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Genetics Determine Coffee’s Effect on Heart Health
Caffeine may escalate the risk of heart attacks in some coffee drinkers, but lower the risk in others, based on the presence of genes that govern whether the body processes the stimulant slowly or quickly. The discovery, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, brings drinking a cup of joe into the age of genomics, adding context to previous studies that have not clearly defined how coffee can harm or benefit the heart.
Caffeine is the most widely consumed stimulant in the world, and coffee is a major source.Canadian and American researchers, who for a decade studied more than 4,000 coffee drinkers in Costa Rica, found that people essentially are divided into one of two genetic camps: slow or fast metabolizers of caffeine. Slow metabolizers possess a variant gene dubbed CYP1A2-1F. Fast metabolizers, researchers say, possess one called CYP1A2.
Coffee drinkers who languidly broke down the compound, and who consumed two or more cups of coffee daily, were about 36 percent more likely to have a nonfatal heart attack than those who consumed little or none of the brew.
Even greater risks for heart attack were discovered among slow metabolizers younger than 50. Researchers found they were four times as likely to have a heart attack than slow metabolizers their age who drank little or no coffee.
For fast metabolizers, the opposite effects were found. Regardless of age, their risk for heart attack was substantially lower. Ahmed El-Sohemy, chairman of nutritional genomics at the University of Toronto and a study co-author, said he hopes his findings will help end some of the debate, steaming for years, over the cardiovascular effects of caffeine. El-Sohemy said he plans further research.
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