Don’t believe drinking coffee is good for you until you read this
You’re running late for work and haven’t had time for breakfast but that doesn’t matter you can stop at a famous coffee chain and pick yourself up a skinny latte to get your caffeine fix. After all the latest news says that if you drink 3 cups of coffee a day, you’re going to live longer.
A long term study completed in the UK shows that a moderate amount of coffee can reduce your risk of cardiovascular disease. However the study itself doesn’t consider the subjects and their overall lifestyle.
Conflicting reports emerge about coffee most weeks. It’s good, it’s bad! So what exactly is the truth?
The key to it is, what you drink and when you drink it. Having instant coffee won’t give you these benefits but surprisingly the benefits remained if you drank decaffeinated coffee.
Dr Pál Maurovich-Horvat, the study’s co-author and the director of the Medical Imaging Centre at the Semmelweis University, said: “Using MRI scans we were able to analyse the effect of regular coffee intake on the structure and function of the heart.
“While ground coffee was associated with decreased all-cause and cardiovascular mortality, we did not find a statistically significant association between regular instant coffee consumption and health outcomes,” the scientists write in their study. “The difference among the various coffee types may be explained by the differences in their production process, as they contain different chemicals.”
As with most things when it comes to a healthy diet, think traditional Mediterranean!
A café solo, espresso, or café noir are single black shots of coffee drunk after a meal. A single shot of coffee has great benefits for the body and here’s why.
• A coffee can re charge the mind
• It’s a boost to metabolism.
• It may be helpful in fighting diabetes. The link between coffee and insulin-regulation has been quite firmly established. Scientists have found that having a cup of coffee post-lunch brings down blood sugar levels most effectively. The key component in coffee is chlorogenic acid, which quells inflammation, reduces glucose absorption and improves the way that our body uses insulin. Coffee also contains magnesium, which is known to regulate blood sugar.
• Invest in good quality freshly ground or filtered coffee and keep the lid on that jar of instant.
When does drinking coffee become a problem?
The problem is that it’s easy to take a something that makes us feel good and use it as a crutch throughout the day. Many of us have become reliant on a coffee to set us up for the day ahead. Drinking your first wake up coffee can actually doing you harm and setting you up for a stressful day.
• Coffee is a good appetite suppressant; however, caffeine causes your body to release sugar into your bloodstream which in turn causes the pancreas to release insulin. On an empty stomach this can cause a sharp drop in blood sugar which can then set you up for sugar cravings and reaching for the biscuit tin.
• Caffeine stimulates the adrenal glands to produce adrenaline. Adrenaline gives us our quick reactions necessary for the fight or flight response which affect our nervous system and can cause a rapid heart beat and increased blood pressure. Too much adrenaline can cause adrenal exhaustion.
• Drinking coffee without food lowers serotonin levels, the feel good neurotransmitter. Without enough serotonin in our body we can feel moody and respond badly to stressful situations. Lowered serotonin levels can interfere with sleep patterns.
• Caffeine can cause dehydration and headaches.
• Drinking coffee on an empty stomach increases acidity which can lead to heart burn and indigestion throughout the day.
• Leave the sugar out and definitely don’t go for a syrupy shot – taste the coffee not the sweetness.
You would assume that the participants in the study that drank ground coffee would potentially have a healthier lifestyle and this could have played a part in the overall study. Coffee can be your food hero or food villain, it’s the type of coffee and when you drink it that counts. You can get the benefits of coffee without all the caffeine by having raw green coffee in supplement form as chlorogenic acid. Take Rejuvenated Re-set to get these benefits, find out more about it here.
