The Medical Benefits of Caffeinated Coffee

Coffee is one of the most widely consumed drinks in the world, though in spite of its popularity—or perhaps because of it—the beverage has been cast into a dark perspective by some on the fringes of the health community. Whether we talk to friends or family, it is not completely uncommon to run across stories of alleged, small maladies caused by coffee: from kidney stones to heart disease to cancer, it seems that--for some odd reason--coffee has left a bad taste in the mouths of many disgruntled citizens. I am pleased to tell them that they have all been grossly misinformed.

A recent study by Gavrieli et al. in the Journal of Nutrition demonstrated that caffeinated coffee intake is directly correlated to weight loss, with habitual coffee drinkers consuming 21.7% less food than those using a decaf placebo. On a wider chemical front, cortisol—the molecule involved in bone-marrow production—concentration falls less in men drinking coffee than those who are not. This study compliments a separate longitudinal study currently underway to investigate why habitual, coffee drinking men are less likely to develop prostate cancer. A myraid of other studies have found zero correlation between coffee drinking and heart disease, kidney stones, cancer or other diseases allegedly resulting from coffee consumption. That said, coffee plays a much larger role in public health than most of us tend to think.

Six years prior to Gavreili's article, a major review of longitudinal and cross-sectional studies in world-wide, habitual coffee consumption from JAMA made a fascinating discovery: regular coffee drinkers who consume 6 to 7 coffee cups per day have a 28% lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes, while those who drank 7 or more cups lowered their risk by a staggering 35%. These findings should not be taken lightly. According to the World Health Organization (WHO,) over 90% of the 220 million people diagnosed with diabetes are type 2. Sadly, 80% of the net diabetes mortality rate is from lower-income and developing countries without access to basic medical infrastructure. Most disturbing; however, is the projected mortality rate, which is expected to increase by 200% over the next 20 years. If something as prevalent, innocuous and inexpensive as coffee can decrease the risk by 35%, those involved in health policy and diabetes research should be examining effects of coffee very, very closely.

While the positive effects of coffee are well known—and the quackery surrounding the negatives dismissed—many researchers are still in the dark as to the actual mechanisms by which coffee benefits our health. Proposed candidate mechanisms abound, to include chlorogenic-acid induced pathways, which may reduce glucose output via inhibition of glucose-6-phosphate; Glucagen peptide-1 pathways; protein-3 induction; effects of magnesium in coffee and many, many more. Labs, hospitals and health organizations will likely spend years learning more about the mechanisms and long term benefits of the world's most popular beverage. Either way, it's nice to know that, at the very least, the average cup of coffee does a lot more than just wake us up in the morning.