Science and Your Health
A guide to some of the newest research and recommendations. - Newsweek
11/8/2005

Coffee doesn’t appear to increase the risk of high blood pressure but caffeinated cola does, according to a new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and other institutions led a 12-year study of about 150,000 women, and found that coffee drinking was not associated with a greater risk of high blood pressure. In fact, women who drank more coffee were often less likely to have high blood pressure. That wasn’t the case with diet or regular caffeinated cola. Among younger women (in their 30s, on average), those who drank 48 ounces, or about four cans, of sugared and caffeinated cola each day had a 28 percent higher risk of high blood pressure; those who drank diet cola increased their risk by 16 percent. In older women (on average, in their mid-50s), those who consumed four or more cans of regular soda had a 44 percent higher risk of hypertension; and those who drank diet cola had a 19 percent increased risk.