Cardiologist Dr. Leonard Pianko said a study out of Australia found that two to three cups of coffee a day is not only associated with a lower risk of heart disease and dangerous heart rhythms, but also with living longer.
The benefit may come from the more than 100 bioactive compounds in coffee beans that can help block receptors known to be inolved with abnormal heart rhythms.
“It’s safe and helpful and has some benefits so people can feel comfortable having a couple of cups of caffeinated coffee a day,” Pianko said.
And a recent Cleveland Clinic study found that people with certain sleep disorders like sleep apnea had more severe outcomes with COVID-19, including a 31 percent higher rate of hospitalization and death.
Researchers found that even if patients were using a C-Pap machine prior to getting sick, they still experienced the same kind of severe outcomes.
Dr. Reena Mehra said that could be either due to inconsistent use of the machines or an absence of enough oxygen in the body’s tissues, which is called hypoxia.
“We also don’t know if treating the sleep apnea which theoretically should address the hypoxia, we don’t know the degree to which it was addressing the hypoxia so if there was some residual hypoxia there or oxygen lowering, then that may be contributing to poorer COVID-19 outcomes,” Mehra said.
She said they plan to look further into the link between certain sleep disorders and COVID, as well as how sleep is impacted once the body.
