Most of us see coffee as a comfort drink because of its delicious and invigorating taste. With its wide range of flavors, you would surely get that perfect blend for your taste buds. While we enjoy drinking our morning coffee, a lot of you would ask, is coffee bad or is coffee healthy. Caffeine in coffee is once believed as unhealthy but actually there are a multitude of coffee benefits! Here, we’ve narrowed the list down to 5 best advantages of drinking coffee:
- Protection Against Parkinson’s Disease
Parkinson’s disease is a nervous system illness that affects a person’s body movement and due to brain cells’ lacking ability to produce dopamine – a chemical produced by neurons which sends signals to other brain cells. Parkinson’s Disease most commonly affects middle-aged and elderly people.
Last 2002 meta analysis conducted 20 studies showing coffee drinkers get 31% lesser chances of developing Parkinson’s disease as compared to non coffee drinkers, and even up to 80% lesser chances for those who consumes 4 cups and above per day!
Individual reviews by different health institutes during the years of 2010, 2012, and 2014 found out that 300 mg (approx. 3 cups of coffee) of caffeine intake reduces overall risk of having Parkinson’s Disease by 24% – 32%.
- Less Chance of Getting Type 2 Diabetes
Type 2 Diabetes is the most common type of diabetes, 95% of people who are diagnosed with diabetes have this type. Moderate drinking of coffee (3-5 cups per day) minimizes the risk of getting Type 2 Diabetes by 21%. A meta-analysis last 2014 with different participants all over the globe shows that people who drink one to two cups of coffee a day had 15% of less chance of getting a Type 2 Diabetes and as you increase your coffee consumption, you’ll get a lesser chance of getting this disease. 3 cups = 21%, 4 cups = 25%, and 5 cups = 29% less chance respectively. Wanna know why? Researchers have extracted coffee’s content and discovered that caffeine, caffeic acid and chlorogenic acid are the three coffee compounds that help in protecting pancreatic cells which are responsible for producing the hormone, insulin. Caffeic Acid is the most effective one out of these three compounds, while caffeine is the least.
- Fight Against Liver Disease / Cancer
Liver illness can be inherited or can be due to virus or excessive alcohol consumption. The World Health Organization has reviewed over a thousand of Human studies proving that drinking an average amount of coffee habitually may prevent humans from getting liver cancer. Smoking cigarettes and drinking alcoholic beverages increases Gamma-Glutamyl Transferase (GGT; an enzyme found in the human body which damages the liver). Reviewers from Japan made a study involving 12,600 examinees, a mix of men and women with no evidence of liver abnormalities have been surveyed for coffee consumption. Men who drink alcoholic beverages and who are regular / moderate coffee drinkers had a lower level of GGT, as compared to those who are minimal coffee drinkers to none.
Almost 10,000 people have participated in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Each of the participants was surveyed about tea and coffee consumption (less than 1 cup, 1 to 2 cups, or more than 2 cups daily) 1.4% of the participants are drinking more than 2 cups of coffee daily and have 50% of fewer chances of getting Chronic liver disease.
- Improves Cognitive Function
Coffee hypes us up during mornings because of its caffeine content. You’d feel like you can think of more ideas when you start your day with a coffee. Indeed you can! Coffee actually stimulates your brain. Caffeine affects mental performance, specifically with concentration and alertness. Few studies show that coffee improves its drinkers’ wakefulness. Coffee helps you stay awake during late night drives or long hours in the office. Coffee effects also includes boosting performance with those repetitive tasks.
A couple of studies from Baltimore and Great Britain with over 9,000 participants show that adults who are over 70 years old and who are regular coffee drinkers have better mental performance, particularly in verbal memory, baseline cognition, and visuo-spatial reasoning.
- Decrease the risk of Depression
In Europe, 1 out of 15 people suffer from major depression annually, and if you’d include anxiety, it’ll be 4 out of 15 people.Though exercise and diet are the major factors of maintaining a healthy mental state, coffee appears to be having good benefits for mental health too. Research shows caffeine eases depression’s symptoms. With a 300 mg of caffeine intake a day (3 – 4 cups), it lessens the risk of developing depression. These symptoms include feelings of helplessness, changes of sleep schedule, and loss of energy.
Although coffee gives lots of benefits to our body, take note that each and every coffee flavor contains different ingredients and nutrients that may be different from every coffee blend. 1 cup of brewed plain coffee contains different ingredients as compared to 1 cup of cappuccino with extra espresso shot and whip cream from Starbucks. If you’re aiming for purest coffee body benefit, I suggest you drink brewed or plain black coffee. There really are a lot of benefits from coffee but of course we should drink it in moderation.