Do Not Give Up Coffee
Both regular and decaf boost your health
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It seems that the more that we learn more about food, the less we get to eat — at least with a clear conscience. However, just as science taketh away, it giveth also. Your morning cup of coffee is a good example: It’s not a “guilty pleasure,” it’s just a pleasure. And one that you should certainly keep enjoying because coffee’s salubrious qualities are likely active contributors to your health.
Do you know the number one cause of death in the United States? It’s cardiovascular disease, claiming “more lives each year than all forms of cancer and Chronic Lower Respiratory Disease combined,” according to a 2019 report by the American Heart Association. Second place goes to cancer, predicted to claim 606,000 people in 2019 by the National Cancer Institute. Over the course of a full adult life, an American male has a 39.3% chance of being diagnosed with cancer, while American females fare only slightly better at 37.7%.
You can thank an unlikely combatant for helping to defend against these crippling ailments: coffee.
In a 2019 meta-analysis of 40 studies, encompassing results from over 3 million subjects, drinking coffee was found to lower the chance of death from cancer or cardiovascular disease. Moreover, researchers from the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health and Kyung Hee University found an inverse relationship between coffee consumption and all-cause mortality — this means that coffee consumption lowers your chance of dying from any cause. Remarkably, these relationships were maintained irrespective of age, overweight status, alcohol consumption, and caffeine content of the coffee. How coffee protects us from plane crashes and unwieldy falling pianos is beyond me, but who am I to question the undeniable super-drink?
Coffee ranks as the 11th best source of antioxidants, even surpassing strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries.
While scientists don’t yet entirely understand how coffee exhibits these protective effects, they have a few ideas.
According to Youjin Je, assistant professor at Kyung Hee University, “coffee contains various antioxidant components such as caffeine, chlorogenic…
