Is Moderate Coffee Drinking Good or Bad?January 6, 2010
Giving up coffee is standard fair for New Year's resolutions but it's also likely to go by the wayside in the face of ongoing support from new studies touting its benefits. Overlooking "the shakes" and praising coffee's ability to seriously pump up the adrenal glands, middle-aged men can also take comfort in news from a 2008 Harvard study that once again suggests the health benefits of coffee and offers "no reason to stop drinking coffee out of any concern about prostate cancer." There are plenty of indications that coffee can also help ward off Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and a host of cancers.
But is coffee actually healthy or just not deadly? The answer: it's both. Like so many pharmaceutical pills, that rich zesty cup can become another shining example of consuming the good while putting up with the bad with its long list of side effects (jotted in tiny print) marginalized. Unless, of course, you drink a moderate amount.
It's all about moderation
But what is moderate? The 2008 Harvard study tracked over 100,000 people and their findings suggest that the more coffee you drink the less likely you are to die from any kind of malady. If ever there were a study that promotes coffee as a magic bullet, this one is it. Likewise, a recent study in the Archives of Internal Medicine indicates that moderate drinking or three to four cups per day can cut your risk of developing Type 2 diabetes by 25% compared to people who drink less.
According to the NIH, "moderate" coffee intake is three 8 oz. cups per day because that amount yields the equivalent of 250 milligrams of caffeine, a daily dosage that's considered manageable. But what if your "moderate" turns into six cups a day? Despite recent studies suggesting the more the better, drinking more than six cups a day puts you at risk of a caffeine overload that can tax your heart.
On the other hand, forgetting about biology, cellular activity and disease, people regularly embrace coffee as the emotional whip that it is. When the alarm sounds and it's time to kick into high gear, a cup of perky coffee is like a drill sergeant ushering legions of drowsy or depressed subordinates across the threshold and out the door. It's hard to find that kind of motivation bottled up in anything else that's legal, except for prescription drugs. And unlike coffee, mood boosting pharmaceutical drugs can't boast natural health benefits.
50 Ways to Boost Your Energy Without Caffeine sip it
While coffee continues to spawn a list of benefits, its known side effects don't waiver. According to the NIH, too much coffee can cause tremors, depression, rapid heart rate, restlessness, anxiety, excessive urination and difficultly sleeping, not to mention additional claims that too much coffee also causes ulcers, heartburn, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, teeth-grinding, periodontal disease, and birth defects.
As for coffee's benefits, particularly in the morning, fruits and vegetables as well as yogurt, cream of wheat, eggs, almonds, sesame seeds and apples can serve up an energy boost while protecting your heart and wiping out cancer cells. That's hard to beat. But if coffee is your daylong pal in spite of its caveats or if making the transition to a no-coffee diet is an exercise in relapsing, keeping your cups filtered, decaffeinated and moderate is the ticket.
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