As one of the most popular beverages in the world, coffee offers many benefits such as refreshing the mind, boosting metabolism, and providing antioxidants, but it also carries potential risks including calcium loss, osteoporosis, and increased cardiovascular burden. This article systematically reviews the positive and negative effects of coffee on the human body, lists six groups of people who should not drink coffee, and provides scientific advice on brewing methods, drinking times, and daily intake. Meanwhile, for enthusiasts who want to enjoy both health and flavor, Front Street Coffee offers a variety of consistently high-quality coffee beans to help you make reasonable coffee choices after understanding your own physical condition.
The benefits and risks of coffee:
1. Coffee contains various nutrients. The niacin in coffee is rich in vitamin B, and the content of this component is further increased in roasted coffee beans. In addition, coffee also contains free fatty acids, caffeine, and tannic acid.
2. Coffee has a positive effect on the skin. It can accelerate metabolism, activate the digestive system, and is notably effective in relieving constipation. Bathing with coffee powder is a kind of thermotherapy that has an auxiliary weight-loss effect. Drinking a cup of coffee after a meal also helps with food digestion and absorption.
3. Coffee can help sober you up. Drinking coffee after alcohol consumption can prompt acetaldehyde, produced from the conversion of alcohol, to oxidize rapidly, then break down into water and carbon dioxide and be excreted from the body.
4. Coffee can dispel fatigue. To relieve fatigue, you need to replenish nutrients, rest and sleep, and improve metabolism, and coffee happens to help in these areas.
5. Drinking three cups of coffee a day helps prevent gallstones. Caffeinated coffee can promote gallbladder contraction and reduce the cholesterol content in bile that easily forms stones. The latest research from Harvard University in the United States shows that men who drink two to three cups of coffee a day have about a 40% lower risk of developing gallstones.
6. Regular coffee drinking can protect against radiation damage. Radiation damage, especially the radiation produced by various electrical appliances, has become a relatively serious pollution problem today. The Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in India reached this conclusion through mouse experiments and stated that the result also applies to humans.
7. Coffee has health-care and medical value. It has multiple effects such as antioxidant protection, protecting the heart, strengthening bones and muscles, benefiting the lower back and knees, stimulating appetite and promoting eating, reducing fat and resolving stagnation, opening the orifices, removing dampness, activating blood circulation and resolving stasis, and calming wind and stopping spasms.
8. Coffee also affects mood. Experiments have confirmed that for ordinary people, a daily intake of 300 milligrams of caffeine (roughly equivalent to three cups of brewed coffee) can have positive effects on alertness and emotional state.
The following six groups of people are not suitable for drinking coffee:
People with diseases such as hypertension, coronary heart disease, and arteriosclerosis — long-term or heavy coffee drinking may induce cardiovascular problems.
Older women — coffee accelerates calcium loss, leading to osteoporosis. After menopause, women's daily calcium requirement needs to increase tenfold.
People with stomach conditions — excessive coffee drinking may worsen stomach problems.
Pregnant women — too much coffee intake may lead to fetal malformation or miscarriage.
People deficient in vitamin B1 — vitamin B1 is responsible for maintaining the balance and stability of the nervous system, and coffee can damage it.
Cancer patients — excessive coffee drinking also carries carcinogenic risk for healthy people.
Because coffee's stimulating effect on the brain is too strong and directly interferes with mental state, when coffee was first introduced to Europe in the sixteenth century, some even argued that it could only be purchased and consumed with a doctor's prescription. After four or five centuries of development, coffee culture has become increasingly prosperous, and people can no longer do without coffee, but the medical community continues to point out that coffee's effects on the human body are far more than just refreshing the mind.
First, let's discuss coffee's refreshing effect. Research shows that a daily intake of 100 to 200 milligrams of caffeine is enough to provide a refreshing effect and is harmless to the body. For office workers, the best times to drink coffee are in the early morning right after breakfast when just arriving at the office, and after the lunch break when preparing to dive into the busy afternoon work. A cup of coffee at these times can effectively dispel the drowsiness that often follows a meal.
