Is Coffee Actually Healthy – The Fresh Toast

About 30-40% of the world’s population consumes coffee every day. In the US, these numbers are much higher, around 65%. In Canada, coffee is more popular than tap water: 71% of Canadians drink coffee regularly, compared to 63%. Black, with cream, latte, with ice – in all forms it is popular all over the world. But is coffee actually healthy?

Everyone knows how they like their coffee, when they like it, sometimes in a special cup. Too much coffee can cause nervousness… something that makes us think it’s not healthy. Mormons describe coffee and alcohol as harmful and it is wrong to consume them. However, studies consistently claim that coffee in moderation can help you live longer and improve health.

Early research on coffee suggested that coffee could lead to health problems. Recent research provides strong evidence that drinking coffee actually has a number of health benefits.

“The overall evidence is quite convincing that coffee is more beneficial than harmful in terms of health outcomes,” said Frank Hu, chair of the department of nutrition at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, in an April 5, 2021 article in Discover. “For most people, moderate coffee consumption can be integrated into a healthy diet.”

According to Hu, moderate coffee consumption – about 2-5 cups per day – is associated with a lower risk of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, liver and uterine cancer, Parkinson’s disease and depression. It’s even possible that people drinking coffee can reduce the risk of early death.

Related: Why no one will ever make the perfect cup of coffee

A study of UK residents analyzed how coffee habits affect people’s overall health. These people were divided into groups and asked about their habits, including the number of cups of coffee they consumed daily, as well as other factors such as smoking and more. Popular Science Reports: “Across 502,641 participants ages 38 to 73, both men and women, it was found that the more coffee a person drank, the less likely they were to die.”

Photo by Fahmi Fakhrudin via Unsplash

Since the study is entirely observational, the researchers cannot suggest a causal relationship and can only speculate based on the numbers and results presented to them. The study divided participants into six types of coffee consumption: those who drank less than one cup per day, those who drank one cup per day, two or three per day, four to five, and so on. The final category included those who consumed more than eight cups of coffee per day. The study found that the more people drank coffee, the longer they lived.

While the results are positive for coffee lovers, Popular Science points out that there may be other influencing factors. For example, consumers suffering from diseases such as cancer may not drink coffee and have a higher risk of death.

While studies like this have been done in the past, this is the first to take into account genetic variations in caffeine metabolism, meaning the research takes into account people’s different responses to caffeine. An example of this is someone who drinks coffee at night and still sleeps soundly. The research logically found that those who have a higher coffee tolerance consume more coffee on average.

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It seems that a healthy amount of coffee, even decaffeinated, gives us a noticeable health boost, although we’ve found the reason why. Scientists argue that it could be the compounds in the drink (lignans, quinides and magnesium) that give us health benefits, or the drink’s antioxidant properties. One day we will know. Hopefully.