A new study has found that drinking just one cup of coffee a day may be enough to help protect against atrial fibrillation.
Atrial fibrillation causes the heart to beat at more than 400 beats per minute, is the most common type of arrhythmia, and can lead to sudden cardiac death, heart failure, and strokes.
The study was conducted by researchers from the University of California, San Francisco in the United States, and its results were presented at the 2025 scientific sessions held by the American Heart Association between the seventh and tenth of this November in the city of New Orleans in the American state of Louisiana, and the British newspaper The Independent wrote about it.
Doctors usually recommend that people with heart problems avoid caffeine to prevent high heart rate and blood pressure, but a new study found that drinking coffee daily actually reduces the risk of atrial fibrillation attacks by 39%.
Protective properties
For his part, Dr. Gregory Marcus, an electrophysiologist at the University of California, San Francisco, said, “Caffeine is a diuretic, which may lower blood pressure and thus reduce the risk of atrial fibrillation. Many other components in coffee also have anti-inflammatory properties that may have a positive effect.”
Marcus and his colleagues studied the health of 200 coffee-drinking adults who had atrial fibrillation or a related heart condition called atrial flutter, over a six-month period in the United States, Canada, and Australia.
The participants underwent electrical cardioversion – an electrical shock that returns the heart to its normal rhythm – and half of the participants were then asked to drink at least one cup of coffee per day, while the other half were asked to stop consuming caffeine completely.
The authors noted that these findings may be due in part to coffee drinkers consuming smaller amounts of unhealthy beverages.
They added that some people may find that caffeine and coffee trigger a worsening of symptoms.