Coffee & Your Health

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Coffee: The Good For You Brew

Coffee can keep you alert, may help you exercise with less pain and may delay the onset of Parkinson’s disease, gout, type 2 diabetes, and much, much more. This section will highlight results of scientific research on the health benefits of coffee. Check back often; content will be updated regularly with different health topics.

April 9, 2013 – A leading researcher who studies antioxidants in foods told scientists meeting in New Orleans today that substances found in green coffee may control the elevated blood sugar levels found in type 2 diabetes. Joe Vinson, Ph.D., Professor of Chemistry at the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania, spoke at a meeting of Read more→

Background: There have been discrepant findings on the association between coffee consumption and risk of incident heart failure. Methods and Results: We conducted a systematic review and a dose-response meta-analysis of prospective studies that assessed the relationship between habitual coffee consumption and the risk of heart failure. We searched electronic databases (MEDLINE, EMBASE, and Cinahl) Read more→

Background: There are no previous studies investigating the effect of all dietary antioxidants in relation to myocardial infarction. The total antioxidant capacity of diet takes into account all antioxidants and synergistic effects between them. The aim of this study was to examine how total antioxidant capacity of diet and antioxidant-containing foods were associated with incident myocardial Read more→

Background: Coffee is one of the most widely consumed beverages, but the association between coffee consumption and the risk of death remains unclear. Methods: We examined the association of coffee drinking with subsequent total and cause specific mortality among 229,119 men and 173,141 women in the National Institutes of Health–AARP Diet and Health Study who Read more→

Scientists say that coffee’s antioxidants may reduce liver disease and cancer

Researchers evaluated the role of coffee’s antioxidants in protecting the body against liver cancer and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. In one study, they found that a high consumption of coffee seemed to have a protective effect against nonalcoholic fatty liver disease; in the other study drinking more coffee seemed to protect against liver cancer.

Here are the abstracts:

In spite of their anticarcinogenic potential, the effect of coffee and green tea consumption on the risk of liver cancer has not been clarified prospectively in consideration of hepatitis C (HCV) and B virus (HBV) infection. We examined whether coffee and green tea consumption was associated with a reduced risk of liver cancer by hepatitis Read more→

Background and aims. Some phytochemicals present in coffee have a potential antioxidant role which seems to protect the human body against cardiovascular diseases, liver disease and malignancies. Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease is a common disease with limited therapeutic options. This study investigated the antioxidant effect of coffee by measuring antioxidant enzymes and lipid peroxidation markers Read more→

Can coffee also protect us against the risk of developing esophageal cancer?

We know that coffee offers protection against a number of diseases. How does drinking coffee stack up against drinking green or black tea? Scientists decided to find out by reviewing 7376 cases of esophageal cancer in the international medical literature. They looked for whether the patients had consumed green tea, black tea, or coffee prior to becoming ill. The recently published results of their extensive review show that although black tea doesn't seem to be protective against cancer of the esophagus, both green tea and coffee apparently are. These results are intriguing, and more studies are necessary to explore the connection between coffee and esophageal cancer.

Here is the abstract:

Epidemiological studies regarding the associations of tea and coffee consumption with esophageal cancer (EC) risk are still inconsistent and this meta-analysis was conducted to examine these associations. PubMed, ISI-Web of Science, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), and Chinese VIP database up to October 2011 were searched and manual search for reference lists of relevant studies Read more→

Coffee may play a role in your anti-aging routine along with good dietary and exercise habits.

We know that a diet that’s low in saturated fat and most animal products, and rich in plant-based foods, can help us stay healthy as we grow older. The fruits and vegetables that we should include in our diets contain polyphenols and other antioxidants, which can actually keep the body’s cells from rapid decay (oxidation). Coffee, which comes from a berry, also contains antioxidants; it’s a rich source of polyphenols and caffeine. Those are some of the ingredients which led researchers to explore whether coffee can protect the aging brain as well as against certain diseases. According to a study that was just published, quite a few of the thousands of chemical compounds in coffee do just that. And interestingly, it’s not the caffeine, but the coffee itself that seems to do this.

