Yumm yumm…haven’t had a cup alll day today. Taste so good, especially when it’s super strong! Just smelling it, i can feel the bliss it delivers when sipped. Best rememdy for these cold days.
I always tell myself ‘A cup a day keeps the headache away’…
Check these health facts:
Caffeine has long been known to help asthmatics and many have found regular consumption of coffee to assist in moderating attacks. Scientifically this has been supported by two large studies in the USA and in Italy (1,2) where three or more cups of coffee per day were associated in a dose related manner with reduced prevalence of asthma.
Caffeine is clearly a major biologically active substance in coffee and has received the most research attention. Coffee has a complex chemical composition, however, and the potential importance of many other constituents, albeit present in small concentrations, cannot be ignored. A characteristic of many plants is that they contain a diverse array of compounds with antioxidant properties and coffee is no exception. Polyphenolic compounds called flavonoids are particularly widespread in plants and important in disease protection (1). In addition to the compounds found naturally in raw beans, attention has also been given to changes occurring during roasting. Nicoli and colleagues (2) found evidence for substances with antioxidant activity to be generated during roasting probably as a result of the formation of Maillard complexes. Other authors isolated antioxidant activity due to maltol and 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (3). This research is in its infancy but given the increasing interest in the beneficial role of food antioxidants in health, it seems likely that their role in coffee will become of increasingly more interest.
Caffeine can increase the speed of rapid information processing by 10% (1), and a cup of regular (caffeine containing) coffee after lunch helps to counteract the normal ‘post-lunch dip’ in ability to sustain concentration, aiding alertness (2). Research has also shown that a couple of cups of coffee help to improve alertness and concentration during night shift hours (3). These findings have been further endorsed by Smith et al (4) who conducted a study in 1993 to examine the effects of coffee on daytime and night-time performance and alertness. The results clearly demonstrated that caffeinated coffee had a beneficial effect on alertness and improved performance in a variety of tasks in both day and night sessions.
These effects are especially beneficial to night shift workers as it is known that many industrial accidents occur late into the shift when workers become less attentive. A further study by Smith et al (5) suggests that the alertness-enhancing effect of caffeinated coffee can remove the malaise (reduced alertness, slower psychomotor performance) associated with having the common cold, and that increased stimulation of the sensory afferent nerves may also be beneficial.
Additional studies found that caffeine helps to improve performance independently of its raising of fatigue-related concentration (1,8), and improves the performance of participants undergoing standard vigilance and reaction time tests (9), resulting in increased self-reported vigour, alertness and efficiency, and a decline in levels of depression and anxiety. Two prospective studies have found a clear significant inverse association between coffee drinking and risk of suicide (10,11). Whereas the researchers could not rule out a spurious effect that might have occurred if people at risk of depression had been advised to abstain from coffee drinking, they urged further research into the possibility that coffee drinking may decrease depression.
There is some convincing evidence for a protective effect of coffee against the development of colon or colorectal cancers (1-7). Such a protective effect was reported in a case-control study conducted in Sweden (6) with 352 cases of colon cancer, 217 cases of rectal cancer, and 512 controls. The authors concluded that “…coffee consumption appears to be protective against colon cancer, and tea against rectal tumors”. A similar study in Italy found that the risk of colon cancer was reduced by drinking more than four cups of coffee a day and that this trend was dose-related (7). A mechanism for this protective effect has been suggested by Favero A. et al (8). Several studies have indicated that frequent eating may increase colon cancer risk and in this Italian study, Favero, A. et al, (8) set out to clarify this issue. The conclusion was that frequent eating increases, whereas high coffee intake decreases, the excretion of bile acids, which are suspected to be carcinogenic to the colon. Thus frequent coffee intake may counterbalance the effect of frequent eating.
