COFFEE:
SURPRISING BENEFITS, SURPRISING RISKS
It’s a hot summer afternoon, and the benches outside my
local Starbucks are packed with people who share the
craving that brought me here--iced coffee. I love hot
coffee, but in July, adding ice transforms it from my
favorite pick-me-up into the perfect summer refreshment.
During iced coffee season, my consumption increases, and
the extra caffeine gets my mind racing. Does coffee counts
toward the eight glasses of fluids we’re supposed to drink
each day? And what about the headlines I’ve seen about
coffee raising risk of heart disease and cancer? I know
what my iced coffee is doing for me. But what’s it doing to
me?
Quite a bit, it turns out--most of it surprisingly
beneficial. The caffeine in coffee (and tea, colas, and to
a lesser extent, cocoa and chocolate) is, quite possibly,
the world’s most frequently used drug. Like any drug, it
should be used consciously and carefully. Fortunately, for
those of us who drink no more than a cup or two of coffee a
day, the good news outweighs the bad.
COFFEE BENEFITS, COFFEE RISKS
First, about those eight glasses of fluids: Coffee has some
diuretic action, raising a red flag that it might
contribute to dehydration. But in a recent report, the
National Institutes of Health’s Institute of Medicine,
concluded that caffeine’s diuretic effect is fleeting and
does not contribute to significant fluid loss. Beyond that,
the scientific pendulum is swinging away from the notion
that it’s best for health to “stay ahead of thirst,” that
is, to load up on fluids so we never actually get thirsty.
According to recent reports by the British Medical Journal,
the and USA Track and Field, the governing body for
American track and field sports, forcing fluids causes more
harm than minor dehydration, and thirst is the best way to
gauge when and how much to drink. So if coffee quenches
your thirst, enjoy it. You don’t have to obsess over the
fact that it’s a mild diuretic.
The main benefit of coffee--no surprise--is the buzz that
gets us up in the morning, keeps us alert while driving,
and prevents nodding off in boring meetings. But the latest
research shows that in addition to boosting alertness,
coffee also improves brain power. British researchers gave
people either roughly the amount of caffeine in a 16 oz
cola (60 mg), or the amount in an 8-ounce Starbucks coffee
(250 mg). Both doses improved performance on intellectual
tests. Coffee also elevates mood. So if you want to appear
perky and smart, a little java couldn’t hurt.
Here’s more reassuring news: Despite periodic scare
headlines that it increases risk of cancer and heart
disease, the weight of the evidence shows that coffee has
been falsely accused. As part of the ongoing Nurses Health
Study, Harvard researchers followed 85,700 female nurses
for 10 years. Their conclusion: Coffee “is not an important
cause of coronary heart disease.” Meanwhile, after tracking
large numbers of people for many years, Italian, Spanish,
and Swedish researchers have concluded that coffee plays no
significant role in cancers of the breast, colon, rectum,
bladder, or pancreas. Nor does coffee contribute to
osteoporosis, or mental health problems.
Coffee also has some positive health benefits. It reduces
risk of gallstones. If you’re not concerned about
gallstones, you should be. Gallstones afflict more than 20
million Americans. A million new cases are diagnosed
annually. And the treatment, gallbladder removal, is the
leading reason for gastrointestinal surgery, costing the
health care system $2 billion a year. Harvard researchers
tracked coffee consumption in 127,000 men and women for
many years. Two to three daily cups of coffee reduced the
men’s gallstone risk 40 percent and the women’s 22 percent.
“Gallstones form when cholesterol crystallizes in the
gallbladder,” says Michael Leitzmann, M.D. an investigator
with the nutritional epidemiology branch of the National
Cancer Institute. “Coffee prevents this crystallization.”
Evidence is also mounting that moderate coffee
drinking--one to three daily cups--helps protect against
Parkinson’s disease.
Finally, coffee reduces risk of Type 2 diabetes--but only
if you’re a java junkie. Some 18 million Americans have
diabetes, and 90 percent of them have type 2, meaning that
they make enough insulin, but their cells have trouble
using it. Diabetes can be deadly. It’s a major risk factor
for heart disease. But several recent studies show that
coffee helps prevent it. In a recent Harvard study that
followed 126,000 men and women for 12 years, increasing
coffee consumption decreased diabetes risk--a little for
one to three cups a day, but up to 54 percent in those
drinking six daily cups or more. Caffeine stimulates
release of insulin, and coffee is high in magnesium, which
protects against diabetes. Of course, if I drank enough
coffee to see my diabetes risk plummet, I’d be so wired
that I’d never fall asleep. There are better ways to
prevent diabetes than overdosing on coffee--more exercise
and weight control. But even a daily cup or two helps a
little, and that’s beneficial.
With so much upside, you might be tempted to call coffee a
health drink. Not so fast. Everyone knows that drinking
more than your personal tolerance causes jitters, insomnia,
and shortness of temper. Beyond that, some evidence
suggests that coffee raises fluid pressure in the eye and
contributes to glaucoma.
Coffee’s biggest downside is its effect on women’s
fertility. Coffee delays conception and increases risk of
miscarriage. Several studies show that drinking more than
one cup a day makes it harder for women to get pregnant.
