For many us, early mornings usually mean leaning on coffee as a crutch to stay awake, quietly resenting the few who fall into the category of ‘morning people’. Coffee has been slapped back and forth by the health community for a while now. It drastically flips from cancerous poison to healthy superfood from one study to the next, with some historic studies incorrectly concluding that it causes blindness and stunts growth. Thankfully, scientific testing has come a long way since these claims were made in the 1800s and give us a much clearer picture as to the true contents of our morning cuppa.
Having a several coffees throughout the day actually has no negative effects beyond maybe hurting your hip pocket at roughly $5 a cup. Studies into the positive effects of caffeine generally place a range between 3 and 5 cups a day to receive medical benefit. In regards to cognitive decline as a consequence of dementia or Alzheimer’s disease, consuming the 3 to 5 cups of coffee daily during mid-life has been shown to prevent those conditions from occurring later by as much as 65%. Coffee is a master preventative of a lot of health problems that can arise as we age. The 3 to 5 cups a day has been demonstrated to reduce the risk of Parkinson’s disease, liver cancer and diabetes. There is even evidence to suggest that drinking coffee within that daily range slightly reduces the relative risk of all-cause mortality. Aside from physical concerns, coffee has also been shown to aid in the prevention of depression by improving the effectiveness of dopamine and reducing inflammation.
Will coffee let you live forever? Probably not, but it certainly keeps you awake and keeps you healthier