Health Benefits of Drinking Coffee
What Are the Health Benefits of Drinking Coffee Regularly?
Coffee often gets a bad rap, based on everything from its caffeine content to the stains it leaves on your teeth. But the truth is, the benefits of this drink far outweigh many of the perceived negatives associated with it. What is often overlooked is the fact that coffee is much more than caffeine.
In its original form, it is a whole food that contains a wealth of beneficial nutrients and antioxidants. The key is knowing where to find high-quality coffee and how to avoid losing any of its health benefits by lowering its nutrient content or adding harmful substances, such as artificial ingredients.
But here are some reasons why you should look for delicious roasts no matter where in the world you live.
Health Benefits Of Drinking Coffee
1. Drinking Coffee Helps You Burn More Calories.
Scientists at the University of Nottingham in the UK have found that drinking a cup of coffee can help you burn more calories. A study published in the journal Scientific Reports found that coffee can stimulate ‘brown fat’ in the body, burning calories to release body heat.
In a Spanish study, athletes who drank the equivalent of 12 ounces of coffee before exercising burned approximately 15% more calories for up to three hours after exercising. Even if you don’t exercise, drinking coffee has also been shown to increase your metabolism by 10-20%, for those who drink one to two cups a day.
2. Coffee Improves Your Circulation.
Drinking a five-ounce cup of coffee has been shown to cause a 30% increase in capillary blood flow, according to a Japanese study. This level of increased blood circulation results in better oxygenation of the tissues in your body, which has a number of benefits, such as better performance in physical activities.
Caffeine can increase the amount of calcium inside the cardiac cells in the heart. Since all the cells involved in the squeezing and relaxation of the heart is controlled by calcium, an increase can affect the heart’s pumping action. Increased heart rate can increase the rate of blood circulation.
3. Coffee Can Have An Analgesic Effect.
Research from the University of Illinois determined that two or three cups of coffee can decrease the level of pain perceived by participants, in this case after a workout. These findings were repeated in a study by the University of Georgia where participants reported a 48% reduction in muscle pain; against 30% and 25% with naproxen and aspirin, respectively. Caffeine is also an ingredient in many over-the-counter pain medications and prescription drugs.
The Cochrane Library has reviewed 19 studies involving more than 7,200 patients taking pain-relieving medications to relieve a variety of pain conditions, including postpartum pain and headaches. All studies compared the effects of taking a single dose of painkillers such as acetaminophen or ibuprofen compared to the same dose as additional caffeine. Researchers found that 5 to 10 percent more people taking caffeine-containing pills experienced better pain relief.
4. Drinking Coffee Can Also Improve Your Stamina.
Caffeine is one of the most researched substances reported helping athletes perform better and train longer and harder. It can also increase the stimulation of the central nervous system, making exercise appear to involve less effort and pain.
Not only can coffee lower your perceived level of pain during physical exertion, but it can also lower your perceived level of exertion. By reducing the amount of energy you feel like you are using by more than 5%, your exercise actually feels easier.
As a result, drinking coffee before exercising can improve exercise performance by more than 11%, as you feel like you’re exerting less energy. In strenuous activities such as resistance training or sprinting, it can increase the number of fibers used in muscle contraction, which means that movement can be more frequent and forceful.
5. Coffee Helps Preserve Muscle Tissue.
When you drink coffee, your brain releases a substance called brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), which supports the power of your muscles. Without this essential factor, muscles are more likely to atrophy. Essentially, the caffeine in coffee helps prevent age-related loss of strength, which can also reduce your risk of injury.
6. Coffee Makes You Smarter.
In addition to the important chemicals that coffee generates in the brain, it is also useful in blocking the molecule called adenosine, preventing it from stopping the activity of norepinephrine – a hormone that has been shown to have positive effects on memory.
This allows the increase of other neurotransmitters such as norepinephrine and dopamine, which enhance the activation of neurons in the brain. The result is an improvement in several areas of brain function, such as reaction times, alertness, and general cognitive function.
7. Coffee Also Improves Your Memory.
Another important brain function supported by coffee consumption, so important it’s worth mentioning separately, is improved memory. Drinking two eight-ounce cups of coffee a day has been shown to improve long-term memory. We know that caffeine interacts with a neurotransmitter called adenosine that promotes sleep.
When neurons in the brain bind to adenosine receptors, neuron firing slows down. But since caffeine has the same molecular structure, it competes with adenosine and binds to the same receptor. It also prevents adenosine from reducing neuron firing, which makes you more alert.
8. Coffee Reduces The Risk Of Depression.
Coffee has also been linked to a lower rate of depression, especially in women. Those who consume up to four eight-ounce cups per day have been found to reduce their risk of depression by up to 20%. This reduced risk is due to the fact that coffee also has an impact on the production of brain chemicals such as serotonin and dopamine. Harvard School of Public Health has conducted research showing that coffee can help people gain hope in their lives.
Researchers even found a link between caffeine intake and low suicide rates and found that caffeine could have similar effects as a mild anti-depressant (It is noteworthy that a few studies before the Harvard study linked coffee consumption with lower levels of depression in men and women). Studies show that drinking 2-4 cups of coffee a day may reduce the risk of suicide.
9. Coffee Can Reduce The Risk Of Some Cancers.
So far, coffee has been linked to a lower risk of liver and colorectal cancer, the third and fourth most common in the world. Coffee drinkers appear to have a 40% lower risk of liver cancer and a 15% lower risk of colorectal cancer if they drink four to five cups a day. When our body digests coffee, it produces a chemical called paraxanthine, which shows the growth of the scar tissue involved in fibrosis.
