Clean water is always a safe and healthy choice of beverage. It has various benefits, from boosting the metabolism in the mornings to cleaning your entire body from toxins.
But if you want a more pleasant drink to kick-start your day with or enjoy your break, several other drinks can do the job as good as the water does.
Although you can’t replace water because it’s the most important liquid for the body, there are several other trustworthy beverages. The most popular and at the same time the most consumed ones worldwide are coffee and tea.
Coffee earned a bad reputation throughout the years. This is mainly because the production process involves spraying of up to 97% of it with different kinds of pesticides. This, in turn, causes mycotoxins contamination of the coffee beans.
Inappropriate roasting is another segment of the manufacturing process where toxins can enter the composition.
But one thing’s for sure. If coffee is raised, reaped and roasted properly, it can be a very healthy beverage.
Recommended Daily Dosage of Coffee
A government advisory committee claims that Americans are safe to have up to 5 cups of coffee per day. That’s approximately 400gr of caffeine. They proposed this for the first time in the Dietary Guidelines for Americans back in their 2015 edition.
Multiple meta-analyses are the basis of this proposal, assessing the connection between chronic diseases and coffee, including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, type 2 diabetes and cancer.
The coffee has many benefits thanks to the antioxidants it contains along with the large amounts of polyphenols and hydrocinnamic acid.
Researchers find out that it’s the top source of antioxidant in the U.S people’s diets. Mainly because it is consumed in largest amounts, incomparable to any other.
In fact, the antioxidants might even help the neutralization of the slightly rasping effects the caffeine has.
Coffee Can be Beneficial for the Heart
You might think coffee temporarily increases the blood pressure. But a recent long-term study proved the myth wrong. Now, it’s thought that people are to expand their tolerance to the hypertensive effects of the coffee.
On the other hand, coffee could prove to be quite healthy. 11 studies and over 480.000 people tested, showed that drinking 2 to 6 cups of coffee per day might lower the risk of stroke.
The Study Claims
Coffee’s phenolic compounds have the antioxidant capacity and can prevent the oxidative alteration of low solidity lipoprotein cholesterol. That reduces the atherosclerotic procedure.
A significant haul down of coronary heart disease risk in women was linked to average consumption of coffee. Sufficient evidence shows that coffee is inversely linked to type 2 diabetes, a cardiovascular disease risk factor.
Another study of more than 25.000 people, clarified:
People who drank an average amount of coffee/day (3-5 cups) are less probable to store calcium deposits in the coronary arteries compared to those who drank none or more.
Calcium deposits (atherosclerosis) present a large part of the arterial plaque. This causes desensitization of the arteries. Calcium can successfully predict future risks for a heart disease in the coronary artery.
Brain Health Benefits of the Coffee
Coffee is widely known for the capacity to boost the focus and to improve cognitive function. Neurons from glutamate neurotoxicity are protected by the chlorogenic acid (CGA) contained in the coffee.
It implies that it could have benefits for neurodegenerative diseases among ischemic stroke. In the middle ages, drinking 3 to 5 cups per day could decrease the risks of dementia or Alzheimer’s by up to 65%.
Caffeine aids the manufacturing of neurotransmitters serotonin in the brain. Boosting the conversion of brain stem cells into new neurons, it releases a brain-derived neurotrophic factor, which contributes to the overall improvement of brain health.
People with high blood pressure (caused by caffeine), or sensitive cognitive impairment (MCI) are less inclined to develop full-blown dementia. Research pointed the close correlation between lowering the risk of dementia (in particular for people with MCI) and caffeine.
Coffee Is a Powerful Tool in the Fight Against Cancer
A recent study was performed on people with advanced stages of colon cancer. People who drank 4 (or more) cups of coffee/day decreased the chances of cancer repetition or even death by 52%.
The reasons are the substances in coffee that have anti-cancer abilities. Polyphenols, Flavonoids, lignan phytoestrogens and coffee acid all have the potential to mollify the pathways tangled to tumor development.
Apoptosis, cell cycle regulation as well as inflammatory and stress responses included.
2-3 cups of coffee/day are also beneficial, as they reduce up to 31% chances of reoccurence/death. Soda is another caffeinated product, but when tested it didn’t have the results alike. While decaffeinated coffee did not have any connection to risks of colon cancer whatsoever.
In one meta-analysis (data collected from 59 studies), 1 cup of coffee per day proved to lower chances of cancer by 3%. The researchers said:
“Drinking coffee might reduce the risks of colorectal, hepatocellular, pancreatic, buccal and pharyngeal, leukemia, endometrial, bladder, esophageal, prostate and breast cancers.”
Some studies even suggest that the worst type of skin cancer – Melanoma risk, can be reduced by drinking coffee.
Several researches back in 2007 confirmed that consuming 2 cups of coffee/day could reduce the chances of liver cancer by up to 43%.
Do You Need More Reasons?
It’s fine if you don’t drink coffee at all. You can have the required daily income of antioxidants by eating vegetables and cocoa too.
Anyway, if you already are a passionate coffee drinker, more good news follow. Coffee is closely connected to lowering the chances of metabolic syndrome, obesity, and type 2 diabetes.
Harvard medical school stated:
“Light drinker’s chances of developing diabetes are twice bigger compared to heavy drinkers. Some coffee elements might have blood sugar decreasing abilities, thus increasing the resting rate of the metabolism.”
Due to the lack of caffeine in decaffeinated coffee, the caffeinated coffee is more effective against diabetes.
One hypothesis stated by the New York Times, claims that the body’s reactivity to insulin is increased with consumption of caffeine, which reduces the need of the hormone in the body. This has reductive effects on risk factors for cancer and diabetes as it subdues inflammation.
According to New England Journal of Medicine, the more coffee we drink, the less prone we are to developing death causing symptoms like strokes, diabetes, heart and respiratory diseases and infections.
