Americans drink 500 million cups of coffee per day, or 246 billion cups each year. Turns out that it is good for jump-start our mornings or keeping us awake during meetings. A lot of recent research suggests that coffee offers a lot of potential health benefits. This incredible beverage contains more than 1,000 compounds that can affect the body. The most commonly studied are caffeine.
What health benefits does coffee offer?
Though researchers won’t always know exactly which of coffee’s ingredients are responsible for producing their studies health-boosting results, there’s evidence that drinking coffee may help do the following:
1. Improve overall health
An analysis of nearly 240 studies on coffee found that coffee drinkers may enjoy more overall health benefits than people who don’t drink coffee. The analysis found that during the study period, coffee drinkers were 18 percent less likely to die early from any cause, 19 percent is less likely to die of heart disease, and 19 percent less likely to develop cancer than those who don’t drink coffee.
2. Protect against Type 2 diabetes
Those who increased their coffee intake by more than a cup a day over a five-year period had a 12 percent lower risk of developing Type 2 diabetes; those who decreased their intake by one cup per day had an 18 percent higher risk of developing the disease.
3. Control of Parkinson’s disease symptoms
A number of studies have shown that consuming caffeine can reduce your risk of developing Parkinson’s disease and research Neurology showed that a daily dose of caffeine equivalent to that found in two six-ounce cups of black coffee can help to control the involuntary movements of people who already have the disease.
4. Slow the progress of dementia
Researchers tested the blood levels of caffeine in older adults with mild cognitive impairments, which can be a precursor to severe dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease. Whose blood levels contained caffeine amounts equivalent to about three cups of coffee were far less likely to have progressed to full-blown dementia than those who had consumed little or no caffeine.
5. Safeguard the liver
Several studies found that coffee drinking has beneficial effects on the liver, including reducing the risk of death from liver cirrhosis, decreasing harmful liver enzyme levels, and limiting liver scarring in people who have hepatitis C.
6. Promote heart health
Data from 35 different studies showed that people who drink 4 to 6 cups of coffee per day had a lower risk of heart disease than those who drink no coffee or more than six cups per day. While the reason somehow is not clear, one possibility is that coffee helps to improve blood vessels control over blood flow and blood pressure.
7. Reduce melanoma risk
A recent study looked at the coffee-drinking habits of more than 447,000 people over 10 years. The researchers found that those who drank five or more cups of caffeinated coffee each day had a 21 percent lower risk of developing melanoma than people who drank decaffeinated coffee or no coffee.