Is coffee healthy or harmful for you?

Coffee has always been an integral part of many people’s daily lives, with millions of cups consumed every day around the world. But is drinking coffee healthy or harmful for you? The evidence on coffee’s health effects is complicated, and the debate over whether it’s good or bad for you is ongoing. The benefits you get from coffee are dependent on how much of it you drink, what type you drink, and other factors as well.

Coffee is one of the most popular beverages in the world, but when it comes to whether or not coffee is healthy or harmful, there’s a lot of conflicting information out there. Let’s clear up some of the confusion with an honest look at the pros and cons of coffee drinking, including how much you should be drinking if you decide to start drinking coffee or if you are thinking about cutting back on coffee consumption.

The Pros for Coffee

Physical Health: Coffee is linked to a reduced risk of many diseases
Coffee is a complex beverage that has been linked to a reduced risk of many diseases such as Parkinson’s, breast cancer, gallstones, cirrhosis of the liver, Crohn’s disease, and more.

Coffee drinkers are overall less likely to die from some of the leading causes of death: coronary heart disease, stroke, diabetes and kidney disease (source).

Liver Cancer: The most recent research shows that if you drink a cup of coffee every day, it can reduce your chance of developing liver cancer by 40% (source).

Heart Health: Coffee is also beneficial for your heart health; there’s evidence that drinking three cups of joe per day could help lower blood pressure levels in people with high blood pressure.

Diabetes: Drinking coffee also appears to be associated with decreased risk of type 2 diabetes, Parkinson’s disease and dementia.

Coffee achieves all of this by stimulating the body to break down fatty acids in the liver.

Coffee is an antioxidant boost: Coffee is high in antioxidants which is good to help prevent many types of diseases as we explored above. This is partly due to the fact that antioxidants that can reduce oxidative stress in your body.

Source of Minerals: Coffee is also a great source of nutrients such as calcium, potassium, magnesium, and niacin which are all essential to our health.

Metal Health – Additional Health Benefits of Coffee
Coffee has been shown to have many other health benefits, including boosting memory, improving mood, and lowering inflammation.

Boosts Energy Levels: Coffee is a stimulant, which means it can make you feel more alert, energetic, and focused.

Improves Your Memory: Research has found that coffee can boost your memory by up to 20%. This is due to the caffeine in coffee, which is a stimulant that can affect brain chemicals in a way that enhances your memory functions. So while too much caffeine can make it hard to fall asleep, it may also give you better recall of things you’ve learned before. Coffee also contains antioxidants like chlorogenic acid that are protective against Alzheimer’s disease as well as other degenerative brain conditions.

Reduces Cognitive Decline: Drinking coffee also seems to help protect against cognitive decline as we age. One study found that moderate coffee drinkers were up to 64% less likely than non-drinkers to show signs of mild cognitive impairment after 10 years. And one large-scale study found that older adults who drank more than four cups of java each day were 65% less likely than others their age not just develop dementia but progress from its early stages into full-blown Alzheimer’s Disease (source).

Improves Mood Disorders: Coffee can also help with mental health disorders like depression and anxiety by slowing down your heart rate and regulating blood sugar levels in people who are sensitive to caffeine.

Read our previous article about the relations between decaf and anxiety

Encourages Lifestyle Decisions: Drinking coffee might make people feel energized and focused which may lead them to exercise more or make better diet decisions.

What About Decaffeinated Coffee?

A study published in 2022 on the effect of coffee subtypes on cardiovascular disease, arrhythmias and mortality; found that consumption of decaffeinated was also associated with a significant reduction in the risk of cardiovascular events and mortality (source).

Just like regular coffee, decaffeinated ground and instant coffee can be greatly beneficial – especially at a dose of 2-3 cups per day.

The study findings reported “the results indicate that moderate consumption of ground, instant and decaffeinated coffee should be considered part of a healthy lifestyle.” – Professor Peter Kistler from the “Institute for Heart and Diabetes Research” in Melbourne, Australia.

The Cons for Coffee

Coffee Can Impact Sleep
Coffee can affect sleep, but it is not always a bad thing. It all depends on the individual person and their sleep habits. For example, if someone drinks coffee later in the day, it might make them stay up later than usual which could make them miss out on sleep because they are so wired from caffeine that they cannot fall asleep when they need to.

However, this is not usually an issue for those people who drink coffee earlier in the day as a way to get themselves up in order to start their days off right – helping them feel more alert and less sleepy during waking hours. But also still able to fall asleep when they need to.

Coffee Can Increase Cortisol Levels
One of the most important things to know about coffee is that it’s a stimulant and can increase your cortisol levels. The body produces cortisol in response to stress as a way to combat feelings of fear, anxiety, or panic–however too much can suppress your immune system and even lead to weight gain.

Coffee increases your cortisol levels by acting like an adrenaline rush; this means that if you drink it on a daily basis, chances are high that your cortisol levels will be higher than they would have been without any caffeine intake whatsoever.

Coffee Allergens
Studies show that certain compounds found within coffee, known as xanthines, can actually cause sleeplessness for some individuals. Caffeine is one such compound and many people experience adverse effects from drinking too much caffeine-based beverages throughout their everyday lives.

Over caffeination
Many sleep disorders like insomnia specifically feature insomnia symptoms due to overexposure to caffeine or similar substances found in certain foods and beverages throughout different regions around the world.

In addition, another study shows that although most folks report feeling well-rested after drinking just 2 cups of caffeinated coffee per day over a 3-day period of time; others report feeling restless immediately after consuming 2 cups while still others feel no ill effects whatsoever!

Coffee is Addictive: Coffee is a source of caffeine which can be addictive. As far as addiction goes, an estimated 17% to 33% of those who use caffeine on a daily basis are addicted–and withdrawal symptoms include headaches and fatigue.

Maintaining a Healthy Relationship with Coffee

Moderation is Key
Drink between 2-3 cups of coffee a day, no more: most of the studies that support drinking coffee and its health benefits talk about the fact that in order to enjoy them, you should drink no more than 3 cups daily.

Timing is Everything
In general, the experts recommend that your last cup of coffee is drunk before dark. This is because our body begins to generate melatonin once the sun sets. Melatonin is the “sleep hormone” and interfering with this natural process can cause sleep disturbances or affect your biological clock. This might result in waking up feeling not so well rested the next morning.

So, when choosing whether you drink coffee or not, it is important to have an awareness of how your body reacts to it so that you can adjust your intake accordingly!

The Verdict

As you can see, coffee has been criticized as being unhealthy, but it actually has many benefits. Coffee can be an incredibly beneficial daily addition to your routine, reducing a long list of potential diseases and health risks.

However, this is all depending on factors such as how much is consumed, what type of beans are used, how it’s made and when it is drunk. It all comes down to moderation; drinking a cup of joe (or 3) every day is safe and healthy as long as it doesn’t interfere with your sleep schedule.