Research also found that for most people, drinking one cup of coffee in the morning and one in the afternoon provides the ideal refreshing effect. Exceeding this amount not only fails to enhance alertness but instead makes people feel restless and anxious.
Excessive coffee intake can also cause calcium loss, and for older adults, especially middle-aged and older women, it is a major hidden risk for osteoporosis. Drinking two or more cups of coffee a day increases fracture risk by about 50%, a shocking figure. Experts suggest that for older adults, drinking one cup of coffee a day is safest.
There are also some facts about coffee's pros and cons that you may not know:
Filtered coffee is less likely to raise cholesterol. Although drinking coffee slightly increases low-density lipoprotein (bad cholesterol), it also raises high-density lipoprotein (good cholesterol) levels.
For about one-third of healthy people, coffee has a bowel-moving effect. When you occasionally have trouble with bowel movements, drinking a cup of strong coffee often produces an unexpectedly effective laxative effect.
Coffee can reduce the risk of Parkinson's disease.
Drinking coffee during diarrhea can worsen diarrhea because coffee's diuretic effect accelerates the excretion of water from the body.
Coffee stimulates gallbladder contraction, so people prone to gallstones should strictly avoid drinking it.
Too much coffee intake makes pregnant women more likely to have a miscarriage.
The caffeine in coffee can suppress asthma. During an acute asthma attack, the patient can urgently be given two cups of strong coffee, because coffee has effects similar to bronchodilator drugs. People who regularly drink coffee have fewer asthma problems.
Coffee can also eliminate depressed mood and increase libido.
Coffee is indeed a wonderful beverage, but how to take its benefits and avoid its harms depends on your physical condition and your control over the amount you drink.
Next: the close relationship between caffeine and coffee. Because caffeine can stimulate the central nervous system and muscles, it can lift spirits, enhance thinking ability, and relieve muscle fatigue. When acting on the cardiovascular system, it can improve heart function, dilate blood vessels, and promote blood circulation. In the gastrointestinal system, it aids digestion and helps break down fat.
About weight loss. I believe many people have heard that drinking black coffee can help with weight loss, but in fact this is only one factor. Caffeine can indeed accelerate fat breakdown, but at the same time it needs to be combined with muscle exercise to convert excess fatty acids into heat energy and consume them. Without corresponding exercise, the excess fatty acids will return along the bloodstream and accumulate again as fat. Therefore, after drinking coffee, you need to actively move around to achieve the real weight-loss effect. Coffee itself contains calories, but not many; the main calories come from the creamer and sugar added when drinking it.
Antioxidant capacity. In recent years, any food with antioxidant function has been highly sought after in the market. The well-known vitamin A, C, and B groups in vegetables and fruits, as well as the tea drinks quite popular in Japan, are regarded as healthy foods because they are rich in antioxidant substances that can fight free radical damage to the human body. A recent research report pointed out that the antioxidant substances contained in coffee are four times more abundant than those in tea and are even better at fighting cardiovascular disease, and coffee itself also fits the characteristics of antioxidants — dark in color and bitter in taste. The antioxidant substances contained in each cup of coffee vary depending on the brewing method; for example, Americano has the least antioxidant content, while Espresso has the most. Adding creamer to coffee does not affect its antioxidant effect.
Improving dry eyes. Foreign reports indicate that people who drink coffee have a significantly lower probability of suffering from dry eye syndrome than those who do not. This is mainly related to the purine components in coffee (eye drops containing purines can stimulate glands to secrete fluid and have a certain protective effect on the eyes). For computer users who love coffee, this is undoubtedly good news. However, it should be noted that coffee itself has a diuretic effect. Even if some of its components have protective effects, people who already have dry eye syndrome, as well as those taking any medication containing diuretic ingredients, must prohibit intake of caffeinated beverages to avoid worsening water loss in the body.
