Science / Medicine : Caffeine Warning Questioned

Warnings about the potential harmful effects of caffeine on people who suffer from heart disease often are based largely on “anecdote and folklore,” a study said last week. In a study published in Archives of Internal Medicine, Dr. Thomas Graboys of Harvard School of Public Health found no evidence that a modest dose of caffeine causes heart rhythm disturbances, “even among patients with known life-threatening arrhythmia.”

Advice against caffeine consumption, while valuable for those cardiac patients with a sensitivity to the stimulant, “is based primarily on anecdote and folklore,” Graboys said.

Graboys’ team studied 50 cardiac arrhythmia patients who were given either decaffeinated coffee or decaf with 200 milligrams of caffeine added.

Electrocardiographic monitoring showed no differences between the caffeine group and the decaf patients “in either individual or group data on total or repetitive ventricular arrhythmia,” the report said.