Coffee intake and risk of high BP

Drinking coffee does seem to play a small role in increasing blood pressure temporarily (i.e. high BP as an illness) but does not appear to increase the risk of developing hypertension. These findings are according to research carried out over a span of 3 decades. The link between drinking coffee and high blood pressure had been generally accepted without any proof for 60 years. Researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, studied just over 1,000 former male medical students (mean age, 26 years) who graduated from medical school at the Baltimore institution from 1948 to 1964. Eighty-seven percent of them were coffee drinkers and the average amount of coffee consumed was two cups per day. Their coffee intake was checked on an average of 11 times over 33 years to determine if any increases in blood pressure associated with coffee consumption translated into hypertension. Over many years of follow-up, coffee drinking is associated with transient and slight increases in blood pressure but appears to play a minor role in the development of hypertension. According to the results, non-drinkers were at lower risk of hypertension than coffee drinkers, but there was no progressive increase in risk with higher levels of coffee intake. The report concluded that long-term coffee drinking did not substantially increase the risk of developing hypertension. The results were welcomed by coffee drinkers as they proved that coffee consumption in moderation was not a causal factor in the development of cardiovascular disease.