1. Coffee slashes
your risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
The health
benefit: The more coffee you drink, the less likely it is you'll develop
type 2 diabetes, numerous studies have shown. For example, postmenopausal women
who drink at least four cups of coffee a day are less than half as likely to
develop type 2 diabetes as those who don't drink coffee, according to a 2011 study
of more than 700 women by the UCLA Schools of Public Health and Medicine.
In fact, every additional cup is thought to reduce the
excess risk of type 2 diabetes by 7 percent, according to Australian
researchers in a 2009 Archives of Internal Medicine meta-analysis of 18
different studies, which linked coffee drinking and diabetes prevention.
How it works:
Coffee is thought to improve the body's tolerance to glucose by speeding
metabolism and improving insulin tolerance.
The UCLA researchers discovered one possible molecular
mechanism for this. Coffee consumption increases blood levels of a protein
called sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG), which seems to offer protection
against type 2 diabetes in those who have a certain type of genetic mutation. (Decaf
coffee didn't show this effect, however.)
If you're already showing signs of prediabetes, of
course, you'll want to refrain from dunking doughnuts in that joe.
2. Coffee can
counter cancerous cell damage.
The health
benefit: Coffee was once believed to cause cancer -- but that was before
researchers factored in such related behaviors of frequent sippers as smoking
and drinking alcohol. Today, there's mounting evidence that coffee may be
protective against certain cancers, possibly by enhancing DNA repair. Some of
the best evidence concerns liver damage and liver cancer, which strikes more
than 18,000 Americans a year. Multiple studies have found an inverse
relationship between coffee consumption and liver cancer risk, including a 2007
meta-analysis of nine different studies.
Cancer-prevention researchers are finding similar
benefits of coffee drinking versus other forms of the disease. In 2011, for
example, a Harvard team found that women who drink several cups of coffee a day
(caffeinated or decaf) have a lower risk of endometrial cancer. Another 2011
Harvard study reported that for men who consumed six cups of coffee a day,
their risk of lethal prostate cancer was fully 60 percent lower than lesser
coffee drinkers, and their risk of any kind of prostate cancer was 20 percent
lower. Other studies have linked coffee drinking to a reduced risk of colon
cancer, rectal cancer, oral cancer, and esophageal cancer.
How it works:
Coffee contains hundreds of chemical compounds -- among them antioxidants and
anti-inflammatory compounds that can decrease markers for the damaging process
of inflammation. The highly active antioxidant compound methylpyridinium, for
example, is found almost exclusively in coffee (both caffeinated and decaf
types), due to the beans' roasting process. Espresso has two to three times the
amount of this anticancer compound as a medium-roast coffee, according to the
German researchers who identified it in coffee.
3. Coffee may
lower your risk of dementia.
The health
benefit: Scientists still don't fully understand what causes the brain
changes associated with Alzheimer's disease, but they're learning more about
risk factors for dementia -- and a hearty coffee-drinking habit seems to lower
the risk. When researchers in Sweden and Denmark tracked coffee consumption in
a group of more than 1,400 middle-aged subjects for an average of 21 years,
they found a clear connection. Those who quaffed three to five cups a day were
65 percent less likely to have developed dementia than the two-cups-or-fewer
crowd. (Drinking five or more cups a day also seems to reduce the risk,
although this group was too small to allow researcher to draw statistically
significant results.)
How it works:
Researchers believe the antioxidant properties of coffee may work to reduce
vascular forms of dementia. Drinking coffee is already known to be protective
against type 2 diabetes, a chronic disease that raises the risk of dementia.
(Having diabetes together with depression, for example, doubles dementia risk.)
Another theory: Animal studies indicate that the caffeine
in coffee may improve the efficiency of the blood-brain barrier, thwarting the
negative effects of high cholesterol on cognitive functioning. Caffeine added
to rats' water improves their cognitive functioning and reduces by half the
amount of abnormal amyloid protein in their brains, which has been linked to
Alzheimer's disease. It's also possible that coffee drinkers simply have more
energy and move more; researchers point out that exercise is protective against
dementia, too.
4. Coffee protects
(men, anyway) against Parkinson's disease.
The health
benefit: At least for men, it seems pretty clear that coffee helps lower
the odds of developing Parkinson's disease. Compared with abstainers, guys who
down two to three cups of caffeinated coffee a day have a 25-percent lower risk
of Parkinson's. That's the conclusion of a review of 26 published studies
looking at coffee consumption and Parkinson's. It echoes an earlier body of
studies. The link hasn't been shown to be as strong for women.
Why it works:
Researchers aren't sure what the protective mechanism at play is, or even
whether it's the caffeine or other protective compounds that are behind the
benefit. Genetics may play a role: One 2011 study found that subjects who
carried certain types of a gene called GRIN2A received more neuroprotective
benefits against Parkinson's from coffee (although coffee drinkers with all
forms of the gene still had a lower risk of developing the disease).
5. Coffee may
buffer depression.
The health
benefit: Another large study links long-term coffee use with a reduced risk
of depression. Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health tracked
50,000 nurses in the Nurses' Health Study for more than a quarter century. In
2011, they reported that those who drank four cups of coffee or more per day
had a 20-percent lower risk of developing depression, compared with those who
rarely or never drank it. Those who downed two to three cups a day had about a
15-percent lower risk.
A much smaller study in Finland linked coffee consumption
to a decreased risk of suicide in men. There's also some evidence that coffee
protects against depression in men, too.
How it works:
Nobody's sure, but one theory is that coffee drinking causes a short-term boost
to energy and mood. The caffeine in coffee is probably the substance causing
this effect -- the Harvard researchers saw a similar decrease in depression
among those who drank caffeinated soft drinks and ate chocolate, both of which
contain caffeine.
Brain receptors that respond to caffeine are found in the
basal ganglia, the part of the brain where neurotransmitters critical to
depression are concentrated. Repeated low-dose stimulation of these receptors
may help protect against the development of depression.
source:
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