The Heart Protector Hiding in Your Morning Coffee

By Dr. Scott Olson, ND Posted August 1, 2025

You reach for your prescription bottle again, wondering if this is what the rest of your life looks like. Another day, another heart med—and the side effects to go with it.

As you down it with a swig of water, you know it will only treat symptoms but never truly address the root cause of your issue.

Meanwhile, there’s something sitting right there on your breakfast table that could outperform that prescription drug—without side effects.

Heart disease kills roughly 695,000 Americans yearly. But what you may not realize is that you can have a heart attack despite having perfectly clear arteries.

The culprit? Dangerous coronary artery spasms—sudden, severe contractions that choke off blood flow to your heart muscle. These silent killers can strike without warning, often dismissed as “stress” until it’s too late.

Mainstream medicine’s solution is calcium channel blockers like diltiazem, which come with a laundry list of potential side effects—including dizziness, fatigue, and blood pressure drops.

But what if nature already solved this problem centuries ago?

Researchers at Toho University in Japan decided to test ferulic acid—a natural compound found in rice, wheat, apples, and (my favorite) coffee—against diltiazem for preventing coronary artery spasms.

Ferulic acid, a polyphenol that gives many plant foods their antioxidant punch, didn’t just work as well as the prescription drug—in many cases, it worked better.

According to new research published in the Journal of Pharmacological Sciences, the compound showed a remarkable ability to relax coronary arteries in lab tests.

And unlike most heart medications that target a single pathway, ferulic acid works through two distinct methods.

First, the compound blocks L-type calcium channels—cellular doorways that allow calcium to enter muscle cells and trigger contractions. When these channels are overactive, dangerous blood-flow restricting spasms can occur.

Second, the acid blocks a process called myosin light chain phosphorylation which can keep heart contractions from activating, even when those calcium channels are blocked.

It’s like having two different security systems protecting your heart instead of one—and it explains why ferulic acid performed better than prescription drugs against certain types of heart contractions.

But before you start chugging coffee by the gallon, thinking you’ve found the fountain of youth, here’s a quick reality check: the doses used in this study were higher than what you’d typically get from food alone.

Researchers say therapeutic levels may be achievable through supplements, and previous trials suggest ferulic acid is safe even at high doses.

We’re still waiting for human clinical trials to confirm that these lab findings translate to actual heart protection in real people. Researchers also need to determine optimal dosing and potential interactions with existing heart medications.

But given how common heart problems are as we age—and how limited our current treatment options can be—anything that shows this kind of promise deserves attention.

Plus, there’s something satisfying about the idea that nature might have tucked a heart protector into foods we’ve been eating for centuries.

And another thing…
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P.S. Beware of this stealth heart killer. (Try THIS kitchen staple fix.)

Source:

Kento Yoshioka, Keisuke Obara, Yilin Luo, Qianghaodi Hong, et al., Inhibitory effects of ferulic acid on the contraction responses of porcine coronary arteries: a comparison with diltiazem,

Journal of Pharmacological Sciences, Volume 158, Issue 3, 2025, Pages 172-181, ISSN 1347-8613, doi:10.1016/j.jphs.2025.04.006