Is Coffee a Healthy Choice to Drink?

“Is coffee healthy?” This question is one of those that plagues conventional wisdom because we have heard it answered both ways so many times over the years.

The good news is that coffee has recently been linked with several positive trends. Many older studies linking coffee to negative effects have also since been invalidated, accounting for a decrease in risky activities like smoking that have may have been the true cause of the health problems they were observing.

On the whole, coffee actually appears to be quite good for you. So if you are a regular java lover and don’t have any side effects, continue to guzzle away! Here are just some of the possible perks experts suggest you may obtain:

Healthier, More Efficient Brains

Lack of sleep is never a good thing on your body, but the energy-boosting feeling of coffee may actually be good for well-rested minds.

The way caffeine works is that it binds to adenosine receptors, which can normally cause feelings of fatigue or lack-of-focus. When caffeine takes the place of other neurochemical compounds on these receptors, it can cause neuron activity in the brain to speed up, making your brain process thoughts faster while enabling more connectivity among them.

Some scientists think that this reaction is why caffeine can be an effective antidepressant.

Lower Risk of Chronic Disease

Another group of benefits from coffee has to do with the brew’s rich range of antioxidant compounds. Our body naturally produces oxygenizing free radicals, which can damage the DNA of dividing cells, hurting their functionality while increasing our risk of cancer. Antioxidants work against these radicals in order to not only reduce the risk of certain diseases but to also delay the aging process.

Regular consumption have coffee has been linked to a lower risk of type II diabetes, prostate cancer, uterine cancer and more. Scientists are quick to point out that these correlations do not necessarily mean causation since the studies did not examine separate independent factors in a clinical setting.

They also discourage people who do not drink coffee or drink it in low amounts from guzzling gallons of java a day purely to obtain health benefits. But those who already love coffee have no reason to back down as long as they enjoy the effects.

Coffee as a Healthy Alternative to Other Beverages

Everyone should make sure they get enough water per day, and they can also supplement their diet with antioxidant rich drinks like coffee and tea. Other seemingly healthy choices like juice tend to have lots of sugar and reduced nutrition from the pasteurization needed to preserve it.

At the same time, make sure what you put in your coffee is just as healthy as what you leave out. Health experts caution that some sugary coffee and milk drinks have as much as 500 calories in them! So try to emphasize high quality gourmet beans and minimize the amount of cream or sugar you use to get coffee that is not only delicious, but also good for you!