there
are many advantages to being one of the 54 percent of Americans over 18
who drink coffee everyday. Coffee can be pretty amazing for your
brain, your skin and your body. Read on to discover 11 reasons you should wake
up and smell the coffee...
1. Americans
get more antioxidants from coffee than anything else.
According
to a study done in 2005, “nothing else comes close” to
providing as many antioxidants as coffee. While fruits and
vegetables also have tons of antioxidants, the human body seems
to absorb the most from coffee.
2. Just
smelling coffee could make you less stressed.
Researchers
at the Seoul National University examined the brains of rats who were stressed
with sleep deprivation and discovered that those who were exposed to coffee aromas
experienced changes in brain proteins tied to that stress. Note,
this aroma study doesn’t relate to stress by itself, only to the stress felt as
a result of sleep deprivation. Now, we’re not entirely sure if this means you
should keep a bag of roasted coffee beans on your nightstand every night, but
feel free to try!
3. Coffee
could lessen the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease.
ScienceDaily
reported in 2012 that drinking coffee may help people with Parkinson’s disease
control their movement. Ronald Postuma, MD, the study author, said,
“Studies have shown that people who use caffeine are less likely to develop
Parkinson’s disease, but this is one of the first studies in humans to show
that caffeine can help with movement symptoms for people who already have the
disease.”
4. Coffee
is great for your liver (especially if you drink alcohol).
A study
published in 2006 that included 125,000 people over 22 years showed that those who drink at least one cup
of coffee a day were 20 percent less to develop liver cirrhosis —
an autoimmune disease caused by excessive alcohol consumption that could lead
to liver failure and cancer. Arthur L Klatsky, the lead author of the study,
told The Guardian, “Consuming coffee seems to have some protective benefits
against alcoholic cirrhosis, and the more coffee a person consumes the less
risk they seem to have of being hospitalised or dying of alcoholic cirrhosis.”
Studies
have also shown that coffee can help prevent people from developing
non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). An international team of researchers
led by Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School revealed that drinking four or more cups of
coffee or tea a day may be beneficial in preventing the progression of NAFLD.
5. Coffee
can make you feel happier.
A study done by the National Institute of Health found
that those who drink four or more cups of coffee were about 10 percent less
likely to be depressed than those who had never touched the java. And
apparently it’s not because of the “caffeine high” — Coke can also give you a
caffeine high, but it’s linked to depression.
Study author, Honglei Chen, MD, PhD, told Prevention.com that
the proposed reason coffee makes you feel good is because of those trusty
antioxidants.
6. Coffee
consumption has been linked to lower levels of suicide.
A study done by the Harvard School
of Public Health determined that drinking between two and four
cups of coffee can reduce the risk of suicide in men and women by about 50
percent. The proposed reason is because coffee acts as a mild antidepressant by
aiding in the production of neurotransmitters like serotonin,
dopamine and noradrenaline.
7. Coffee
could reduce your chances of getting skin cancer (if you’re a woman).
Brigham
and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School followed 112,897 men and women over a 20-year period and,
apparently, women who drink three or more cups of coffee a day are much less
likely to develop skin cancer than those who don’t.
8. Coffee
can make you a better athlete.
The New
York Times reports, “Scientists
and many athletes have known for years, of course, that a cup of coffee before
a workout jolts athletic performance, especially in endurance sports like
distance running and cycling.” Caffeine increases the number of fatty
acids in the bloodstream, which allows athletes’ muscles to absorb
and burn those fats for fuel, therefore saving the body’s small reserves of
carbohydrates for later on in the exercise.
9. Coffee
could reduce your risk of developing Type 2 diabetes.
Coffee
also lowers risk of Type 2 diabetes,
according to a study from The American Chemical Society. The study’s
researchers found that people who drink four or more cups
of coffee a day reduce their chances of developing Type 2 diabetes by 50
percent. Subsequently, with every additional cup, the risk gets
lowered by 7 percent.
10. Drinking
coffee could help keep your brain healthier for longer.
Researchers
from the University of South Florida and the University of Miami found that
people older than 65 who had higher blood levels of caffeine developed Alzheimer’s disease two
to four years later than others with lower caffeine. Dr. Chuanhai Cao, a neuroscientist
at the USF, and co-author of the study, said, “We are not saying
that moderate coffee consumption will completely protect people from
Alzheimer’s disease. However, we firmly believe that moderate coffee
consumption can appreciably reduce your risk of Alzheimer’s or delay its
onset.”
11. Coffee
may make you more intelligent.
You
usually drink coffee when you are sleep-deprived, right? Well, that much-needed
jolt not only keeps you awake, it makes you sharper. CNN reports that coffee allows your brain
to work in a much more efficient and smarter way. TIME reporter, Michael Lemonick, says, “When
you’re sleep-deprived and you take caffeine, pretty much anything you measure
will improve: reaction time, vigilance, attention, logical reasoning — most of
the complex functions you associate with intelligence.”
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