Why is Coffee Good For You? Here Are 7 Reasons

Before you read: some questions to help you think about the topic and the words you might need.

Do you drink coffee? Why or why not?

What health benefits does coffee have?

Coffee isn’t just warm and energy giving, it may also be extremely good for you.

In recent years and decades, scientists have studied the effects of coffee for health and their results have been interesting.

Here are 7 reasons why coffee may actually be one of the healthiest drinks.

1. Coffee Can Make You Smarter

Coffee doesn’t just keep you awake, it may make you smarter as well.

The active ingredient in coffee is caffeine, which is a stimulant and the most commonly drunken active drink in the world.

Caffeine’s basic job in the brain is to block the effects of an inhibitory neurotransmitter called Adenosine.

By blocking the effects of Adenosine, caffeine actually increases the things in the brain that cause the release of other chemicals that help you.

Many medical tests have examined the effects of caffeine on the brain. These tests show that caffeine can improve mood, reaction time, memory, vigilance and general brain performance.

Bottom Line: Caffeine is strong in blocking some negative effects in the brain, but rather leads to a net stimulating or positive effect. Tests show that caffeine improves both mood and brain function.

2. Coffee Can Help You Burn Fat and Improves Physical Performance

There’s a good reason why you will find caffeine in most commercial fat burning supplements.

Caffeine, partly because of its stimulating effect on the nervous system, both raises how quickly your body turns food into energy and increases the break down of fatty acids.

Caffeine can also improve athletic performance.

In two separate tests, caffeine was found to increase exercise performance by 11-12% on average.

3. Coffee May Drastically Lower Your Risk of Type II Diabetes

Type II diabetes is a lifestyle-related disease that is a big problem in the developed world. It has increased 10-times in a few decades and now affects about 300 million people.

In studies, coffee has been repeatedly associated with a lower risk of diabetes. The reduction in risk ranges from 23% all the way up to 67%.

A huge review article looked at 18 studies with a total of 457.922 test takers. Each extra cup of coffee per day lowered the risk of diabetes by 7%. The more coffee people drank, the lower their risk.

4. Coffee May Lower Your Risk of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.

Not only can coffee make you smarter in the short term, it may also protect your brain in old age.

Alzheimer’s disease is the most common brain disorder in the world and the biggest cause of dementia, (a memory loss disease) in old age.

In studies, coffee drinkers have up to a 60% lower risk of Alzheimer’s and dementia.

Parkinson’s is the second most common brain disorder.

Coffee may lower the risk of Parkinson’s by 32-60%.

5. Coffee May be Extremely Good For Your Liver

The liver is an amazing organ that carries out hundreds of important jobs in the body.

It is very easily badly affected by modern lifestyle habits such as drinking too much alcohol and sugars

Cirrhosis is the final part of liver damage caused by diseases like alcoholism and hepatitis, where liver tissue has been largely replaced by scar tissue.

Many studies have shown that coffee can lower the risk of cirrhosis by as much as 80%, the strongest effect for those who drank 4 or more cups per day.

Coffee may also lower the risk of liver cancer by around 40%.

6. Coffee May Decrease Your Risk of Dying

Many people still seem to think that coffee is unhealthy.

This isn’t surprising though, since it is very common for popular wisdom to be opposite with what the real studies say.

In two very large studies, drinking coffee was associated with a lower risk of death by all causes.

This effect is particularly profound in type II diabetics, one study showing that coffee drinkers had a 30% lower risk of death during a 20 year period.

7. Coffee has many Nutrients and Antioxidants

Coffee isn’t just black water.

Many of the nutrients in the coffee beans do end up in the final drink, which actually contains a big amount of vitamins and minerals.

It may not seem like much, but if you drink several cups of coffee per day then this quickly adds up.

But this isn’t all. Coffee also contains a massive amount of antioxidants.

Actually, coffee is the biggest source of antioxidants in the western diet, more than both fruits and vegetables combined.

Finally

Even though coffee is good for you, drinking too much of it can still be harmful.

Many studies were based on observation. Such studies can only show a relationship, they can not prove that coffee caused the effects.

To make sure to preserve the health benefits, don’t put sugar or anything bad in your coffee! If it affects your sleep, then don’t drink it after 2pm.

At the end of the day, it does seem obvious that coffee is NOT bad.

Coffee may be the healthiest beverage on the planet

Try to guess the meaning of the words in bold and match them with their closest meaning from the choices in the right. Some of the answers are very close and have similar meaning. The meaning of these words is how they are used in the reading. Some of these words have different meanings in the dictionary depending on how they are used.

 The answers are below the table.