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In an encouraging development in the coffee-may-be-good-for-us field, researchers have discovered at least part of why coffee appears to be beneficial for the heart. In recent years, coffee has moved off the “avoid” list and onto the “drink in moderation” list, as it seems to confer health benefits ranging from brain to metabolic to anticancer to cardiac. The new study, from Heinrich-Heine-University and the IUF-Leibniz Research Institute for Environmental Medicine in Germany, finds that coffee may be beneficial in part because caffeine sets off a cascade of events in heart cells, starting with their energy stores, mitochondria, and ending with protection of both healthy and unhealthy hearts.
The findings were published in the journal PLOS Biology.
The team focused on a protein called p27, which is known among other things to influence the cell cycle. The team found that caffeine triggered the movement of p27 into the mitochondria of heart cells in mice, and in particular, the migration of the heart’s endothelial cells, which line the blood vessels. How well the endothelial cells were able to migrate, they found, relied strongly on the presence of p27, which again is bolstered by caffeine.
The protein also had a couple of other cardiovascular benefits: It protected heart muscle cells from dying after heart attack was induced in some of the mice. And it triggered one type of cells, fibroblasts, to differentiate into cells containing contractile fiber, essential for good heart function. Read more