[HN Gopher] Caffeinated coffee consumption or abstinence to redu...
___________________________________________________________________
Caffeinated coffee consumption or abstinence to reduce atrial
fibrillation
Author : stared
Score : 56 points
Date : 2025-11-15 19:43 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (jamanetwork.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (jamanetwork.com)
| zengid wrote:
| love to hear good news even if it's a relatively small sample
| size. anecdotal, but i've heard that the antioxidants in fresh
| ground coffee is also very good!
| embedding-shape wrote:
| > If allocated to caffeinated coffee consumption, patients were
| encouraged to drink at least 1 cup of caffeinated coffee (or at
| least 1 espresso shot) and other caffeine-containing products
| every day as per their usual lifestyle
|
| I tried to skim to figure out how much caffeine/ml was actually
| in the drinks, but seems the researchers don't know themselves
| either? Wouldn't there be a huge difference depending on the
| beans, how it's made and so on? 1 espresso can be made very
| strong with packed coffee, or it can be made very weak, "1 cup of
| caffeinated coffee" basically says nothing at all, unless I'm
| missing the true definition elsewhere in the paper.
| brnt wrote:
| A weak espresso sounds like you're just making a small amount
| of American/German coffee. How could that be passed of as an
| espresso? It's not just a measure of volume.
| wcunning wrote:
| James Hoffman did some interesting videos on that -- espresso
| is a more efficient extraction method than Aeropress, but less
| complete than a very high water to coffee ratio pour over for
| the same weight of ground coffee. Extraction of caffeine is
| very directly tied to contact time and temperature, so two
| double shots of espresso (40g coffee) can actually be less
| caffeine extracted than a single large pour over (25g coffee)
| when the pour over is upwards of 22% extraction (typical of
| 20:1 water to coffee ratios and modern zero-bypass brewers).
| Similarly, there are large differences in beans, so 22%
| extraction on weak caffeine beans might be way less than 18%
| extraction on much higher caffeine beans. This is most obvious
| in the fact that Robusta has much higher caffeine on average
| than Arabica. Also, 22% extraction has a lot more unpleasant
| bitter compounds, not just more caffeine, so it's not my
| preference for taste in general.
| sroussey wrote:
| Coffee makes me jittery but espresso (or lattes) do not. Is
| this why?
| nosianu wrote:
| Maybe?
|
| As an espresso drinker with a good machine and grinder, and
| lots of variety with mostly Italian beans, it depends, as
| the OP already indicated. I only buy low or at most middle
| caffein content beans to begin with, but you can get high
| caffeine beans for espresso easily. Easiest method:
| Increase the amount of Robusta.
|
| Good vendors should have things like caffein content in
| their product description. I mostly buy from an online
| vendor that lists the exact roast date and also shows
| caffein content for each product (https://www.espresso-
| international.com/ - their only disadvantage is the use of
| some pretty light GRAY for most text, another topic, too
| many websites do this for reasons I cannot understand).
|
| Many years ago, when I still lived in the Bay Area, the
| Cappuccino I got at a certain Berkeley coffee shop always
| made my heart go BOOM BOOM BOOM. Whatever concoction they
| brewed certainly had very high caffein (and I hated it, but
| the place was great). The ones I make myself now I can
| drink at 10 pm and be completely fine (I only drink 2-4 max
| espresso per day, and can easily drink zero if I'm away and
| have no access to good espresso, so I'm not addicted and
| just "used to it").
|
| Sometimes I compromise and buy medium caffein beans when
| it's something good, but those I can feel just a little.
|
| All of that just means you have to exert some control over
| which beans you consume, if you want to keep caffein low.
| On the plus side, if you stick to 80%-100% Arabica (the
| rest Robusta) it's not hard at all. If you like mixes with
| high Robusta ratio it gets much harder. Caffein free roasts
| exist though (examples: https://www.espresso-
| international.com/decaffeinated-coffee), but that choice
| severely limits your options.
| jorvi wrote:
| Yes, but it might also be that you're drinking "coffee" (I
| assume you mean drip / pour-over) in the morning when you
| are just out of bed and have almost nothing in your
| stomach. Whereas the espresso you're drinking at a shop
| later in the day, probably already with breakfast in your
| stomach and maybe you're ordering a snack with it.
| dilyevsky wrote:
| Espresso beans typically have different (darker) roast
| profile from filter so some of it maybe due to that
| wcunning wrote:
| The biggest thing is what kind of "coffee" you mean by
| coffee -- cold brew in particular tends to be a much higher
| extraction % since the bitter notes you get on higher
| extractions are less noticeable at colder temperatures. The
| rest is what the sibling responses mention -- time of day
| and speed of absorption in the digestive system can have
| big impacts.
| AJMaxwell wrote:
| It's probably whatever "1 cup" means to the patient. The
| researchers would want them to stick to their status quo for
| the best results.
|
| For example, 1 cup of coffee for my wife involves a blend of
| coffee and espresso beans with no adders, but 1 cup to her dad
| means lighter roast bean with milk. Both options have different
| caffeine contents and nutritional values.
