As well as thinking that coffee will kill you, the other thing we’re led to believe is that coffee or caffeine will give you high blood pressure (medically known as hypertension).
We’ve already found out that coffee will not kill you, and that it has many properties which actually makes it beneficial for your health. Now we’ll take a closer look at whether coffee (or caffeine) will give you a high blood pressure.
There’s already been a lot of research done in to the subject. The first thing worth noting is that your blood pressure does increase immediately after ingesting caffeine.
This increase is small, and it doesn’t last long. Also if you’re a regular coffee drinker, this already small effect gets smaller and smaller over time.
However if you already have high blood pressure, this increase is bigger. It’s also short lived, as another study shows.
If you’re already hypertensive, this short blood pressure spike is something to consider.
But will Coffee give you Hypertension? (High blood pressure)
So we’ve already established that caffeine (from coffee or another drink) will cause your blood pressure to raise by an insignificant amount for a short time after you take it. But can it cause you to get the disease known as hypertension, aka high blood pressure?
Just like in Will Coffee Kill You, there’s already a been a large scale study investigating whether or not there’s a link.
In this study 155,594 women were the subjects. Each did not have hypertension at the start of the experiment.
They would complete questionnaires over 12 years where their caffeine intake would be monitored. Other factors were also monitored so they could be sure that any relatonship would be caused by the caffeine.
What did they find?
After a rigourous 12 year experiment, they found no relationship between caffeine intake and hypertension (high blood pressure).
But they did find a link between drinking regular or diet cola and hypertension. So in the case of cola, if it isn’t the caffeine and it isn’t the sugar, it must be something else in the cola. This is something to consider if you regularly drink energy drinks, especially cola flavored ones.
So back to the original question – will coffee give you high blood pressure?
If you don’t already have it, then research shows that coffee won’t give you hypertension. General medical advice is regular consumption is fine – just don’t have large amounts (4+ cups) on a regular basis.
If you already have hypertension, coffee will cause your blood pressure to raise a little temporarily. Consult your doctor to find out if this is a problem for you.
How does coffee affect you? Let me know below!
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