Depending on who you ask, coffee is either a super healthy beverage or incredibly harmful. The primary argument against coffee is in its active ingredient, caffeine, which is a stimulant that may cause problems and disrupt sleep in some people. Here are some of the Health Benefits of Coffee.
Arguments have been made that the stimulant nature of caffeine makes people addicted to the energy boosts associated with it, leading to crave more coffee as their bodies build a tolerance to it. Experts were concerned that excessive use of coffee could have damaging effects on the digestive tract,leading to ulcers and heartburn amongst other conditions.
Studies Show...
Recently, a paper was released by researchers from the University of Colorado medical school, who analyzed data from the Framingham Heart Study. This is a study which has tracked the eating patterns and cardiovascular health of more than 15,000 people since the 1940s.
Out of all the potential links to heart disease the researchers considered, one stood out after the analysis. Coffee was associated with a reduced risk for heart failure, stroke and coronary heart disease. For coffee drinkers, every 8-ounce cup per day reduced these risks by 7%, 8% and 5%, respectively, compared to people who didn’t drink coffee. Almost all of the coffee drinkers in the study (97%) consumed between one and six cups of coffee a day, so the researchers can’t know for sure if the benefits continue at even higher consumption levels.
These studies have shown that people who drink coffee regularly may have an 11% lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes than non-drinkers, thanks to ingredients in coffee that can affect levels of hormones involved in metabolism.
Coffee may even help you live longer!
Based on these and other findings, experts suspect that coffee may be protective against conditions like heart failure and stroke.
It’s also high in antioxidants, which are known to fight the oxidative damage that can cause cancer. That may explain why some studies have found a lower risk of liver cancer among coffee drinkers. A recent study involving more than 208,000 men and women found that people who drank coffee regularly were less likely to die prematurely than those who didn’t drink coffee.
Coffee Helps you Excercise Better
Coaches of elite athletes have long known that a shot of caffeine before a training session or competition can improve performance by making it easier to exercise more vigorously with less pain and fatigue.
Caffeine’s main effect on the body is to increase alertness and arousal, which can make workouts seem not so bad. It also may help the muscles burn more fat. Here’s the theory: Muscles use glycogen, a stored version of glucose, for energy, and when glycogen stores run out, muscles get weaker and less efficient, leading to exhaustion. But muscles can also burn fat, and when they do, muscles don’t tire as easily. Caffeine can shift muscles to burn fat more quickly, which can preserve glycogen stores and give muscles more time before they wear out. This leads to a longer and less painful workout. Some researchers also believe that caffeine may work directly on muscle by improving its efficiency in generating power.
However, caffeine may take some time to work. The benefits are more obvious in longer bouts of endurance exercise rather than short-term kinds of exercise, since muscles turn to glycogen first. It’s not yet conclusive how long you have to exercise for caffeine to trigger the shift to fat-burning, but most studies have tested caffeine’s effect on muscles after about two hours. Caffeine’s energizing effects start to peak about an hour after ingestion and can last from three to six hours.
This existing research suggests that caffeine could be an effective addition to a workout regimen, as long as you add it carefully. (Caffeine comes with some downsides, including headaches, a spike in blood pressure and potential stomach ulcers.)
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