Many years ago when I lived in Italy I remember reading about a study where some medical scientist found out that 125 cups of coffee (Italian ones = espresso) per day have no ill effect on health
Obviously that “scientist” was taking the p1ss.
Please keep this thread on-topic. If your BP is low, it obviously doesn’t affect you.
Even better – fast for 1-2 days before your medical and your BP will probably drop 10 points. Good to keep in mind for those of us who suffer from white coat syndrome and can get artificially high readings.
With 125 cups of espresso, i would be flying without needing the assistance of an aircraft.
Doesn’t coffee affect the heart rate more than blood pressure?
Anyway, I have about a 30 minute drive to the examiner, so I take a liter of water with me and drink most of it on the way. That dos the trick.
Top tip – don’t drink three cans of coke instead, your urine sugar reading might otherwise be a bit borderline… Or use diet coke.
what_next wrote:
Many years ago when I lived in Italy I remember reading about a study where some medical scientist found out that 125 cups of coffee (Italian ones = espresso) per day have no ill effect on health.
Espresso, especially the ristretto served in Italy, contain little caffeine compared to filter coffee. There is so little water that go through the coffee grind that it only extracts the aroma and little caffeine.
Peter wrote:
Please keep this thread on-topic. If your BP is low, it obviously doesn’t affect you.
Well, if it is too low, it does affect you. You can suffer from dizziness and probably other symptoms too. And if it is really low (like 0/0), well then it is really bad 
At the age of 64,I’m now at 145-95 w/o medication and 130-85 w/medication. Two morning cups of French filter coffe,increase by 10 the above numbers for the next hour only.
Aviathor wrote:
Well, if it is too low, it does affect you. You can suffer from dizziness and probably other symptoms too. And if it is really low (like 0/0), well then it is really bad
I’ve heard that in Germany low blood pressure is considered a disease? In the UK it isn’t really: drops in blood pressure when you stand, are. But provided you are otherwise well we don’t worry about it.
Back to coffee: the latest I heard was that it raises your blood pressure briefly, but in the longer term causes it to drop due to the diuretic effect.
It can also sometimes block insulin production and cause a temporary form of diabetes, and I would expect 125 espressos to do this if you drank them as a one-off, but I’m not sure whether it raises blood sugar levels if you drink a large amount over the longer term.
p.s. if an espresso has 40mg of caffeine then 125 would have 5g of caffeine which is half the lethal dose: http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/821863-overview
I’ve heard that in Germany low blood pressure is considered a disease?
No, that’s not true, I have never heard that. A quick check on some big medical portals confirms it. While they describe what the symptoms can be (dizzyness for example) they all say that it is NOT a disease but on contrary that a low BP without other symptoms or causes will is healthy and will lead to a lomger life.
Drinking any type of coffe increases my BP temporarely but it returns to usual value after hour or so. However, I always notice increase of BP when having aviation medical while on regular yearly checkout BP is normal.
The Brits think low blood pressure is good too.
