How many times have we heard these words: "I can't function without my cup of coffee. I need my morning coffee." Coffee seems to be the American National Drink. We drink it hot, iced, boiled, brewed, with liqueur, with milk, black, strong, and weak. There are shops that just sell coffee, hundreds of different types. These places will serve it to you in large steaming styrofoam cups and will grind any type of coffee bean for you as you wait so you can make the same thing at home. Coffee has upscaled and become lattes with whole, skim, or low fat milk. You can even add some chocolate if you want. Coffee is the newest most popular small pleasure of our generation. Just go to any large city and count all the specialized coffee shops.
As we drink it, though, we wonder just how healthy coffee is for us. It has been linked to heart disease, cancer, fibroid tumors, gall and kidney stones, not to mention insomnia. Some people can become addicted to it and most suffer headaches when they don't drink it for a day or two.
Well, never say that our health officials don't keep an eye out for the American public. Tests were done, studies formed, people polled, mice were sacrificed, all to answer the question about coffee and health. What was the answer? Like all good scientific studies, the first results were that coffee and caffeine products are bad for us. It raises blood pressure, clogs our arteries, and causes painful stones that form in our bodies. "Stay away from it," the scientists cried. But the public started to drink more and different types of coffees. So additional studies were done. And the results of these tests are different.
According to the most recent tests, drinking coffee doesn't really lead to heart disease although it does raise blood pressure somewhat. And to everyone's surprise, the tests showed that caffeine might even be good for us, as long as we don't overdo it. Yet no one is really sure that even drinking more than eight to ten cups a day is bad for you.
One test shows that it might even help with diseases like cancer, especially colon cancer. It might reduce the risk of cirrhosis of the liver among heavy drinkers of alcohol, and help your memory. It was discovered that caffeine isn't even addicting, which is something all coffee and chocolate lovers wanted to hear.
So what does all of this tell us? I guess it means we can go about drinking all the coffee we want without worrying too much about it. I must warn you though, I'm a little one sided. I enjoy coffee and products that contain caffeine, like chocolate, so I choose to believe the most recent studies. I'm sure for every article I can find that says that coffee isn't bad for our health, I could also find an article that will tell us the opposite.
What this all boils down to is to take precautions. If you enjoy coffee, drink and be merry, but just remember that there are health risks, like in most things we do. As you drink your next cup of coffee, just try to remember not to overdo it.
Sidle up to the coffee bar guys, the next espresso's on me.
