Coffee can do more than just keep people awake for the day, studies have shown.
Caffeine could help with the repair of cells lining blood vessels, called endothelial cells, researchers at the Heinrich-Heine-University and IUF-Leibniz Research Institute for Environmental Medicine in Duesseldorf, Germany, set out to explore some of the reasons.
The study was conducted on mice and cells cultured from humans, on the role of caffeine on a cell-cycle inhibitor gene known as mitochondrial p27. The study used a standard four cups of coffee per day and found that this moderate coffee consumption improved outcomes for mice with prior heart attacks.
The gene p27 has already been shown to have a role in cancer. Caffeine acts on this protein, allowing cells to get more energy and more blood flow throughout the heart and that means fewer heart cells dying.