The pros and cons of coffee, stop worrying about whether you can drink it

Coffee, tea and cocoa are known as the three major beverages in the world. Coffee has been well known to Westerners for three hundred years, but in the East, coffee has been popular among all social classes as a beverage for even longer periods of time.

Caffeine has a particularly strong bitter taste, which stimulates the central nervous system, heart and respiratory system. A moderate amount of caffeine can also reduce muscle fatigue and promote the secretion of digestive juices. Because it promotes kidney function and has a diuretic effect, it helps the body excrete excess sodium ions. However, excessive intake can lead to caffeine poisoning. Let's take a look at the benefits and disadvantages of coffee, and whether we should drink it!

Nine benefits of coffee

1. Coffee accelerates skin metabolism, speeds up the excretion of waste keratin, and lightens dark circles caused by poor circulation. In addition, it is an anti-oxidant. Drinking coffee regularly can keep skin cells full of vitality, prevent cell oxidation, and play a great role in anti-aging.

2. Drinking coffee can prevent and fight cancer

If you drink more than three cups of caffeine a day, women will have a 21% lower risk of developing basal cell carcinoma than those who drink less than one cup of coffee a month. At the same time, caffeine can also effectively inhibit the growth of tumors in the body.

If women drink 4-6 cups of coffee a day, the incidence of breast cancer will be reduced by 25%-70%, even for women with a family history of breast cancer. This is because coffee can reduce the production of estrogen, which has a carcinogenic effect.

3. Drinking coffee after meals nourishes the stomach and aids digestion

Drinking coffee after a meal is good for stomach health. But on the contrary, if you drink coffee on an empty stomach, the secreted gastric juice will damage the gastric mucosa, thus damaging stomach health.

People who love meat are best to drink coffee after meals, which has a good effect of removing greasiness and aiding digestion. In addition, the content of soluble dietary fiber in coffee is higher than that in orange juice, and caffeine can also stimulate the intestines to speed up peristalsis. Therefore, drinking coffee has the effect of relieving constipation.

4. In recent years, many studies have shown that drinking coffee can greatly reduce the risk of cirrhosis and liver cancer, and the polyphenols contained in coffee can also protect our liver. Therefore, we recommend that hepatitis patients drink some coffee every day, which can repair liver cells well.

Drinking coffee helps reduce the risk of liver disease in people who drink alcohol, are overweight, have diabetes or iron overload, but there is no evidence that coffee and tea reduce the risk of chronic liver disease due to fatty liver disease or viral hepatitis.

5. Drinking coffee can prevent radiation damage

Radiation damage has become a prominent pollution and hazard at present. Especially the radiation from household appliances: such as people who use computers for a long time, microwave ovens, TV sets at home, etc. Especially for pregnant women, the radiation has affected the health of the next generation. Some studies have shown that coffee may help prevent radiation damage.

6. Drinking coffee can relieve sports soreness

Drinking two cups of coffee after exercise can help relieve muscle soreness. A research report pointed out that drinking coffee can help people relieve muscle pain caused by excessive exercise. Although caffeine can relieve exercise pain, it is often only effective for people who do not drink coffee often.

7. Drinking coffee can help you sober up

Chlorogenic acid in coffee can prevent alcohol poisoning. After drinking alcohol and coffee, acetaldehyde converted from alcohol will be rapidly oxidized, decomposed into water and carbon dioxide and excreted from the body.

8. Drinking coffee can prevent depression

People who drink coffee regularly will feel happier, less irritable, and better in mood. When you are irritable or depressed, drinking a cup of coffee can really calm your mood.

9. Drinking coffee can prevent gallstones

Some studies suggest that caffeinated coffee can stimulate gallbladder contraction and reduce the cholesterol in bile that is prone to forming gallstones. Drinking coffee can reduce the risk of people suffering from common and painful gallstone disease.

After reading this, do you think coffee is so good that you don’t want to drink any other beverages anymore? However, don’t be happy too soon. Let’s talk about the disadvantages of drinking coffee.

1. It can easily lead to infertility

Researchers have found that women who drink a cup of coffee a day are more likely to suffer from infertility than those who do not drink coffee. Relevant experts have investigated 104 women who have the habit of drinking coffee. Among them, about 50 women are not easy to conceive. Some fertility experts also believe that this is a small-scale study and cannot finally confirm the special effect of coffee on fertility. However, researchers emphasize that if the cause of infertility cannot be explained medically, it should be considered that infertility is related to caffeine.

