Are two cups of coffee a day likely to do any long-term harm?
A 45-year-old reader who cannot face her working day without a morning cup of coffee is wondering if two cups a day will have a long-term detrimental effect on her health. Her general wellbeing is good. She takes vitamins and exercises regularly. Two cups of coffee is ideal. The Food Standards Agency recommends not more than five cups of coffee a day, or four for someone pregnant. There are many other factors to be taken into account. The most important of these is the association of coffee with the heart and circulation. This has received publicity over the past few weeks after analysis of a possible association between coffee drinking and heart attacks. The majority of people can take five cups of coffee a day without suffering any danger to their health, but one third of those living in Britain carry a gene, known as the *1F. This gene makes their heart peculiarly sensitive to caffeine. Three cups of coffee a day increases the chance of bearers of the gene having a heart attack by 6
