Does coffee consumption lead to poor outcomes in patients with tachycardia?

Abstract

Evidence-Based Answer Caffeine does not appreciably affect disease-oriented outcomes. In patients with supraventricular tachycardia (SVT), caffeine increases systolic blood pressure (BP) by 11 mmHg and diastolic BP by 9 mmHg, but does not affect heart rate (HR), sinus node recovery time, cardiac refractoriness, or rates of induced tachycardia (SOR: C, RCT with disease-oriented outcomes). In patients with a history of malignant ventricular arrhythmias, caffeine does not increase the incidence of ventricular arrhythmias (SOR: C, RCT with disease-oriented outcomes). In normal patients and patients with ischemic heart disease, moderate ingestion of caffeine does not increase cardiac arrhythmias (SOR: C, review of low-quality clinical trials with disease-oriented outcomes).