Chronic Caffeine Intake Lowers Blood Pressure

haidut

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This is yet another "counterintuitive" study given the commonly recited dogma by medical professionals that caffeine will increase your blood pressure and in the long run contribute to CVD risk. As you can see, long term caffeine intake actually lowers systolic blood pressure, especially in salt-sensitive individuals. This should be very relevant in light of the recent study of high salt diet only increasing CVD risk in already hypertensive individuals.
Low Sodium Diet Increases CVD / Death Regardless Of Person's Blood Pressure

So, it seems that the (few) poor souls for whom salt may be risky can protect themselves by chronically ingesting caffeine/coffee.

Caffeine intake antagonizes salt sensitive hypertension through improvement of renal sodium handling : Scientific Reports
"...We also confirmed that acute caffeine intake induced an initial increase in blood pressure in association with a transient increase in locomotor activity and heart rate in Dahl-S rats, which is likely associated with sympathetic nerve activation. By contrast, these effects failed to be observed in long-term caffeine intake. Importantly, long-term administration of caffeine lowered blood pressure, which was not associated with sympathetic nerve activation and cardiovascular changes in Dahl-S rats. It suggested that chronic hypotensive effects of caffeine could be caused by its natriuretic effects in Dahl-S rats. Some studies have reported that systolic blood pressure, rather than diastolic blood pressure, are affected by urinary sodium excretion40,41. This may partially explain why caffeine failed to prevent high salt induced increase in diastolic blood pressure in our study. In addition, a recent study also showed that ambulatory systolic blood pressure was inversely correlated with urinary caffeine and its metabolites in adults from a general population, which indicated a potential protective effect of caffeine on blood pressure42. Thus, chronic caffeine intake might be an effective lifestyle intervention to promote salt excretion in people who normally consume a high salt diet. However, its application in human still warrants further determination in future."
 

nerfherder

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Interesting study. How much caffeine are we talking about here? A lot of hypertensive folks drink a couple of coffees a day.
long term caffeine intake actually lowers systolic blood pressure


How do you translate 0.1% in rats to a human dose? 0.1% could be 2g of caffeine for a human which seems on the high side.
 

YourUniverse

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Increasing caffeine is one of the first things I changed in my diet. I started with ~12 cups per day, and felt wired. Settled in on 8 doses of coffee on 4 cups of water, and kept that up for a long time.

I'm now finding that I'm no longer even finishing my morning coffees. Like my body isn't asking for them anymore, as if they've done their job, and I'm now settling into a lower coffee consumption level. I've definitely gotten healthier as this transition has occurred, and my BP is definitely lower than before coffee.

Not exactly in line with the OP, but interesting to me.
 
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lollipop

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Increasing caffeine is one of the first things I changed in my diet. I started with ~12 cups per day, and felt wired. Settled in on 8 doses of coffee on 4 cups of water, and kept that up for a long time.

I'm now finding that I'm no longer even finishing my morning coffees. Like my body isn't asking for them anymore, as if they've done their job, and I'm now settling into a lower coffee consumption level. I've definitely gotten healthier as this transition has occurred, and my BP is definitely lower than before coffee.

Not exactly in line with the OP, but interesting to me.
I have also found my body craves way less now. Sometimes I do not even finish my second at lunch and sits in the fridge hoping to be a later afternoon cold coffee - lol.
 

nerfherder

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I'm now finding that I'm no longer even finishing my morning coffees. Like my body isn't asking for them anymore, as if they've done their job, and I'm now settling into a lower coffee consumption level. I've definitely gotten healthier as this transition has occurred, and my BP is definitely lower than before coffee.

That's awesome! I'll try raising the amount of coffee I drink to see how this goes. I'll let my body be the judge.

I'm solving a little puzzle and this is a piece of it. I think I qualify as salt-sensitive because according to my machine my bp jumped up 20+ points when I tried doing the 15g a day salt recommendation. This is interesting info. Next I think this might be caused by a diet that needs more fruit/veg (although it isn't bad). And the final piece would be coffee to aid the kidneys in excreting salt. I'm already down 20 points in a couple of days just from stopping the salt and adding in veg and fruit juice. Now for the coffee.

In related news my fancy coffee machine (featuring in my avatar) returns from its service today.
 

nerfherder

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I have also found my body craves way less now. Sometimes I do not even finish my second at lunch and sits in the fridge hoping to be a later afternoon cold coffee - lol.

Heh, I'll be watching for this. I stopped drinking coffee for a couple of years because of migraines and now I've cured the migraines I've been craving coffee. Maybe it is my body knowing what it needs?
 

SQu

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My high blood pressure has been improving with lots of effort. Recently I was able to tolerate more coffee and my diastolic measured yesterday has dropped to 80 from the normal 90s of the past year or two.
 

SQu

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My high blood pressure has been improving with lots of effort. Recently I was able to tolerate more coffee and my diastolic measured yesterday has dropped to 80 from the normal 90s of the past year or two.

stopped drinking coffee for a couple of years because of migraines and now I've cured the migraines I've been craving coffee.

With a migraine I didn't want coffee but if I drank it anyway it helped a lot. One of the main cures for me.
 

nerfherder

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With a migraine I didn't want coffee but if I drank it anyway it helped a lot. One of the main cures for me.

I couldn't stop the pain with anything, just had to endure all day. It pains me to remember those years. It was what caused me to find the forum in the first place. I tried enormous amounts of coffee and aspirin and it was fun being wired but not sustainable and it didn't help with migraines.

I stopped the coffee because the nausea from the migraines would often cause me to vomit and lose my coffee then I'd not be able to drink more and get a caffeine withdrawal headache on top of the nausea. I needed IV caffeine. :): It was simpler to solve the migraines without the complications of coffee. And for completeness I found the identity of the migraine type on the forum (cervicogenic) and then figured out what I was doing wrong (head position during sleep) and fixed it. My bp climbed while trying to fix the migraines so that's the new problem.
 

Jing

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So, it seems that the (few) poor souls for whom salt may be risky can protect themselves by chronically ingesting caffeine/coffee.
What are some signs you are salt sensitive? I don't seem to ever crave salt and I get between 1-2 grams a day and could easily have less with no cravings. @haidut
 
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What are some signs you are salt sensitive? I don't seem to ever crave salt and I get between 1-2 grams a day and could easily have less with no cravings. @haidut
@Jing Interesting, would you say you have a sweet tooth, or prefer savory?
Ever tried straight Caffeine over Coffee?, if yes any positives?
 

Mike wolff

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My high blood pressure has been improving with lots of effort. Recently I was able to tolerate more coffee and my diastolic measured yesterday has dropped to 80 from the normal 90s of the past year or two.
do you contribute this to coffee .
 

Julles

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I am struggling to increase my blood pressure. its about 11 - 5/6 sometimes I feel lightheaded. maybe reducing coffee and upper salt intake will make it better.
 

InChristAlone

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My husband's blood pressure was higher on coffee/energy drinks.
 

Mauritio

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