Health Benefits Of Coffee And When Not To Drink It

“Coffee is not unhealthy,” says nutrition and health scientist Anna Flögel. On the contrary, current research now shows the opposite.

Flögel has evaluated long-term studies in which tens of thousands of people were repeatedly questioned over decades about their lifestyle habits and in which new diseases were recorded.

One of the findings should please coffee enthusiasts: “People who drink coffee live longer, on all continents,” he says.

However, coffee has long had a bad reputation when it comes to health, but why?

According to the scientists, this is related to the design of the studies and, in particular, to the fact that a central factor, smoking, was not taken into account.

This is because smokers tend to drink coffee more often. As a result, coffee is sometimes wrongly attributed to health risks, such as an increased risk of cardiovascular disease.

Scientific research now suggests many health-promoting aspects. It is thus likely that coffee consumption has a preventive effect against uterine and liver cancer. The same is true for type 2 diabetes.

According to Flögel, the risk of developing high blood pressure in healthy people is not linked to coffee consumption.

The German Heart Foundation states that hypertensive patients generally do not have to stop drinking coffee. However, it advises timing blood pressure measurements so that they are not taken 20 to 30 minutes after drinking coffee, due to the short-term increase in blood pressure.

However, the organization points out that people with cardiac arrhythmias should be more cautious because if these aggravate with coffee consumption, they should drink less or avoid it altogether.

The first provisional conclusion is that you can drink coffee without a guilty conscience. On the contrary, it is probably even healthy to do so.

However, it remains to be seen how coffee directly affects the body, and three widely held theories will be analyzed.

The benefit of coffee 1: Coffee hydrates

That’s true. “Coffee is part of the fluid intake, just like water,” says Flögel. This means that it counts in the daily fluid balance. In general, it is recommended to drink between 1.5 and 2 liters of fluid per day.

Coffee Benefit 2: Different for each person

According to Fögel, the speed at which caffeine is metabolized varies greatly from person to person. “For one person, half a cup is enough to turn night into day, while another can drink four cups and fall asleep,” he says.

There is also a habituation effect because for someone who regularly drinks coffee, a cup of this beverage no longer gives them a strong stimulation.

The benefit of coffee 3: Coffee promotes digestion

That’s true. For many people, it’s part of their morning routine to first drink a cup of coffee and then go to the bathroom. This effect can mainly be explained by caffeine, says Flögel, because it generally stimulates the metabolism.

But this theory does not apply in a general way either, since whether coffee facilitates digestion, and to what extent, varies from person to person.

And what happens when coffee makes your stomach upset? Then it’s worth switching to espresso, recommends ecotrophologist Birgit Warnecke from the German Coffee Association in Hamburg.

The expert says that espresso, depending on its roasting and preparation, contains fewer substances that can harm a sensitive stomach.

“The common advice to switch to a long roast coffee to improve tolerance is a myth based on outdated knowledge,” says Warnecke.

“If you already suffer from stomach upset, you should avoid drinking coffee – like many other foods, by the way – on an empty stomach,” she advises. In this case, she points out, adding milk is a good idea, as it reduces the direct contact of the coffee with the stomach lining.

Since caffeine stimulates digestion, decaffeinated coffee is sometimes better tolerated than caffeinated coffee. Of course, it is also a good alternative if you want to do without the stimulating and awakening effect of caffeine.