First, some interesting facts about caffeine…
1) It’s the most widely consumed psychoactive substance in the world – an estimated 90% of adults in Western countries consume it daily.
2) Small doses of caffeine help reduce pain and speed up the effects of other pain relievers like aspirin by up to 40%.
3) Green tea, oolong tea and black tea are all the same leaves from the same plant, they’re just processed differently.
4) The “buzz” after the first few sips of coffee is largely psychological – though some caffeine is absorbed directly into the blood through the mouth, most of it takes over 45 minutes to metabolize in the stomach and small intestine.
5) The world’s number one producer of coffee? Vietnam.
There’s little doubt that, in the short run, caffeine causes blood pressure spikes in people that don’t drink it regularly. In research published in the New England Journal of Medicine, non-coffee drinking study subjects had average blood pressure increases of 14 systolic and 10 diastolic.
Whether or not caffeine causes long-term hypertension over time in regular drinkers is less clear. One way to find out is through researching “meta-studies.” Meta studies take a large number of clinical trials and then reduce the mass of data into a conclusion.
For example, in a study published by the American Heart Association, “The Effect of Chronic Coffee Drinking on Blood Pressure,” concluded that the average overall increase was 2.4 systolic and 1.2 diastolic.
Just to confuse matters, yet another meta-study published in the Journal of Hypertension concluded that the effects of caffeine were different depending on if it was from coffee (an increase of 1.22 systolic and 0.49 diastolic) versus other caffeinated drinks (2.04 systolic and 0.73 diastolic). Their final conclusion was, “Regular caffeine intake increases BP. When ingested through coffee, however, the blood pressure effect of caffeine is small.”
These numbers may seem small, but when you’re talking about blood pressure, even very small numbers can make a big difference. In population study research published in the Journal of Biobehavioral Medicine, it was estimated that increases as small as these could be attributed to a 14% increase in death from coronary heart disease and a 20% increase in strokes.
Like so much about blood pressure, how caffeine affects you personally is very individual. The only way to know for sure? Take your blood pressure before drinking caffeine and then again 30 and 60 minutes later.
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