Coffee and Your Health

The past decades have put a focus on the effects of coffee on your health. Since people are consuming over 400 million cups of coffee per day all over the world, then it is natural that we want to know what effect this will have on our health. Many in the health care industry had believed that coffee may be unhealthy for us, but now we know that this is probably not true.

Caffeine is found in all coffee beans and is a mild stimulant that can raise our blood pressure speed up our heart rate, and sometimes give us an irregular heartbeat. These effects may sound serious, but are in reality very shortly lived.

There are actually more benefits seen linking coffee drinking and health than we knew about beforehand.

Coffee may stop the development of colon cancer with high levels of consumption. You would have to drink four or more cups to see this effect. You may have to trade in your single cup coffee maker to achieve this goal!

You may be able to see other benefits of coffee on your health without drinking this much.

For instance, coffee has certain antioxidants that are also found in wine that can help prevent cancer and heart disease. The antioxidants found in coffee may be greater than those found in other fruits such as apples, tomatoes, or cranberries. Another great reason to grab a cappuccino.

There have been Chinese studies that link a positive effect between coffee drinking and reducing the negative effects of Parkinsonís disease.

There have been studies in the U.S. and in Scandinavia that link coffee to a reduction in the risk of type-2 diabetes. Since the Scandinavians drink more coffee than anyone this is good news for them!

Coffee may also lower ones risk of getting kidney stones or gallstones. Caffeine also aids us in digestion. For asthmas sufferers caffeine can help with breathing and coffee also has theophylline which is a bronchodilator which helps as well. Time to by your asthmatic friend a single cup coffee maker!

There are still of course some risks associated with coffee drinking such as reduced fertility for men. For women calcium loss from high caffeine intake may cause weak bones. Drinking lots of coffee can also cause incontinence in women.

Drinking lots of coffee can also give you a higher level of homocysteine which can lead to heart disease. An increase in LDL cholesterol or bad cholesterol has also been shown, but its hard to know whether this will lead to a heart attack or not.

Cafestol is found in coffee and also thought to increase cholesterol in European brews that boil the beans in water. American coffee made through filtering or percolation is less likely to give this effect.

Weighing the benefits of coffee drinking shouldnít be hard. If you drink coffee in a moderate amount you should see the benefits without the risks. So indulge in your favorite cappuccino today!