Is coffee really that bad for you?
Published in the Telegraph October 17, 2013
We've come to view coffee as a guilty necessity to get through daily life. But recent studies suggest the black bean may have genuine benefits, writes Dale Pinnock.
12:51PM BST 16 Oct 2013
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The world of nutrition can be a weird and tricky landscape that's fraught with contradiction and littered with urban myths.
One of the big myths is that coffee is the drink of the devil that will kill you at the first opportunity. For years I took this line as gospel - but it doesn't actually stand up to scrutiny. Look at the studies and you find that coffee is pretty spectacular stuff!
Antioxidant fix
Everyone thinks of green tea as being the antioxidant powerhouse brew of choice. Green tea is certainly great - but coffee might be even better. It's extremely rich in a diverse group of antioxidant plant compounds called flavonoids, which deliver anti-inflammatory, antiviral, and anticoagulant (blood thinning) benefits. So an evening spent on the sofa watching films and drinking coffee isn't to be sneered at.
Type 2 diabetes and blood sugar management
One area where coffee really comes up trumps is in the prevention of type 2 diabetes - a condition that is growing to an alarming degree in the UK. A study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutritionshowed that regular coffee consumption was associated with a notable decreased risk in the onset of type 2 diabetes among its sample of 43,000 people.
Another study, this time a meta analysis of over 457,000 participants that was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that each cup of coffee we drink a day can be linked to a 7pc reduction in type 2 diabetes risk.
(Disclaimer: this does not make coffee the panacea of life! If you are living on a diet of sugary drinks and takeaways, I wouldn't expect coffee to offer you a diabetes buffer any time soon.)
Liver health
Given that it often follows a night of excess, you'd be forgiven for associating coffee with liver damage. Yet the research actually suggests coffee can have a beneficial affect on your liver.
A review of observational and experimental data published in theEuropean Journal of Gastroenterology and Hepatology showed that moderate coffee drinkers had a far lower incidence of abnormal liver function, liver cirrhosis, and hepatocellular carcinoma.
Again, if you are drinking a bottle of vodka a day, chances are an espresso isn't going to be your "get out of jail free" card.
Neurological health
According to a report published in the Missouri Journal of Medicine, there is also a growing body of evidence to suggest that moderate coffee drinking is might reduce the risk of neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinsons and Alzheimers disease.
A lot more research is needed in the area to determine the accuracy of the claim. There is certainly a lot of anecdotal evidence that coffee consumption enhances cognitive function. Whether this is simply related to the energy hit delivered by the caffeine remains to be seen.
So, is it all good news?
The data available suggests that coffee isn't quite the evil brew you thought you were drinking. That's not to say there aren't negative effects. There are. Irritability and headaches can both be the result of caffeine intake - especially if you have a sensitivity to the compound.
If you do have a penchant for the black stuff, one final tip: keep it black. This will keep its anti-oxidant qualities intact. Add milk, and the protein will bind to coffee's flavonoids, reducing their positive effect.
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