Here is the abstract:

The complex mixture of phytochemicals in fruits and vegetables provides protective health benefits, mainly through additive and/or synergistic effects. The presence of several bioactive compounds, such as polyphenols and caffeine, implicates coffee as a potential nutritional therapeutic in aging. Moderate (three to five cups a day) coffee consumption in humans is associated with a significant Read more→

Coffee can delay or reduce dementia, according to new research

These studies found that coffee delays or reduces the onset of dementia, even when the subject already has mild cognitive impairment (MCI).

Here are the abstracts:

Caffeine stimulates central nervous system on a short term. However, the long-term impact of caffeine on cognition remains unclear. We aimed to study the association between coffee and/or tea consumption at midlife and dementia/Alzheimer’s disease (AD) risk in late-life. Participants of the Cardiovascular Risk Factors, Aging and Dementia (CAIDE) study were randomly selected from the Read more→

Although both human epidemiologic and animal model studies have suggested that caffeine/coffee protects against Alzheimer’s disease, direct human evidence for this premise has been lacking. In the present case-control study, two separate cohorts consisting of 124 total individuals (65-88 years old) were cognitively assessed and a blood sample taken for caffeine/biomarker analysis. Subjects were then Read more→

Studies show that coffee can delay or reduce type 2 diabetes

By now, most of us are pretty familiar with the fact that coffee has a beneficial effect on type 2 diabetes mellitus, a disease marked by glucose intolerance.

Here are the abstracts:

Researchers recently undertook a study to see how coffee affects that precursor of diabetes. They investigated 5320 men aged 46-60 years who drank from less than 1 cup to more than 5 cups of coffee a day. They found that the more coffee the subjects drank, the less glucose intolerance they had. Abstract Background: Recently, Read more→

Type 2 DM is associated with high rates of morbidity and premature mortality. Various potential health effects of coffee have been extensively studied, but data on habitual coffee consumption and the risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus have only recently been published. We systematically reviewed cohort studies (identified after searching through MEDLINE) from the period Read more→

Parkinson’s Disease

A number of studies published over the past several years have shown that drinking coffee may offer protection against developing Parkinson’s disease. In fact, the more coffee you drink, the more protective its effect seems to be. Now, in a new study, scientists in the Parkinson Study Group have found that people who have Parkinson’s disease and who drank at least 12 ounces of coffee a day had fewer tremors, and less stiffness and other movement symptoms than subjects who consumed less than that. The more coffee they drank, the less pronounced their symptoms became. The researchers in this investigation believe that their results came from the caffeine in the coffee; they suggest that more studies like this are needed.

Here is the abstract:

Background: Adenosine A(2A) receptor antagonists reduce or prevent the development of dyskinesia in animal models of levodopa-induced dyskinesia. METHODS: We examined the association between self-reported intake of the A(2A) receptor antagonist caffeine and time to dyskinesia in the Comparison of the Agonist Pramipexole with Levodopa on Motor Complications of Parkinson’s Disease (CALM-PD) and CALM Cohort Read more→

Chronic Hepatitis C

There have been a number of studies published showing how coffee offers protection against some liver diseases or “injured liver.” Recent research also showed that coffee helps people with Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD), which is associated with obesity and diabetes. In fact, about 25% of Americans have fatty liver disease. Now scientists have published results of recent research on why coffee has a beneficial effect in reducing the risk of developing liver cancer (hepatocellular carcinoma) in patients with chronic hepatitis C. The mechanisms involve the effect that the antioxidants in coffee has on actual cells.

Here is the abstract:

Background: Coffee is associated with a reduced risk of hepatocellular carcinoma in patients with chronic C hepatitis. This prospective trial was aimed at assessing the mechanisms underlying coffee-related protective effects. Methods: Forty patients with chronic hepatitis C were randomized into two groups: the first consumed 4 cups of coffee/day for 30 days, while the second Read more→