Relieving pain. Headaches caused by a poor night's sleep, or pain near the temples caused by blood vessel constriction — these kinds of pain caused by non-organic factors can all be relieved by coffee, but it must be drunk in the morning or at noon (note: drinking is prohibited from afternoon to night).
Coffee dosage. Although coffee has benefits for the human body, it should not be consumed in excess. It is best not to exceed two cups a day. For people who are easily tense and anxious, drinking too much may instead be harmful.
When to drink coffee. It is best to drink coffee after breakfast and lunch, because this can promote gastrointestinal peristalsis, aid digestion, and break down ingested high-calorie, high-fat foods, and it will not irritate the stomach like drinking on an empty stomach. It is best not to drink coffee after dinner, so as not to affect sleep. If you want to rely on coffee to stay up all night, you may unknowingly consume too much, which is bad for your health.
Adding trouble when you are tense. Caffeine helps improve alertness, sensitivity, memory, and concentration. But if your intake exceeds your usual habitual level, it will produce effects similar to taking the same dose of a stimulant, causing nervousness. For people with a tendency toward anxiety disorders, caffeine can further worsen symptoms such as sweaty palms, palpitations, and tinnitus.
Worsening hypertension. Caffeine itself has an analgesic effect and is often combined with other simple analgesics into compound drugs. But if taken in large amounts over the long term, and if you already have hypertension, heavy caffeine intake will only make the situation worse. This is because caffeine alone can raise blood pressure, and if emotional tension is added on top of that, it creates a dangerous multiplicative effect. Therefore, people at high risk of hypertension should especially avoid drinking caffeinated beverages when under great work pressure. Some long-term coffee drinkers think they are immune to caffeine, but that is not the case. One study showed that after drinking a cup of coffee, the rise in blood pressure can last as long as 12 hours.
Inducing osteoporosis. Caffeine itself has a good diuretic effect. If coffee is drunk heavily over the long term, it is easy to cause bone loss and have an adverse effect on preserving bone mass, and for women it may increase the risk of osteoporosis. But the premise is that the usual diet was already lacking sufficient calcium intake, or the person does not exercise regularly, and in addition, postmenopausal women experience calcium loss due to reduced estrogen. Only when these conditions are combined with heavy caffeine intake may it pose a threat to bones. If you can enjoy it in reasonable amounts, you can still avoid giving up food for fear of choking.
The following groups of people need to drink coffee cautiously. People with liver disease: caffeine's metabolism time in the body is prolonged. A normal adult needs about 2 hours to metabolize caffeine, while people with liver disease or liver insufficiency may need 4 to 5 hours to metabolize caffeine. Therefore, people with liver disease must be careful when drinking coffee. It is best not to drink it after late afternoon, so that the long metabolism time does not affect sleep, and it is best not to exceed 1 cup per day.
People with digestive system diseases: I believe people who often have stomach pain or stomach problems all have this experience — doctors will certainly instruct them to avoid stimulating foods, including alcohol, chili, coffee, tea, and carbonated drinks. Coffee is included among them because the tannic acid in it stimulates gastric acid secretion. If you are in the acute phase of a digestive disease, you must avoid drinking it. After recovering your health, if you occasionally drink coffee, it is still best to drink it after meals and avoid drinking coffee on an empty stomach.
Pregnant women: Many women, from the beginning of pregnancy, pay extra attention to everything they put in their mouths, and caffeinated beverages are naturally listed among the taboos. This is mainly because pregnant women metabolize caffeine more slowly, so caffeine stays in the body longer, and the fetus in the womb cannot clear caffeine from the blood through metabolism until about eight or nine months.
Children: Because children's liver and kidney functions are not fully developed and their detoxification ability is poor, the half-life of caffeine metabolism is prolonged. Therefore, generally speaking, children under 12 years old need to prohibit caffeine intake. Even in Western countries where coffee is drunk like water, there are very strict restrictions on children drinking coffee.
The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.
