Coffee is the number one drink in the world. Indeed many people use this fantastic tasting beverage as their main motivation for getting out of bed on a cold and wet winters morning. There are always plenty of negative stories published in the press about coffee, but the fact remains that there are many health benefits associated with the drink also. Let’s look at some of those benefits in closer detail, you might be surprised, and it will give you an excuse to consume more coffee (not that you really need it.)
A Potential Defense Against Diabetes
More and more people are being diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes, across the world, but researchers in Harvard completed a study between 1986 and 1988 that seemed to demonstrate that long-term coffee drinkers had a significantly less chance of developing this horrible disease. Obviously, while this is good news, it needs to be tempered by the fact that you need to limit the amount of sugar you add to your coffee otherwise it is counterproductive.
Coffee Could Lower The Risk Of Depression In Women
In a study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, a study found that women who drink a few cups of caffeinated coffee a day have a lower risk of depression than women who don’t drink any coffee at all. In fact, the study showed that women who drank two to three cups of coffee per day had a fifteen percent lower risk, whilst women that drunk over four cups had a twenty percent lower risk. Who said moderation in all things was good for you?
Coffee Could Lower The Risk Of Parkinsons Disease
The Daily Telegraph reported that when scientists examined a total of 26 studies about Alzheimer’s disease, totaling approximately 125,000 people, the results showed that two to three cups of coffee seemed to have an effect on reducing the chances of developing Parkinsons Disease, by up to 25%. This research was published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease for anyone that wants to read the report in more depth.
Drinking Coffee Can Help You Lose Weight
This benefit could be the most exciting to many readers as it would seem that drinking coffee can help in the battle with the bulge. Caffeine is known to stimulate thermogenesis, which in layman’s terms means that it increases the amount of calories your body burns in a day. If you burn more calories per day than you consume, you will be on the right track to losing some weight. Further research has also shown that in a study conducted on overweight adults who were given green coffee bean extract 37.5 percent of them dropped from a pre-obesity weight to a normal weight. Tracking down good quality green coffee beans can be a challenge. However, a little research found that A1 Coffee regularly has this variety of coffee in stock.
Coffee Can Help You Reduce The Risk Of Kidney Stones
As we all know, coffee contains caffeine, and it is this caffeine that can actually be beneficial in preventing painful kidney stones from forming. The caffeine helps to flush your body quicker of excess calcium and sodium, both of which are what helps kidney stones to form. Interestingly this could also apply to tea, wine, and beer, but not to those sweet fizzy drinks.
Reduce Your Risk Of Liver Cancer
Unfortunately, levels of liver cancer are increasing, at the rate of about 4 percent per year. Researchers have discovered that people who drink two to three cups of coffee a day were up to 38 percent less likely to develop liver cancer than those who didn’t drink any coffee. At the time of writing, scientists are not exactly sure what the link may be, although there is a theory that the compounds contained within coffee, lower liver enzymes, which in turn then slows the progression of any disease.
As you can see, contrary to popular belief, drinking coffee does actually come with many benefits. The thing to remember as with anything is that you cannot drink excessive amounts of coffee, and you also need to pay close attention to whatever you are adding to your coffee, to make it more suitable to your tastes. Regularly adding large quantities of cream or sugar could easily cause different problems, and will certainly increase your calorie intake. But provided you don’t over-indulge, then coffee may not be as bad for you as previously thought.
