As per UC San Francisco researchers, a latest study has indicated that regular caffeine intake doesn’t contribute to extra heartbeats or heart palpitations.

The study results will be published in the January 2016 issue of the Journal of the American Heart Association. The results have challenged the broadly held clinical belief that caffeine products can cause extra heartbeats.

During the study, intake of caffeinated products was measured by the researchers for more than a year long period by roughly 1,400 randomly selected patients who belonged to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) Cardiovascular Health Study database of about 6,000 patients, though the sampling didn’t include individuals who steadily had extra heartbeats.

The researchers gave the participants a baseline food frequency assessment and 24-hour ambulatory electrocardiography monitoring with the frequency of daily intake of tea, coffee or chocolate firmed by a survey.

The study’s senior author, UCSF Health cardiologist Gregory Marcus, MD, MAS, said, “Clinical recommendations advising against the regular consumption of caffeinated products to prevent disturbances of the heart’s cardiac rhythm should be reconsidered, as we may unnecessarily be discouraging consumption of items like chocolate, coffee and tea that might actually have cardiovascular benefits”.

Marcus added that being aware of their recent work that demonstrated that additional heartbeats can be hazardous, the finding was especially relevant.

The study included 1,388 subjects, out of which, 840, or 61%, consumed over one caffeinated product every day.

The researchers didn’t found any differences in the number of PVCs (premature ventricular contractions) or PACs (premature atrial contractions) per hour in the levels of tea, coffee and chocolate intake. They found that more frequent intake of such products wasn’t linked to extra heartbeats.

Lead author Shalini Dixit, a fourth-year medical student at UCSF, said that it was the first community-based sample to determine caffeine impact on additional heartbeats, as earlier studies have looked at people with known arrhythmias.

Further study is needed to know if acute consumption of such caffeinated products affects additional heartbeats or not.