咖啡爱好者的福音(中)

The topic comes up very frequently in my clinic, where patients with various arrhythmias will ask if they can consume coffee.

这个话题在我的诊所里经常出现，各类心律失常的病人会询问他们是否可以饮用咖啡。

There's this conventional wisdom that coffee increases the risk for heart rhythm disturbances or electrical problems with the heart, which is my clinical subspecialty.

传统观点认为，咖啡会增加心律紊乱或心脏电活动紊乱的风险。心律紊乱是我的临床亚专业。

And yet, we and others in conducting recent observational studies generally have failed to find a clear association between coffee and arrhythmias.

然而，我们和其他人在最近进行的观察性研究中，普遍未能找到咖啡与心律失常之间的明确联系。

In their new study, Marcus and his colleagues randomly assigned 100 people to either drink or not drink coffee each day for a period of two weeks.

在新研究中，马库斯与同事随机对100人进行分配，让一部分人在两周的时间里每天喝咖啡，另一部分人每天不喝咖啡。

And they receive these instructions via text message, and they were randomly assigned to either go ahead and drink all the coffee you want, versus on other random days, avoid all caffeine today.

他们通过短信收到这些指示，他们被随机分配，要么继续喝想喝的所有咖啡，要么在任意时间里避免摄入任何咖啡因。

They had participants wear a heart monitor, a FitBit and a continuous glucose monitor.

他们让参与者佩戴FitBit心脏监测器与动态血糖监测器。

They also had them download an app on their phone that collected GPS location data so the researchers could see when people were actually visiting coffee shops.

他们还让参与者在手机上下载了一个收集GPS定位数据的应用程序，这样研究人员就可以看到他们什么时候去了咖啡店。

With the heart monitors, what were they looking at?

他们用心脏监测器观察什么?

They were measuring two things: the number of what are called premature atrial contractions and premature ventricular contractions.

他们测量了两个数据：房性期前收缩（房性早搏）次数与室性期前收缩(室性早搏)次数。

It's very common for everyone to have an early beat arising from the upper chambers of the heart called premature atrial contractions, or PACs, once in a while.

心脏上腔(左右心房)的早搏于每个人而言很常见，这种现象被称为房性期前收缩(简称PAC)。

But research has shown that having too many of these beats puts you at risk of atrial fibrillation, which is a dangerously irregular, rapid heart beat.

但研究表明，这种心跳次数过多会有患房颤的风险，这是一种危险的不规则、快速的心跳。

This is associated with a very high risk for stroke, dementia, and death.

这与中风、痴呆、死亡的高风险相关。

Then there’s the other kind of irregular heartbeat:

还有另一种不规则的心跳:

Premature ventricular contractions are early beats that arise from the lower chambers of the heart.

室性期前收缩是由心脏下腔(左右心室)引起的早期心跳。

Again, we all have those sometimes, but those with more are at higher risk of developing heart failure or a weakening of the heart.

同样，我们有时都会有这样的情况，但那些经历更多室性期前收缩的人患心力衰竭或心脏衰竭的风险更高。

They found that drinking coffee did not result in more premature atrial contractions—the early heart beats associated with atrial fibrillation.

他们发现，喝咖啡并不会导致更多的房性期前收缩——早搏与房颤有关。

That’s good news for people who were worried about that.

这对担心这个问题的人来说是个好消息。

That is reassuring. But what about the other bad beats, the premature contractions in the heart’s lower chambers?

这就让人放心了。那其他有害心跳，发生在心脏下腔的期前收缩(室性期前收缩)呢?

Those were slightly more common on days when people were told to drink coffee, or on days when they drank more coffee—but not enough to be really worrisome.

在参与者被告知要喝咖啡或喝更多咖啡的日子里，这种早搏情况稍微常见一些，但并不足以让人真正担心。

And that’s not all they found.

这还不是他们发现的全部。

Coffee consumption was also associated with a higher number of daily steps.

喝咖啡也与每天走更多的步数有关。

On days when people drank coffee—and the more coffee they drank—the more steps they took.

在人们喝咖啡的日子里，他们喝的咖啡越多，他们走的步数就越多。