In the past, coffee has been overlooked as a healthy food. There has always been some level of suspicion around coffee and its long-term impact on health. For some reason, coffee has this association of being unhealthy. Well, it looks like that link between coffee and unhealthiness is wrong. In fact, there is a good bit of evidence that coffee is good for you and it may even be good for you. This is important, considering more than half of the people in the most of the countries drink coffee every day.
Coffee Reduces Diabetes Risk
When it comes to doing studies, coffee is a great thing to look at. People are so routine and predictable in the number of cups of coffee they have every day, it makes a pretty reliable survey questions. Researchers asked 126,000 people about their coffee drinking habits as part of a larger survey over the course of 18 years. What they found is fantastic: People who drink 1 to 3 cups of coffee have a decrease in their diabetes risk. But it gets better for people who drink lots of coffee (6 or more cups a day). These people had a 54% reduction in diabetes risk (for men) and a 30% reduction in diabetes risk for women. Another study showed even better results (though with less than 1000 people). In that study, current (or past) coffee drinkers had a 60% reduction of diabetes risk compared to people who never drank coffee.
Of course, anyone with diabetes or concerned about diabetes should also watch what they put in their coffee. 6 cups of coffee a day may help, but not if each cup is loaded with sugar and cream.
Should I Drink 6 Cups of Coffee Daily?
Not so fast. You need to make sure that your coffee consumption doesn't create a problem. While this study (and others supporting it) show that coffee can reduce diabetes risk, we also know that poor sleep habits can increase diabetes risk. There is also the possibility that people who drink lots of coffee have other behaviors that are healthy (like burning off calories from fidgeting or not drinking sugary sodas). So there might be a combination of health benefits going on, some linked to coffee and some linked to behaviors that coffee drinkers do (or don't do).
What About Decaffeinated Coffee?
Good question, looking at people who drank decaffeinated coffee can tell us whether the caffeine in coffee give it the health benefit or if other substances in coffee (like antioxidants) are doing the trick. Turns out that the answer is a resounding "Yes." People who drank only decaffeinated coffee showed about half the diabetes risk reduction as people who drank caffeinated coffee (compared to those who drank no coffee). So it seems the caffeine is part of the benefit, but something else in coffee helps too.
How Does Coffee Reduce Diabetes Risk?
As we saw above, the caffeine itself seems to have some benefit. Researchers also think that a certain type of chemical found in coffee (called quinines) may help. When lab rats are given quinines, their sensitivity to insulin increases. That means it takes less insulin for the body to do its job of regulating blood sugar. In diabetes, cells become less and less sensitive to insulin (so the body needs to make more and more until the pancreas (which makes insulin) just gets worn out). Other chemicals in coffee may help too (but we just don't know yet).
Why Coffee Is A Super-food?
It looks like coffee has two main ways of improving the health of your body: antioxidants and caffeine. Both these substances have health and anti aging benefits. Antioxidants, for example, help your body repair damage to cells caused by free radicals (which are produced as a byproduct of cells just doing their daily thing). Caffeine has been shown to help improve a range of symptoms and may even be important in fighting of Parkinson’s disease and other age-related brain problems. Coffee is loaded with both antioxidants and caffeine, and each has different potential benefits for improving health and reducing the risk of chronic illnesses.
Health Benefits of Coffee
If you surf the internet to find reliable sources of the health benefits of coffee, you’ll get almost 7,000 results back. Below are some of the major findings about health, life expectancy and coffee.
· Cavity Protection (because of anti-bacterial and anti-adhesive properties of compounds within coffee)
