Caffeinated coffee improves your health and reduces your risk to a host of diseases and illnesses. Most of the benefits are due to two compounds – antioxidants and caffeine.
Antioxidants help repair cell damage while removing free radicals responsible for health issues such as cancer. By removing free radicals, coffee has anti-aging benefits while reducing your risk to colon, breast or rectal cancers by 50%.
Caffeine protects against age-related brain problems like dementia and Parkinson’s disease. For women, the caffeine and estrogen need the same enzymes for metabolization making coffee less effective in combating Parkinson’s for women. The brain related benefits appear to be due to a lower incidence of Type II diabetes (60%) among coffee drinkers as it lowers blood sugar while increasing metabolism.
Coffee also reduces cirrhosis by 80%, gallstones by 50% while helping to relieve headaches and asthma.
Coffee can increase your cholesterol due to the compounds kahweol and cafestol. To remove this, only drink coffee run through paper filters as those filters capture these compounds.
For all of these positive effects, people with acid reflux, ulcers or other stomach or gastric problems should avoid coffee. If you already have a sleeping disorder, liver problems or a risk to glaucoma or heart disease, consult your doctor before adding coffee to your diet.
The real surprise is that decaffeinated is increasingly seen as bad for your health. Decaf increases the risk of heart disease due to its ability to stimulate fatty acid production in the body in ways caffeinated coffee does not. Every 12 ounces decaf that you consume reduces your calcium levels by 10 milligrams which can lead to osteoporosis while increasing your risk to rheumatoid arthritis by four-fold. Most troublesome is that most decafs are created using the solvent methylene choride – a carcinogen affecting the lungs, nervous system and other organs.
Be happy and healthy on the inside – drink moderate amounts of caffeinated coffee.
