Drink up: Coffee is safe for people with A

Drinking coffee can protect against atrial fibrillation (A-Fib), a common heart rhythm disorder that causes rapid, irregular heartbeat and can lead to stroke and heart failure .

Doctors typically recommend that people with heart issues like A-Fib avoid caffeine out of fear that it will trigger symptoms. But a study by UC San Francisco and the University of Adelaide has concluded that drinking a cup of caffeinated coffee a day reduced A-Fib by 39%.

“Coffee increases physical activity which is known to reduce atrial fibrillation,” said Gregory M. Marcus, MD, MAS, who holds the Endowed Professorship in Atrial Fibrillation Research and is an electrophysiologist at UCSF Health. Marcus is the senior author of the paper, which appears Nov. 9 in JAMA. “Caffeine is also a diuretic, which