Monday 30 September 2013

The Health Benefits Of Coffee

By Bill Jamison


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

Historical research holds that coffee increases your risk of everything from heart disease to cancer.

Recent studies suggest that the benefits of coffee are likely greater than the health risks, if any, it may pose.

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.

A Harvard University study also found a correlation between coffee consumption and a lower risk of depression in women. The study, published in The Archives of Internal Medicine, found that women who drank two to three cups of coffee per day had a 15% lower risk of developing depression, while those who drank four or more cups per day experienced a 20% lower risk of depression. The lower risk of depression in women who drink coffee regularly is thought to be due to caffeine's effects on regulating the release of neurotransmitters which affect mood.

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 reduce the risk of prostate cancer in men. A study at the Harvard School of Public Health studied men who drink at least six cups of coffee per day. This study was published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, and found that the risk of these men developing the most dangerous type of prostate cancer decreased by 60 percent. It also found that this amount of coffee reduced the risk of all forms of prostate cancer in the test subjects by 20 percent.

Finally, regular coffee consumption might also reduce the risk of developing the most common type of cancer, basal cell carcinoma. A study performed by Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston found that women who consumed 3 or more cups of coffee daily had a 20% lower risk of this common skin cancer, while men had a 9% lower risk of developing basal cell carcinoma. The findings of this study were presented to the American Association for Cancer Research.




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