TUESDAY, Nov. 8 (HealthDay News) -- There is no association between hypertension and coffee consumption in women, but consumption of colas, whether sugared or diet, is associated with increased risk of high blood pressure, according to a study in the Nov. 9 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Wolfgang C. Winkelmayer, M.D., Sc.D., of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, and colleagues conducted a study using data from 155,594 women enrolled in the Nurses' Health Studies (NHS) I and II. Over the 12-year follow-up period from 1990-1991 to 2002-2003, there were 19,541 and 13,356 cases of hypertension diagnosed among the NHS I and NHS II cohorts, respectively.
In both cohorts, there was a modest U-shaped association between hypertension and caffeine intake, with those in the third quintile of caffeine consumption having a 12% to 13% higher risk compared with those in the lowest quintile. While coffee consumption was not associated with hypertension, consumption of cola beverages, regardless of whether they were sweetened with sugar or artificial diet sweeteners, was associated with increased risk of hypertension.
"We speculate that it is not caffeine but perhaps some other compound contained in soda-type soft drinks that may be responsible for the increased risk in hypertension. If these associations are causal, they may have considerable impact on public health," the authors conclude.
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