What Are The Health Benefits Of Coffee?

By Bill Jamison


Coffee contains many complex chemicals that have both beneficial and detrimental effects on your body.

It was long thought that the regular consumption of coffee increased the risk of cancer, heart disease and other illnesses, but it is now widely believed that this correlation between coffee and disease may have been due to the fact that many of the participants in earlier studies also smoked.

Recent scientific research indicates that the health benefits of coffee may outweigh its risks, when it is taken in moderation. The primary reason for this change in thinking is that many coffee drinkers in the older studies also smoked cigarettes, making it difficult to separate the health effects of these two substances.

Caffeine is the most active substance in coffee. The health effects of caffeine become statistically significant when you consume at least four cups of coffee each day. These effects include sleeplessness, anxiety and irritability, especially in individuals who are susceptible to caffeine. Any attempt to derive health benefits from coffee should therefore limit coffee consumption to three cups per day. It is also important to skip cream and sugar when drinking coffee.

One of the benefits of coffee which is well known is heightened alertness; an effect which can be helpful when performing many common tasks. A study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology revealed that students who had consumed caffeine were better able to spot grammatical errors in text, particularly subject-verb agreement and tense errors, although their ability to spot misspellings was not affected.

Caffeine has also been linked to a lower risk of depression. A Harvard University study published in The Archives of Internal Medicine found that drinking 2 - 3 cups of coffee daily decreased the incidence of depression in women by 15%, with participants drinking 4 or more cups daily having a 20% lower risk. The results of this study indicate the beneficial effects of caffeine over the release of mood-affecting neurotransmitters.

One of the ingredients in coffee may also reduce the risk of Alzheimer's disease in mice, according to a study published in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease. The specific substance has not been identified, but the study did show that coffee increases the level of Granulocyte Colony Stimulating Factor, which is believed to fight Alzheimer's disease. The amount of coffee used in this study was the human equivalent of four to five cups.

Coffee may also be linked with a lower risk of prostate cancer, according to the results of a Harvard School of Public Health study published in The Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Men who drank at least six cups of coffee per day were found to have a risk of developing the most deadly form of prostate cancer which was 60% lower than that of the control group. These participants were also found to have a 20% lower risk of all forms of prostate cancer.

Caffeine may also reduce the risk of basal cell carcinoma, which is the most common form of cancer. This finding was recently presented to the American Association for Cancer research. A study at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School also showed that women consuming at least three cups of coffee per day experienced a 20 percent reduction in the risk of skin cancer. The men in this study experienced a 9 percent reduction.




About the Author:



No comments:

Post a Comment