Our daily dose of java is good for you. Here comes the science.
For almost half of Americans, a hot cup of coffee is the way to start their day, especially during these cold winter months. And although coffee has been around for centuries, there may not be a more controversial drink that exists in our daily lives. Only recently has the science and research started to become clear as to the health benefits associated with that steaming mug of java.
As you know, the news on coffee has not always been positive; in fact, the argument over the merits of your daily cup of joe dates back to the 1500s.
“There has been contradictory information about coffee and a lot of people just don’t know what to believe,” says Ian Goodman of Goodman Coffee Roasters. Goodman has spent his career reading and studying coffee and tea. As a college student, he launched Greyfriar’s Coffee and Tea in Chattanooga in 1995.
Confusion and mystery has surrounded coffee from its origins.
Legend has it that coffee was discovered by Kaldi, an Ethiopian goat herder, after he caught his suddenly frisky goats eating glossy green leaves and red berries and then tried it for himself. But it was the Arabs who first started coffeehouses, and that’s where coffee got its first black mark.
Patrons of coffeehouses were said to be more likely to gamble and engage in “criminally unorthodox sexual situations,” according to author Ralph Hattox. By 1511, the mayor of Mecca shut them down. He cited medical and religious reasons, saying coffee was an intoxicant and prohibited by Islamic law, even though scholars believed it was more likely a reaction to the unpopular comments about his leadership.
The ban didn’t last long and coffee became so important in Turkey that it was said a lack of it provided grounds for a woman to seek a divorce.
By the 1600’s, as the popularity of coffee grew and spread across the continent, the medical community began to extol its benefits. It was especially popular in England as a cure for alcoholism, one of the biggest medical problems of the time. Water wasn’t always safe to drink, so most men, women and even children turned to the hard stuff.
By midcentury, local ads popularized coffee’s healthy status, claiming that it could aid digestion, prevent and cure gout and scurvy, help coughs, headaches and stomachaches, and even prevent miscarriages.
But in London, women were concerned that their men were becoming impotent, and in 1674 The Women’s Petition Against Coffee asked for the closing of all coffeehouses, saying in part: “We find of late a very sensible Decay of that true Old English Vigour. … Never did Men wear greater Breeches, or carry less in them.”
By 1730, tea had replaced coffee in London as the daily drink of choice. That preference continued in the colonies until 1773, when the famous Boston Tea Party made it unpatriotic to drink tea. Coffeehouses popped up everywhere, and the marvelous stimulant qualities of the brew were said to contribute to the ability of the colonists to work longer hours.
In the mid-1800s, America was at war with itself, and one side effect was that coffee supplies ran short. Substitutes such as Kellogg’s “Caramel Coffee” and C.W. Post’s “Postum” came along introduced as a toasted grain-based beverage. They advertised with anti-coffee tirades to boost sales. C.W. Post’s ads were especially vicious claiming coffee was as bad as morphine, cocaine, nicotine or strychnine and could cause blindness.
The early 20th century didn’t start out great for coffee’s reputation. While inventions and improvements in coffee pots, filters and processing advanced at a quick pace throughout the 1900s, so did medical concerns and negative public beliefs about the benefits of coffee.Good Housekeeping magazine wrote about how coffee stunts growth. And concerns continued to grow about coffee’s impact on common aliments of the era, such as nervousness, heart palpitations, indigestion and insomnia.
Science Magazine’s study on September 2, 1927, didn’t help the caffeinated concoction at all. 80,000 elementary and junior high kids were asked about their coffee drinking habits and found that most of them drank more than a cup of coffee a day. When compared with those students grades, it found mostly negative results.
It wasn’t until later on in the century that outrageous claims begin to surface.
“There was a lot of misinformation in the 1970’s,” says Goodman. A 1973 study in the New England Journal of Medicine of more than 12,000 patients found drinking one to five cups of coffee a day increased risk of heart attacks by 60 percent, while drinking six or more cups a day doubled that risk to 120 percent.
Another New England Journal of Medicine study in 1978, found a short-term rise in blood pressure after three cups of coffee. Authors called for further research into caffeine and hypertension.
Research methods at the time were shoddy at best and a 38-year study by the Johns Hopkins Medical School of more than a 1,000 medical students found in 1985 that those who drank five or more cups of coffee a day were 2.8 times as likely to develop heart problems compared with those who didn’t consume coffee.
But the study asked questions only every five years and didn’t isolate smoking behavior or many other negative behaviors that tend to go along with coffee, such as doughnuts and pastries.
“Consistent consumption of coffee doesn’t increase your heart rate,” adds Goodman. “Some people are more sensitive to caffeine than others, though.”
The turn of the century saw the rise of meta-analysis, where researchers looked at hundreds of studies and applied scientific principles to find those that do the best job of randomizing and controlling for compounding factors, such as smoking, obesity, lack of exercise and many other lifestyles issues.
That means a specific study, which may or may not meet certain standards, can’t “tip the balance” one way or another. It was only then when the research methods became more advanced did the health benefits of coffee reveal themselves.
Some of these data analyses found preventive benefits for cancer from drinking coffee; one showed that drinking two cups of black coffee a day could reduce the risk of liver cancer by 43 percent. Those findings were replicated in 2013 in two other studies.
“Drinking black coffee can also reduce cavities,” says Justin Sweeney, owner of the Spot, a coffee shop and restaurant on East Main Street in Chattanooga.
Sweeney also touts coffee’s mental health benefits and how it helps alleviate depression.On the subject, he remembers a particular story about when he met his wife at a coffee shop in New Orleans.
“The coffee shop was a key in the community,” he recalls. “I met her and then ran into her six months later. She happened to remember my name! So, if it doesn’t do anything else, coffee helps get you out and socialize, therefore putting you in a better mood.”Goodman concurs on the social benefits of coffee.
“It brings people together,” says Goodman. He also cites a 10-year study of 86,000 female nurses that showed a reduced risk of suicide in coffee drinkers. Another study conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health found that women who drank four or more cups of coffee were 20 percent less likely to suffer from depression.
Another misconception is people think tea is higher in antioxidants than coffee.
“Coffee is overwhelmingly the stronger antioxidant, more than green or black tea or wine,” says Goodman. “Harvard and McGill studies also found coffee helps prevent Parkinson’s and lowers the risk of Alzheimer’s. Coffee also lowers the risk of type two diabetes by 20 percent, no matter if it’s regular or decaf. Coffee also lowers cirrhosis risks by 20 percent and lowers heart failure by 11 percent.”
Something a lot of coffee drinkers may not be able to do without is what they put in their coffee.
“The majority of what’s bad for you in coffee is what you add,” says Lauren Eggert, Director of Marketing for Barney’s Coffee and Tea Company. “It turns out coffee is healthier when you don’t add cream or sugar.”
“It’s really come full circle in a lot of ways,” says Goodman. “Coffee is healthy like wine but not if you drink two bottles a night. Everything is moderation. The research really does seem consistent over the last three decades that coffee does have positive health effects.”
Sweeney adds the fact that coffee also helps him keep up with his children, which could be attributed to the four shots of espresso he takes each morning.
“Two cups of coffee after a workout also helps reduce muscle pain,” says Sweeney. “Coffee really is life in abundance. It can take your whole day and turn it around.”
