Coffee and Caffeine Health Facts - Part 1
Even before its introduction to the West (and its subsequent baptism by then-pontiff Pope Clement VIII) coffee has been the subject of every kind of vitriol and indignity on grounds religious, social, political and medical. It’s unfair, really… but to be expected; coffee has proved time and again to be an effective, if unlikely and altogether unwitting agent of change.
Still today there remain those with an axe to grind with coffee—more frequently with its chief agent provocateur, caffeine — and who take no small delight in sewing seeds of fear, uncertainty and doubt where the health aspects of coffee are concerned. These reports typically offer no sources at all, or perhaps small-scale studies that have been dated for 40 years. Let’s see if we can’t shed some light on the subject… using multiple, credible and authorative sources, and send coffee’s naysayers scuttling back under their rocks.
Coffee and Health
Like so many of the beverages we enjoy today, coffee was once prescribed as a tonic for what ails you… and provided that what ails you is a lack of alertness or a sour mood, it’s good on its promise. Let’s leave patent medicines and snake-oil salesmen aside for the moment, though, and ask: is coffee good for you?
The answer is yes!
Coffee has been a frequent subject of scrutiny by the medical community… perhaps because it’s so widely consumed, yet offers no apparent nutritive value. Or, maybe doctors are just looking for a really good cup of coffee. Despite some 40-50 years of study, the medical field has yet to draw a direct correlation between moderate consumption of coffee and any medical disease or chronic health condition. Studies that have suggested worrisome links between coffee consumption and reproductive health, for example, have been put to rest by subsequent studies—larger, and more thorough—that have exonerated our favorite beverage.
More recent studies by the medical science community are now finding numerous positive benefits of moderate coffee consumption. These studies suggest that drinking coffee may reduce risks of colon cancer and liver cancer; cirrhosis of the liver; may reduce the risk of Parkinson’s Disease and the onset of diabetes. More, brewed coffee has been found to have 3 to 4 times the amount of cancer-fighting anti-oxidants as green tea. Further, coffee can prevent or reduce the likelihood of developing gallstones, even prevent cavities.
Source: Coffe and Commentary
Still today there remain those with an axe to grind with coffee—more frequently with its chief agent provocateur, caffeine — and who take no small delight in sewing seeds of fear, uncertainty and doubt where the health aspects of coffee are concerned. These reports typically offer no sources at all, or perhaps small-scale studies that have been dated for 40 years. Let’s see if we can’t shed some light on the subject… using multiple, credible and authorative sources, and send coffee’s naysayers scuttling back under their rocks.
Coffee and Health
Like so many of the beverages we enjoy today, coffee was once prescribed as a tonic for what ails you… and provided that what ails you is a lack of alertness or a sour mood, it’s good on its promise. Let’s leave patent medicines and snake-oil salesmen aside for the moment, though, and ask: is coffee good for you?
The answer is yes!
Coffee has been a frequent subject of scrutiny by the medical community… perhaps because it’s so widely consumed, yet offers no apparent nutritive value. Or, maybe doctors are just looking for a really good cup of coffee. Despite some 40-50 years of study, the medical field has yet to draw a direct correlation between moderate consumption of coffee and any medical disease or chronic health condition. Studies that have suggested worrisome links between coffee consumption and reproductive health, for example, have been put to rest by subsequent studies—larger, and more thorough—that have exonerated our favorite beverage.
More recent studies by the medical science community are now finding numerous positive benefits of moderate coffee consumption. These studies suggest that drinking coffee may reduce risks of colon cancer and liver cancer; cirrhosis of the liver; may reduce the risk of Parkinson’s Disease and the onset of diabetes. More, brewed coffee has been found to have 3 to 4 times the amount of cancer-fighting anti-oxidants as green tea. Further, coffee can prevent or reduce the likelihood of developing gallstones, even prevent cavities.
Source: Coffe and Commentary
posted by Liam Webb at 5:55 PM
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