London, Sep 27 (Agencies): A new study suggests that coffee consumption is not linked with atrial fibrillation – an irregular heartbeat. Though this may lead you to believe drinking too many cups of joe could also cause your heart to flutter, a new study says this simply isn’t so. They also suggested that more research should be done confirming that there isn’t a relationship between atrial fibrillation and coffee drinking.

The Cohort of Swedish Men which was made up of 41,881 men and the Swedish Mammography Cohort which were composed of 34,594 women were the two groups who had given the researchers information about their coffee consumption in 1997. The average daily coffee consumption was three cups among both men and women.

So people who like drinking coffee can safely consume it without putting their heart at risk of AF. The researchers followed the participants’ health for the next 12 years.

At the end of the study, which followed participants across a 12 year span, researchers found no correlation between coffee and an increased risk of this kind of irregular heartbeat.

However (there’s always a but!), although available evidence does not indicate that coffee consumption increases the risk of developing AF specifically, coffee may still trigger other forms of irregular heartbeat.

Lead author Susanna Larsson, PhD, Associate professor at the Institute of Environmental medicine said, “The results of the study says It is safe to consume Coffee, at least in moderation, without the risk of developing this condition”.

Performing a sex-specific analysis, the researchers discovered coffee consumption linked to a non-significant increased risk of atrial fibrillation in men and a non-significant decreased risk in women. All studies were conducted in either Sweden or the United States, thus reducing the generalisability of the results.

While 10,406 cases of AF were diagnosed, the research team found that coffee consumption was not associated with AF incidence, even in more extreme levels of coffee consumption.

In the follow-up study, afib occurred in 4,311 men during 449,744 person-years and in 2,730 women during 382,000 person-years.

The investigators found no link between drinking coffee and atrial fibrillation in any of the studies.

A recent study has shown that people consuming three to five cups of coffee a day have the lowest risk of clogged arteries and heart attacks. Ultimately, more study is needed to answer these questions, the researchers noted.