We love our coffee! That goes without saying, it tastes great, perks us up and makes everyone else bearable on a Monday morning. But the immediate benefits of coffee are not the only reasons to love it.
Kerri-Ann Jennings, M.S., R.D., Associate Nutrition Editor at EatingWell Magazine has given us five health reasons that we should not stop drinking coffee. Here they are:
1. It protects your heart:Moderate coffee drinkers (1 to 3 cups/day) have lower rates of stroke than noncoffee drinkers, an effect linked to coffee’s antioxidants. Coffee has more antioxidants per serving than blueberries, making it the biggest source of antioxidants in American diets. All those antioxidants may help suppress the damaging effect of inflammation on arteries. Immediately after drinking it, coffee raises your blood pressure and heart rate, but over the long term, it actually may lower blood pressure as coffee’s antioxidants activate nitric acid, widening blood vessels.
2. It diverts diabetes: Those antioxidants (chlorogenic acid and quinides, specifically) play another role: boosting your cells’ sensitivity to insulin, which helps regulate blood sugar. In fact, people who drink 4 or more cups of coffee each day may have a lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes, according to some studies. Other studies have shown that caffeine can blunt the insulin-sensitivity boost, so if you do drink several cups a day, try mixing in decaf occasionally.
3. Your liver loves it: OK, so the research here is limited, but it looks like the more coffee people drink, the lower their incidence of cirrhosis and other liver diseases. One analysis of nine studies found that every 2-cup increase in daily coffee intake reduced liver cancer risk by 43 percent. Again, it’s those antioxidants—chlorogenic and caffeic acids—and caffeine that might prevent liver inflammation and inhibit cancer cells.
4. It boosts your brain power: Drinking between 1 and 5 cups a day (admittedly a big range) may help reduce risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, as well as Parkinson’s disease, studies suggest. Those antioxidants may ward off brain cell damage and help the neurotransmitters involved in cognitive function to work better.
5. It helps your headaches: And not just the withdrawal headaches caused by skipping your daily dose of caffeine! Studies show that 200 milligrams of caffeine—about the amount in 16 ounces of brewed coffee—provides relief from headaches, including migraines. Exactly how caffeine relieves headaches isn’t clear. But scientists do know that caffeine boosts the activity of brain cells, causing surrounding blood vessels to constrict. One theory is that this constriction helps to relieve the pressure that causes the pain, says Robert Shapiro, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor of neurology and director of the Headache Clinic at the University of Vermont Medical School.
So go ahead, drink up and live long!
Awesome article. Very interesting…
I so agree. My choice of joe is Jamaican Blue Mountain. It’s good that people start talking about the benefits of coffee. Coffee helps the world go round!
Francia @ St. Mary Market
I agree. And when you put it together with your daily vitamins and minerals, you really have a recipe for a healthy lifestyle
Great article! It gives me more reason to continue drinking coffee! My favorite is Wolfgang Puck’s Iced Coffee (Mocha) that I found at Kroger. I love it- 120 calories, organic, and now I know about all these other benefits!
It’s good to know that coffee has a lot benefits,
because we drink a lot of coffee.
Nice article. I didn’t know coffee has so many positive effects on health.
I love it that we are finally getting the health facts out on coffee. The health benefits are best when the coffee is black and organic. You can undermine the health benefits when you add too many things to the coffee that are not good for you or when it is not organic. Pesticides are not healthy.
I certainly know from experience that coffee does help cure my headaches, and it is certainly a positive that it increases brain power. I need all the help I can get.