Nation IN BRIEF : NATIONWIDE : Heart Disease Study Finds No Coffee Link

Drinking as much as three cups a day of filtered coffee does not increase the risk of heart disease, researchers said. Scientists at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore surveyed 100 healthy, mostly middle-aged white men who, after eight weeks of abstaining from coffee, were divided into four groups that either drank no coffee or drank specified amounts. Cholesterol levels fell in the first eight weeks and remained down in all groups except the one that consumed the highest amount of caffeinated coffee--the equivalent of three 8-ounce cups--the researchers report in today’s Journal of the American Medical Assn. The study found a 4.7% increase in levels of low-density lipoprotein--the so-called bad cholesterol--in that group. That was offset by a rise in high-density lipoprotein that was associated with a decrease in the risk of heart disease.