| dehrmann wrote:
| I researched this a bit and found there really is no
| standardized "cup of coffee" for research purposes. Even for
| volume, I've seen it range from 6 to 12 fl oz. The main
| mechanisms of action are caffeine and flavonoids, and there's
| so much variation across beans and brewing methods that you'd
| think researchers would try to include that in their data to
| normalize it.
| _alternator_ wrote:
| They were advised to drink at least one cup per day IIUC /
| maintain their current lifestyle. So there is no consistent
| amount, but it's still meaningful vs being advised not to have
| any caffeine.
| hereme888 wrote:
| Poor title. This is specific to patients who already underwent
| cardioversion (shocking the heart back into normal rhythm) AND
| were habitual coffee drinkers, who now have reduced coffee to 1
| cup/day rather than sudden complete abstinence. Recurrence at 6
| months was 47% instead of 64%. And this only applies to those who
| don't have clear caffeine-associated episodes.
| carbocation wrote:
| To add more information, the intervention was _guidance about
| caffeine intake_. From the Methods:
|
| > _If allocated to caffeinated coffee consumption, patients
| were encouraged to drink at least 1 cup of caffeinated coffee
| (or at least 1 espresso shot) and other caffeine-containing
| products every day as per their usual lifestyle. It was
| recommended that patients in the coffee consumption group not
| intentionally increase or decrease consumption of coffee or
| other caffeine-containing products._
|
| > _If allocated to the abstinence group, patients were
| encouraged to completely abstain from coffee, including
| decaffeinated coffee, and other caffeine containing products._
| 827a wrote:
| The people who were selected into the study were not
| necessarily "habitual coffee drinkers". The only requirement
| was "was a habitual coffee drinker sometime in the past five
| years". The difference between the two is subtle, but its
| possible there were people in the study who had already
| abstained for some amount of time.
| FrankWilhoit wrote:
| I, too, have found that in the presence of a-fib, the optimal
| amount of caffeine is not zero; but I must think that every
| patient is different. Most people with diagnosed a-fib also take
| a beta blocker, and I (just only me) found that an excess of the
| beta blocker had paradoxical effects. So there is another
| potential interaction. Then, I also voted myself a small dose of
| OTC lithium, and subjectively derived obvious and substantial
| benefit from it, but there is (as yet) no science behind that, so
| I will not assert causation.
| bell-cot wrote:
| In the context of HN, the title is fairly misleading.
|
| Suggestion: Got to the article, hit PgDn a few times, and look at
| the "Visual Abstract" graphic - which is both _very_ short, and
| packed with important details.
| jerlam wrote:
| > The DECAF Randomized Clinical Trial
|
| > The DECAF (Does Eliminating Coffee Avoid Fibrillation?)
| trial...
|
| Fantastic naming.
| silexia wrote:
| The title does not match the conclusion. I would like to see
| lifetime abstainers from caffeine vs regular coffee drinkers.
| Remember caffeine is a form of a neurotoxin.
| theoldgreybeard wrote:
| I've been doing my own personal experiments on myself trying to
| reduce caffeine intake to help with stress and anxiety. I've felt
| much better with just a small cutting back of my caffeine intake
| by taking my "main" cup of coffee (12oz cup) in the morning like
| I usually do and then just drinking 1/3 caffeinated, 2/3 decaf
| the rest of the day and going full decaf after 2pm if I have any
| at all.
|
| I used to drink minimum 36oz (~150mg of caffeine per cup) of
| coffee per day and it was just turning me into an absolute wreck
| and just cutting back that little bit has made a huge difference.
| So instead of 450mg of caffeine, I'm getting ~270mg, so just a
| little above half the intake and it's made a huge difference.
|
| A-fib just seemed like a natural consequence of the "caffeine
| peak" and reducing my consumption helped quite a bit.
| veverkap wrote:
| Have you compared any other factors? I find that my most
| consistent factor for a-fib is dehydration.
| theoldgreybeard wrote:
| I would say it does. Lots of things improve overall when I am
| sufficiently hydrated...but I pee way more lol
| iancmceachern wrote:
| Me too, less caffeine means less stress and anxiety for me.
|
| The key is to find other warm beverages to drink and get
| protein and sugar into you in the morning.
|
| We've been loving Golden Lattes!
| _alternator_ wrote:
| Note that study suggests that coffee consumption decreases
| arrhythmia. (The title is horribly confusing, I know.)
|
| From a quick skim, the protocol seemed to be "advise the
| patient to drink at least one cup of coffee per day or continue
| drinking your usual amount." So it seems the results don't
| track with your experience (or my own experience of improved
| stress and happiness when I cut down on coffee) which is why I
| think it's surprising / possibly a fluke.
| hereme888 wrote:
| I've found great difference in how I feel based on the source
| of caffeine.
|
| From best to worst, for me: Yerba mate > healthi-ish energy
| drinks > white/green/black tea > coffee.
|
| Coffee almost always results in significant anxiety (at same
| caffeine dose), jitteriness, and acid reflux. Yerba mate is by
| far the best for me.
| _alternator_ wrote:
| The quick summary is that being advised to drink coffee (for
| habitual coffee drinkers with arrhythmia) leads to less
| arrhythmia, not more. This is surprising since caffeine is a
| stimulant and usually thought to be pro-arrhythmic.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-11-15 23:00 UTC)