Caffeine Versus Your Heart

Dear Madame L,

I've been reading about how good coffee is for you! --- Yet I've been taught all my life that it isn't good for me at all, and that caffeine is bad for the body in many ways. What do you say about this?

Sincerely,

Already Over-Stimulated


Dear Hyper Reader,

Madame L thanks you for the question. Even if you're not a Mormon (a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints), as Madame L is, your parents probably taught you when you were young that coffee wasn't good for you. They probably told you, as many of Madame L's friends' parents told them, that they could drink it when they got older.

Madame L always wondered about this: If some food or drink wasn't good for children, in what way was it good for grown-ups? Nobody had a good answer to that question, of course, because such a food or drink does not exist!

Madame L believes that all the new pitches for coffee and the positive effects on the brain of caffeine are a passing fad, or, to be more blunt, a passing marketing ploy by the big companies which profit from the sale of and addiction to coffee and caffeine. Madame L remembers when cigarette companies wanted everyone to believe that smoking was just what the body needed to be healthy and happy, too. And Madame L is well aware that the medical profession, like every other, has members whose opinion can be bought and changed with enough money.

But doctors who are concerned about their patients with heart disease tell them in no uncertain terms to stop drinking coffee. They put it like this:

Stimulants — even too much coffee, tea, soda, or chocolate — can speed up your heart rate even more. Also, beware of over-the-counter medicines, including nutritional supplements and cold and allergy medicines. Drugs may contain stimulants or have other properties that can trigger arrhythmias and/or interact with your prescription medications.

And even the Mayo Clinic, in this article, trying to say coffee is just great for everyone, admits that there are "some risks" associated with coffee.

"Some risks"? How many risks do you have to take with your health and your life before you'll break a habit that has "some risks"?

And WebMD comes right out and says coffee may trigger heart attacks. 

Now there's "some risk" for you.

So, who you gonna trust? Madame L is gonna trust the cardiologist who has his/her own real patients' best interests at heart.


Thanks for asking,

Madame L