Drinking more caffeine will help the heart, as suggested by research conducted by the Rheumatology journal. Atherosclerosis, aneurysm, thrombosis of blood vessels and their outcomes, myocardial infarction and brain infarction, are among the leading killers in the non-car population.
These risks in patients with inflammatory rheumatic disease which include lupus and rheumatoid arthritis are even much higher.
This is also the case with some of the diseases themselves and treatments of such diseases especially cortisone derivatives.
Prior to now, the advice that doctors offered to lower such vascular risks was mainly about the things that should not be taken.
This means that patients are advised to; avoid further inflammation, reduce cortisone medicines, avoiding smoking, lowering cholesterol, and managing high blood pressure.
However the researchers from Sapienza University of Rome, in Italy, who contributed to this research suggest that perhaps there is a way that patients can enhance blood vessels health in something that they will even enjoy doing.
Donse et al have laboratory data that imply that rather than destroying endothelial progenitor cells which are the group of cells which are involved in vascular production, coffee, tea and cocoa helps this group of cells.
Everyone is aware that diet containing vitamin D obtained from oily fish and eggs, vitamin A from fruits, and poly unsaturated fatty acid, low in sodium appear to help in reducing inflammation load.
Already, scientists have pondered over caffeine as well. In addition to the familiar stimulating effect on the body’s activity, caffeine has proved to have an anti-inflammatory effect because it reacts with the receptors located on the outer membranes of immun cells.
In this study however, the authors have focused on the influence of caffeine on cardiovascular health with an intention to review this information. A seven-day food questionnaire was used and 31 lupus patients who did not have conventional cardiovascular risk factors were studied. At the end of the week, the investigators collected the blood from the patients for assessments of blood vessel health.
Surprisingly, those patient who did consume caffeine had better vascular health through a measure of endothelial cells, which make up the interior layer of blood vessels. In her words, the present study, the paper of which was just published, is an attempt to introduce patients to the potential significance of diet in managing the disease. “It will be necessary to make certain conclusions following which we should confirm the results with the help of a cohort study designed to evaluate the real influence of coffee on the further development of the disease.”
The title of the research paper is ‘Caffeine improves systemic lupus erythematosus endothelial dysfunction by promoting endothelial progenitor cells survival.
We evaluated impact of caffeine on circulating EPCs in SLE patients in ex vivo study and on HD patients with SLE sera to elucidate the role of caffeine consumption in endothelial dysfunction in SLE. Daily coffee consumption and the percentage of circulating EPCs were positively associated in patients with SLE. Moreover, in vitro, caffeine activation of the A2AR/SIRT3/AMPK signalling pathway increased autophagy and suppressed apoptosis of EPCs.
Reference
Valeria Orefice et al, Caffeine improves systemic lupus erythematosus endothelial dysfunction by promoting endothelial progenitor cells survival, Rheumatology (2024).