2. The risk of myocardial infarction increases by 70%

Increased risk of myocardial infarction Medical scientists from the Boston University School of Public Health conducted a four-year study on 858 women aged 45-69 who suffered their first myocardial infarction and 858 women who had never suffered a myocardial infarction. The results showed that drinking 5 cups of coffee or more a day can increase women's risk of myocardial infarction by 70%, and the risk increases with the amount of coffee consumed.

3. Drinking just a few cups of coffee a day can raise your blood pressure

Pregnancy-induced hypertension is a disease that is unique to pregnant women. Patients experience edema, high blood pressure and proteinuria. If not treated in time, it can endanger the safety of the mother and the fetus. According to an Australian study, drinking just a few cups of coffee a day can increase blood pressure. For this reason, pregnant women should not drink coffee.

4. Prone to osteoporosis

Researchers at the University of California, USA, conducted a survey on 980 elderly women aged 50-98. The results showed that elderly women who drink more than 2 cups of coffee a day without milk for a long time will have lower bone density in the hip and spine regardless of their age and obesity. The degree of reduction is related to the duration of the habit and the amount of drinking. This is because caffeine can combine with free calcium in the human body and be excreted through urine. The reduction of free calcium will inevitably cause the decomposition of bound calcium, thus leading to osteoporosis.

5. Drinking coffee regularly can cause fetal malformations

Pregnant women drinking coffee is harmful to the fetus. In the early 1980s, Dr. Colin of the US Food and Drug Administration found in an experiment that if pregnant mice were fed an amount of coffee equivalent to that of an adult drinking 12-24 cups of coffee a day, they would give birth to deformed mice. For this reason, the researchers warned pregnant women on behalf of the US Food and Drug Administration to stop drinking coffee.

6. Adding to the chaos when you are nervous

Many people know that drinking coffee in moderation can improve our alertness and sensitivity, but this is only limited to a moderate amount. If you drink too much coffee, it will produce a similar effect as taking the same dose of stimulants, which will cause nervousness. Especially for people with propensity disorders, caffeine can make symptoms such as sweaty palms, palpitations, and tinnitus worse.

In a tense environment, many people tend to drink coffee habitually, and the more tense they are, the more they drink. This leads to more agitation and excitement, which in turn leads to mistakes in a hurry, which is not worth the loss.

7. Aggravate high blood pressure

The disadvantages of drinking coffee also involve high blood pressure. If you have high blood pressure, then it is best to avoid coffee. Coffee itself has an analgesic effect and is often combined with other simple analgesics. However, long-term and large-scale consumption will only make your condition worse for patients with high blood pressure.

Because caffeine alone can raise blood pressure, if coupled with emotional tension, it will produce a dangerous multiplication effect, so people with high blood pressure should not drink coffee or any beverages containing caffeine when they are working hard. Some people who drink coffee regularly think they are immune to caffeine, but this is not the case. A study shows that after drinking a cup of coffee, blood pressure can rise for up to 12 hours.

Summarize :

After reading this article, you may feel confused and still not sure whether you can drink it or not. It actually depends on who you ask. We have said that coffee can prevent heart disease, reduce the incidence of breast cancer, and alleviate Alzheimer's disease, but if you investigate further, you will find that coffee can also increase your risk of contracting various diseases.

Part of the reason may be that some components of coffee are good for the body, while others are harmful. For example, coffee contains antioxidants, which can help cells resist damage from unstable molecules. At the same time, some researchers have suggested that drinking hot coffee may increase the risk of esophageal cancer because hot coffee can burn the esophagus.

Lifestyle factors can also affect the results. Studies have shown that people who drink more coffee are more likely to smoke and drink alcohol, and they are more likely to be under a lot of stress, which can affect the positive effects of coffee drinking habits on the human body. Even some seemingly harmless habits, such as adding milk or sugar to coffee, can confuse the results.

If you're not sure whether you should continue drinking coffee, don't worry. Most public health experts believe that coffee has more benefits than disadvantages. The strongest opinion comes from a 2014 meta-analysis that integrated studies on the relationship between long-term coffee drinking and cancer, heart disease, and mortality from 1996 to 2013. Overall, coffee is still beneficial, so drink it with confidence.

(The text is original and the pictures are from the Internet)