For three months, Danish researchers followed 423 couples
who were trying to conceive. Compared with those who drank
less than one cup a day, conception rates were 12 percent
lower in women who drank one to two cups, and 37 percent
lower in women who drank more than two cups a day. “We’re
not sure why coffee is associated with delayed conception,”
says Michael Bracken, Ph.D., a professor of epidemiology at
Yale, “but we know that coffee decreases levels of estrogen
and prolactin, two hormones involved in fertility.”
(However men hoping to become fathers might have an extra
cup. Some studies suggest that caffeine boosts the stamina
of sperm.)
As if delayed conception isn’t bad enough, several studies
show that pregnant women who drink more than a cup a day
have an unusually high rate of spontaneous abortion. In one
involving 1500 pregnant women, Danish researchers
discovered that daily intake of more than 375 mg of
caffeine, the amount in a 12-ounce Starbucks coffee, more
than doubled risk of miscarriage.
Robert Barbieri, M.D. chief of obstetrics and gynecology at
Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, advises pregnant
women and those trying to conceive to limit their caffeine
intake to no more than 250 mg a day, approximately the
amount in an 8-ounce Starbucks coffee.
DRINK WITH A CLEAR CONSCIENCE
While a cup or two a day won’t hurt most Americans, coffee
can hurt Mother Earth and the people who grow the beans,
mostly impoverished small farmers in tropical nations. This
realization has given birth to coffee activism, a small,
but growing movement of coffee enthusiasts who reject
“corporate coffee” in favor of “fair trade” coffee that’s
usually “shade-grown,” “bird-friendly,” and “organic.”
Coffee grows in sun or shade. Corporate coffee plantations
prefer sun because it allows mechanized farming that
increases yields. But sun-grown coffee involves clearing
tropical forests and destroying the vast number of plants
and animals, notably birds, they support. Shade-grown,
bird-friendly coffee preserves tropical forests, flora, and
fauna.
Organic means grown without pesticides. Non-organic coffee
contains pesticide residues, usually a few parts per
billion. There is no compelling evidence that these
residues harm coffee drinkers, but farmers who work with
pesticides have unusually high cancer rates. If you buy
organic produce, chances are you’ll gravitate toward
organic coffee. Because organic coffee costs more, sellers
might be tempted to label their product organic when it
isn’t. You can be reasonably confident that coffee is
really organic if it’s “certified organic” by the Organic
Crop Improvement Association.
Fair trade means that the coffee comes from a company,
often a nonprofit, that buys beans direct from small
growers, bypassing the corporate coffee system. Currently,
according to coffee activist Robert Rice, Ph.D., a
geographer and policy researcher at the Smithsonian
Institution in Washington, D.C., the major coffee
corporations pay growers a starvation wage of 50 cents a
pound. Fair trade companies such as TransFair USA
(www.transfairusa.org) or Global Exchange
(www.globalexchange.org), pay at least $1.26 per pound,
which improves growers’ standard of living and helps them
produce organic, shade-grown, bird-friendly coffee. Fair
Trade coffee currently accounts for only about 1 percent of
the U.S. coffee market, but it’s it one of the fastest
growing segments of the coffee market.
“As a coffee consumer,” Rice explains, “you have a choice.
You can buy corporate coffee that destroys tropical
forests, erodes tropical land, pays growers a pittance, and
subjects them to pesticides and you to pesticide residues.
Or you can buy fair trade coffee that’s usually organic,
often shade-grown, protects tropical land, forests, and
wildlife, and pays growers at a living wage.”
Coffee is the world’s best-tasting drug--especially over
ice on a hot summer day. The good news is that unless you
can’t cope with coffee jitters, or you have glaucoma or a
family history of it, or you’re a woman who’s pregnant or
trying to conceive, a daily cup or two won’t harm you, and
it just might do you some good. In fact, the main hazards
of coffee don’t concern drinkers’ health, but the health of
the growers and the land where it’s grown. “Fair Trade
coffee costs more,” Rice explains, “but it allows you to
drink locally while thinking globally.”
Sidebar:
Deciphering Decaf
Decaffeinated coffee is a misnomer. It’s not entirely
caffeine-free. Decaffeination removes more than 99 percent
of caffeine, but what remains translates to about 3 mg per
cup--very little, but still enough to upset some people who
are super-sensitive. Coffee can be decaffeinated using just
water (“Swiss water process”), or carbon dioxide, or
industrial chemicals, notably methylene chloride. The Food
and Drug Administration considers chemical decaffeination
safe, but if you gravitate toward organic coffee and
produce, you might opt for water or CO2 process.
Sidebar:
Banishing Bitterness
Coffee’s rich, complex flavor includes some bitterness--too
much for some palates. If you prefer less bitterness: Buy a
medium roast (as opposed to dark). Use a coarse grind. And
use drip brewing (instead of boiling or French press).
Sidebar:
Coffee Boosts Pain Relief
Anacin and Excedrin claim that their “extra ingredient”
provides greater pain relief than plain aspirin. The extra
ingredient is caffeine, and the claim is true. Many studies
show that adding around 65 mg of caffeine to pain
relievers--aspirin, ibuprofen, acetaminophen, and
others--increases pain relief by about 40 percent. Caffeine
blocks pain perception, has pain-relieving action, and
elevates mood, which also helps relieve pain. Next time you
have a headache, instead of washing down your favorite pain
reliever with water, try a cup of coffee, tea, or cola.
You’ll get more pain relief.