee did not result in more daily episodes of extra heartbeats, known as premature atrial contractions. These extra beats that begin in the heart’s upper chambers are common and typically don’t cause problems. But they have been shown to predict a potentially

Otieno’s mother tried to de-escalate the initial response from police officers, with the moment captured on a neighbor’s cellphone, Crump said.

“Caroline is hugging her child, as if she’s trying to protect him from these people who might not see him like she sees him,” he said.

Added Krudys: “She was imploring them (to) treat him appropriately, bring him to a hospital. And he was vacuumed into the criminal justice system, for which there was no care that was provided, that we saw.”

While he was at the hospital, police said he “became physically assaultive toward officers, who arrested him” and took him to a local jail managed by the Henrico Sheriff’s Office, where he was charged with several crimes.

While Otieno was dangerous heart condition called atrial fibrillation.

They also found slight evidence of another kind of irregular heartbeat that comes from the lower heart chambers, called premature ventricular contractions. Such beats are also common and not usually serious, but they have been associated with a higher risk of heart failure. The researchers found more of these early beats in people on the days they drank coffee, but only in those who drank two or more cups per day.

The volunteers logged about 1,000 more steps per day on the days they drank coffee — and they slept about 36 minutes less, the study found. There was almost no difference in blood sugar levels.

One interesting result: People with genetic variants that make them break down caffeine faster experienced less of a sleep deficit, while folks with variants that lead them to metabolize caffeine more slowly lost more sleep.

WHAT IT MEANS FOR YOU

Because the study in jail, he was denied access to needed medications, the family attorneys said. Crump said he was pepper-sprayed, and Krudys said the video showed officers on March 6 charging into his jail cell, which was covered in feces and where he lay naked and handcuffed. o

The video shows fficers carrying an “almost lifeless” Otieno out by his arms and legs “like an animal” to a vehicle to be taken to the state hospital, Crump said.

Leon Ochieng, was performed in a small number of people over a short period of time, the results don’t necessarily apply to the general population, said Dr. Dave Kao, a cardiologist and health data expert at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, who was not involved in the study. However, the study is consistent with others that have found coffee is safe and it offers a rare controlled evaluation of caffeine’s effect, Kao added. Co-author Marcus cautions that the effects of drinking coffee can vary from person to person. He said he advises his patients with heart arrhythmias to experiment on their own to see how caffeine affects them. “They’re often delighted to get the good news that it’s OK to try coffee and drink coffee,” he said. The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Otieno’s older brother, said at Thursday’s news conference that his mother can’t sleep or eat. “Our hearts are broken,” he said. “But our spirts are strong. And my brother’s spirit is not done.” A distraught Ouko said that, “When they took my baby away ... they took him away from his brother. They took him away from his nieces. They took him away from his friends. And they took him away from a community that cared (for) and loved him.”

Albert (A.J.) Briscoe