Drinking Coffee is a Healthy Lifestyle Choice

From: http://jaajoe.com/Health-Nutrition-and-Medicine/

Drinking Coffee is a Healthy Lifestyle Choice

We have already noted here on this site that a one-hour walk each day
will assist in lowering LDL (bad) cholesterol, but in addition to that
very valuable health benefit, walking has now been shown to raise HDL
(good) cholesterol. For those who are interested in reading one of the
actual studies that documents the strong inverse relationship between
regular walking and the incidence of coronary heart disease, you can
read the study published in the New England Journal of Medicine
entitled "A Prospective Study of Walking as Compared with Vigorous
Exercise in the Prevention of Coronary Heart Disease in Women.” (Note:
This study is a prospective study derived from the massive Nurses'
Health Study which only involved women, but it can be assumed that
similar positive health benefits can be experienced by men who walk
regularly.)



Being mindful of the positive health benefits of walking and the high
price of gasoline, a few weeks ago I began killing the proverbial two
birds with the proverbial one stone. (Note to any members of PETA who
may be reading this: No birds were actually harmed, with or without
stones, in the writing of this article.) Rather than wandering
aimlessly around the neighborhood, or worse, driving to a park so that
I can wander aimlessly around a walking track, I now load my computer
and my books into my backpack and walk the 1.5 miles to the Morton
Grove public library, thereby saving gas and my own health.



I have always thought of public libraries as wonderful places, but
they are immensely more wonderful today than they were when I was a
child. They have begun providing patrons with free Wi-Fi access, and
so that is why I make my daily trek with the additional eight pounds
(it is rather old) of my laptop on my back. In the library, I am
surrounded by the books and periodicals that I need to research
whatever topic I am writing about, and I have the added benefit of
immediate access to the internet. In addition, you are allowed to
bring covered drinks into the library, and the covered drink that I
bring to the library each morning is the subject of the remainder of
this article.



About a block from the library stands the Super Cup Coffee Shop, into
which I step each morning and purchase a large (20 ounce) cup of
coffee to take with me. Over the past several years, the American
public has been subjected to a seemingly never-ending barrage of
reports of studies of the effects of coffee drinking. One day we hear
that coffee drinking is bad for you. The next day we hear that coffee
drinking is good for you. The next day we hear coffee being compared
to toxic chemicals. The next day we hear coffee being compared to the
fountain of youth. So my daily trek to the library, with it's daily
detour to the Super Cup Coffee Shop, begs a question that I hope to
answer in this article: Is the cup of coffee that I savor each morning
voiding or enhancing the health benefits of my daily walk?



Let us first address the most common negative side effect cited
concerning consumption of coffee. Coffee, because of it's caffeine
content, has long been considered a diuretic. The concern with any
beverage containing caffeine has been that it would cause the body to
output a volume of urine that was actually greater than the volume of
fluid that the beverage provided, thus causing dehydration. But the
International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism
published a study in it's June, 2005 issue which debunks this commonly
held belief. In this study, subjects who daily consumed as much as 6
milligrams of caffeine per kilogram of body weight had urine volume
within normal clinical range and no evidence of dehydration.



I am a big fan of the work of Dr. Batmanghelidj and the extensive work
that he did in the area of proper hydration of the human body. But in
his book, Your Body's Many Cries for Water, and in other books that he
wrote, he insisted upon the idea of caffeinated drinks causing
dehydration. The study in the International Journal of Sports
Nutrition, and other similar studies debunk the idea of coffee or
other caffeinated beverages being diuretics and therefore Dr.
Batmanghelidj appears to have been wrong in his belief of their
dehydrating effects. That is not to say that Dr. Batmanghelidj was
incorrect in saying that water is the most healthful way of hydrating
your body, and I will always tout the health benefits that I have
realized as a result of drinking ninety-six ounces of pure water each
day. But I feel better knowing that my daily cup of coffee is not
sucking that pure water right back out of my body.



There is a rather ill-informed individual in cyberspace who refers to
himself as the “Health Ranger” and dishes out his ill-informed advice
on health at NaturalNews.com. This individual is fond of remarking
that “caffeine is used as a pesticide,” as though that remark stands
alone and settles once and for all the discussion about whether humans
should consume caffeine. According to the logic of the “Health
Ranger,” caffeine in very highly concentrated doses kills bugs, and
therefore it must be bad for human health, even in the relatively
small amounts found in coffee. It is my sincere hope that the “Health
Ranger” will never obtain knowledge of the main ingredient in a highly
effective natural insecticide known as Bugs'R'Done®. This natural
insecticide that kills cockroaches,flies, mosquitoes, etc., has as
it's main ingredient concentrated orange peel oil. If the “Health
Ranger” hears of this, he is sure to call for the ban from human
consumption of all oranges, and then all of those Florida farmers
would have to plow up their groves and build more theme parks, God
forbid.



