This thesis comprises several studies on the effect of coffee and caffeine on
cardiovascular risk in general, and the effect on serum lipids, blood pressure and
selected hemostatic variables in particular.
The association between coffee use and cardiovascular morbidity and mortality
was evaluated by a review of the published results of 17 cohort studies and 10 casecontrol
studies. In the interpretation of the results of these studies, it is important to
take into account the strong relationship of coffee consumption and other habits
associated with cardiovascular disease, such as smoking and a high dietary fat intake.
When these confounders are not considered in the analysis, the risk of coffee use for
cardiovascular disease may be overestimated. Most case-control studies yielded positive
results, i.e. coffee use was observed to increase the risk of a cardiovascular event. Casecontrol
studies, however, are subject to several forms of bias which could lead to
overestimation of the coffee-cardiovascular disease association. The majority of cohort
studies, which are more reliable, support the hypothesis that coffee use does not affect
the risk of cardiovascular diseas