This paraxanthine may help in fighting liver cancer and alcohol-related cirrhosis. Links have also been found between coffee drinkers and a lower risk of basal cell carcinoma, a type of skin cancer. Cafestol and kahweol are the two chemicals present in coffee that helps to fights cancer.
10. Coffee Can Reduce Your Risk Of Heart Disease.
Coffee does not cause heart disease and In fact, you can reduce your risk. Studies over the years have claimed that consuming caffeine can increase blood pressure. While this is true, the effect has been found to be quite small and generally only present in those who do not drink coffee regularly.
Studies have not supported the idea that coffee increases the risk of heart disease and, in fact, there is evidence that it may reduce the risk in some people, particularly women. Coffee drinkers also have a 20 percent lower risk of stroke.
11. Coffee Also Protects Your Liver.
In addition to preventing liver cancer, coffee has also been shown to prevent other common diseases that affect the liver, such as hepatitis and fatty liver disease. If you have an existing liver problem like fibrosis, cirrhosis, hepatitis B and C, and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, drinking coffee may help with that.
Coffee can also protect against cirrhosis of the liver, where the organ is damaged mainly by scar tissue. Research shows that people who drink 3 to 4 cups of coffee daily may lower the risk of scaring up to 80%. Constituents like chlorogenic acids (which are antioxidants), cafestol, and kahweol (are natural oils) present in coffee can be good for the liver.
12. Coffee Helps Fight Gout.
Gout is a physiological condition caused by an increase in uric acid in the blood. If you already have gout, drinking coffee can help reduce your chances of having a flare-up. This is because coffee can help reduce the uric acid produced by your body. It can also improve your body’s release of uric acid. Drinking six cups of coffee reduced the risk of gout in men by a surprising 59%.
13. Drinking Coffee Can Lower Your Risk Of Type 2 Diabetes.
Type 2diabetes is a disease that currently affects around 300 million people around the world. And coffee drinkers have the ability to lower their risk with every cup of coffee they drink. The results of various studies seem to indicate a risk reduction of around 7% for each cup consumed, with heavier coffee drinkers reducing the risk by up to 67%. Harvard researchers have been tracking more than 100,000 people for nearly 4 years.
They examined the data collected over a four-year period, and their conclusions were later published in 2014 study. They found that people who increased their coffee intake by more than one cup a day had an 11 percent lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes. However, people who limit their consumption of coffee by one cup a day increase their risk of diabetes by 17 percent. There was no difference between those who drank tea.
14. Coffee Makes You Feel Less Tired.
This benefit seems pretty obvious. It’s why so many people turn to their morning cup of coffee. And there’s no question that coffee can give you that extra boost you need, especially when you haven’t had enough sleep. This is because caffeine acts as a stimulant that helps you feel more alert and focused. It also gives you a boost of energy and helps you keep going when you have low stamina.
15. Coffee Can Reduce Your Risk Of Alzheimer’s.
Studies from both the University of Miami and the University of South Florida have found a proven link between coffee consumption and a reduced risk of dementia, of which Alzheimer’s is one type. In fact, those who drank around three cups a day were also 65% less likely to develop Alzheimer’s. Coffee drinkers also have a lower risk, around 32 to 60%, of developing Parkinson’s disease, another major neurodegenerative disease.
16. Drinking Coffee Can Help You Live Longer.
While it is not known exactly how drinking coffee reduces the risk of death, there definitely seems to be a correlation. Research by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) found that people who drink three or more cups a day have a 10% lower risk of death. Perhaps the most important ramification of this study is that drinking coffee does not appear to negatively affect your health, as previous research seemed to indicate.
17. Coffee Contains Many Nutrients And Antioxidants.
There are more things present in the coffee than just the caffeine in it. In fact, there is much more. Coffee has been found to contain an enormous amount of antioxidants.
In fact, many people in Western culture get more antioxidants from coffee than they do from fruits and vegetables combine. Other important ingredients include riboflavin (11% of the RDA), potassium (3%), magnesium, and niacin (2% each). These amounts increase if you drink more than one cup a day.
18. Drinking Coffee Has The Added Benefit Of Promoting Sustainability.
Recent years have seen the growing popularity of fair trade coffee, which protects small coffee producers around the world. As fair trade organizations work to improve farmers’ rights and income potential, they also promote social, economic, and environmental sustainability. They also encourage organic and shade-grown coffee, part of which makes the beans grown in places like Costa Rica superior to what you can get from larger commercial distributors.
19. Simply Smelling Coffee Can Make You Feel Less Stressed.
There is even good news for those of you who don’t prefer the taste of the coffee. Researchers from Seoul National University found that sleep-deprived rats that were exposed to the aroma of coffee experienced a decrease in brain proteins that cause stress. It’s worth noting that this stress reduction was specifically related to stress resulting from lack of sleep.
20. Coffee Just Makes You Happier.
Being happyis healthy, right? And for those who love coffee, there is nothing better than that familiar warmth and flavor that gets you going every morning or at any time of the day. Scientists have known for years that coffee stimulates the release of dopamine into your brain, producing the happiness and excitement that people associate with their first cup of coffee.
Coffee and its dopamine-releasing properties, ultimately, make us feel happier because it is able to simulate almost all the reward systems in our brain.
Enjoy your coffee responsibly
To reap the full benefits of coffee, there are a few important factors to consider. First is the fact that since many of these benefits are directly related to the caffeine in coffee, you will not get the same benefits from decaffeinated. May also decrease benefits intended for. While previous studies have shown that coffee can have a dark side, new research suggests it may have health benefits. Your coffee habit is probably good and can have some benefits. But if you experience side effects from coffee, such as heartburn, panic, or insomnia, consider cutting back.