There are any number of naturally occurring items in our world that
can have detrimental effects on the health of animals and humans if
they are concentrated and consumed in copious amounts, and certainly
caffeine is no exception. But in the amounts found in a cup of coffee,
caffeine is not harmful to the human body. In fact, quite the opposite
seems to be true.



From the same Nurses' Health Study that we mentioned earlier, a
Prospective Study of Coffee Drinking and Suicide in Women was done and
was published in the Archives of Internal Medicine. This was a ten
year study of 86,626 female registered nurses. The study compared non-
coffee drinkers to a group of women who consumed two to three cups of
coffee per day and with another group of women who consumed four or
more cups of coffee per day. The study concluded that there was a
strong inverse association between coffee intake and risk of suicide.
In others words, the more coffee a nurse consumed, the less likely she
was to commit suicide. Many coffee drinkers, even those of us who do
not regularly contemplate suicide, can readily understand the results
of this study. There is a sense of well-being that I derive from my
morning cup of coffee. It is a feeling that almost always causes me to
pause and once again thank my Creator for creating a liquid that I
enjoy so much.



There has long been some conjecture that caffeine consumption causes
bone loss, but recent studies indicate that the bone loss is
insubstantial and can be countered by ascertaining a diet that has the
proper amount of calcium intake. I would further point out that the
studies indicating bone loss due to caffeine consumption did not make
a distinction between caffeine obtained by coffee consumption and
caffeine obtained by consumption of soft drinks, and I think that this
is critical. The research by Dr. Carolyn Dean and Dr. Mildred Seelig
indicates that the phosphoric acid in soft drinks prevents the body
from properly absorbing both calcium and magnesium. So I would suggest
that the bone loss that is indicated in some studies may be entirely
caused by soft drinks rather than coffee.



What about heart disease? For many years doctors have told their
patients to stay away from caffeine in order to avoid heart disease,
and many studies now indicate that doctors should keep their mouths
shut if they have no facts upon which they base their advice. A
prospective cohort study published in the American Heart Association
Journal in 2006 with 44,005 men and 84,488 women concluded that there
is no evidence that coffee consumption increases the risk of coronary
heart disease. To the contrary, the Iowa Women's Health Study seems to
indicate that regular coffee consumption can possibly reduce the risk
of heart disease.



Additionally, in spite of what you may have heard or read, coffee
consumption has not been found to increase the risk of any type of
cancer, and studies have concluded that coffee consumption is not
linked to an increase risk of high blood pressure.



There are two possible negative side effects to the regular
consumption of coffee, and both of these negative side effects are
written about by Dr. Nicholas Perricone in his various books about
aging. The first is that the consumption of coffee increases the
body's production of the hormone cortisol. Cortisol, as you may be
aware, is complicit in weight gain. Dr. Perricone advises anyone who
is attempting to lose weight to stop drinking coffee, and several
studies indicate that he is absolutely correct in his advice.



The other negative side effect that Dr. Perricone speaks about
regarding coffee concerns advanced glycation end products, or AGEs.
According to Dr. Perricone, AGEs are created in foods whenever they
are heated at high temperatures, and of course this happens to coffee
beans when they are roasted. Dr. Perricone maintains that the
consumption of AGEs is largely responsible for the pre-mature aging
that a body experiences. So, according to Dr. Perricone, a person who
wishes to look and feel young should avoid drinking coffee. Much of
what Dr. Perricone says makes sense, and I have taken to following his
advice in the preparation of food. I am not yet prepared to give up my
coffee, but women who have concerns about maintaining a wrinkle-free
face may want to consider such a drastic step.



In conclusion, drinking coffee in moderation is not the unhealthy
habit that many would have us to believe. Continue drinking your
coffee with a clear conscience, and continue walking every day. And if
you happen to be near the corner of Fernald Avenue and Lincoln Avenue
in Morton Grove, stop in at the Super Cup Coffee Shop. Bill will
provide you with a good cup of coffee at a decent price, and he will
provide some good conversation. Please be aware that he does not speak
Starbuckese, so you may need to explain your order in plain English.

From: http://jaajoe.com/Health-Nutrition-and-Medicine/