Preventing Disease with Coffee
Let’s not just start the New Year off right, let’s make a plan to start off each day right with a cup of coffee. The start of a New Year can be daunting for some as New Year’s resolutions can become more of a stressful burden than an actual realistic challenge to bettering one’s mind or body. This year, understand how simply drinking coffee can better your overall health significantly.
Coffee is an absolute routine for some and for others it is a sporadic consumption for a simple caffeine boost. For both, however, it is a step in the right direction for preventive health care. Numerous studies have concluded that coffee, whether caffeinated or decaffeinated, consumed at higher amounts, can aid in the prevention of (1) Type 2 Diabetes, (2) Heart Disease, and (3) Endometrial Cancer.
Frank Hu, MD, MPH, PhD, Nutrition and Epidemiology Professor at the Harvard School of Public Health, explains that habitual coffee intake is beneficial in reducing the risk for Type 2 Diabetes as the magnesium and chromium levels aid the body in using insulin to control the blood sugar level. Additionally, coffee, which is packed with antioxidants, can prevent heart disease reducing risk by 13% in women and 28% in men. Specific to women, Hu’s colleague, Edward Giovannucci, MD, found that long-term coffee drinkers are less likely to have endometrial cancer. For 26 years he studied over 60,000 women observing 627 with the disease and concluded that drinking 4+ cups per day resulted in a 25% reduced risk for endometrial cancer.
Overall, benefiting from coffee must come from a larger daily consumption (2-3 cups) over a longer period of time. Think that’s a lot to drink? Let’s look at it this way: the average medium coffee purchased is between 16 and 18 ounces equaling just over two cups. Today’s one cup is more like two, so drink up!