Coffee may stave off heart failure, says new study

Coffee drinking may reduce the chances of heart failure, a new study suggests.

Researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre in Boston found that drinking moderate amounts of coffee reduces the likelihood of heart failure by 11 percent.

According to MedPage Today, the investigation looked at five previous studies involving nearly 150,000 participants.

Chief researcher, Murray Mittleman, and his team discovered that those who drank moderate amounts of coffee were less likely to develop heart disease.

ABC News reported that they even those who have suffered heart attacks in the past still benefit from drinking coffee.

Read more on GlobalPost: Coffee drinkers live longer: study

"Since high blood pressure is a risk factor for many types of cardiovascular disease, researchers assumed that coffee would be harmful, said Mittleman, according to ABC News.

"But several studies have shown that although there is an increase in blood pressure shortly after consumption, there are health benefits over the long-term."

The strength of the coffee was not taken into consideration during the study.

As the study relied on self-reporting, there were other factors that could not be controlled for, such as whether the participants drank caffeinated or decaffeinated coffee.

The study was published in the journal Circulation Heart Failure.