Load Up On Joe And Live Longer
Oh yeah? Well, if you base your beliefs on the results of a study conducted by researchers at the University of Madrid, drinking a lot of coffee can increase your lifespan. The study involved men and women who consumed large amounts of coffee and they found out that the risk of death of these people were considerably lower than those who didn’t drink coffee.
Coffee drinkers in the study had slightly lower death rates than non-coffee drinkers over time, whether their drink of choice had caffeine or not.
The findings do not prove that coffee is protective, but they strongly suggest that drinking coffee in large amounts is not harmful if you are healthy, researcher Esther Lopez-Garcia, Ph.D., of the University of Madrid, tells WebMD.
Among women, drinking two to three cups of coffee a day was associated with an 18 percent reduction in death from all causes, while drinking four to five cups was associated with a 26 percent reduction in risk.
The risk reduction in men was smaller and could have been due to chance.
“We can’t say from this one study that coffee extends your life, but it does appear that it doesn’t increase the risk for death for people who are healthy,” she says.
Oops – apparently I was a bit overexcited. There is indeed a reduction in death BUT there might be other factors in play. Again, I stick by my original belief – try to stay healthy and drink as much coffee as you think you need. If you feel ill effects because of too much coffee, then reduce intake. It’s as simple as that.
Photo courtesy of javaturtle
How Many Calories In A Cup Of Coffee?
I don’t really want to answer this question, to be honest. I’d rather enjoy my daily cup – or cups, to be more accurate – and not think about how many calories I take in each time I take a sip of this wonderful brew. Yet what can I do? Health is of utmost importance as well. If I am to gain some benefit from my attempts at exercise (as small as they are, I have to day), I have to watch what I take in in terms of calories as well.
So, after some research, here is what I came up with. The good news is that plain black coffee contains zero fat and very few calories. That means I can drink as many cups of black coffee that I want, right? The bad news is that I like more than plain black coffee! I like Coffee Mate (as you might know by now) – 2 heaping tablespoons of it in every cup. How many calories does this add? According to the Mayo Clinic, one tablespoon plain nondairy creamer has 33 calories. That means 66 calories per cup for me! Whew! For other “extras” and their corresponding calories, check out the Mayo Clinic’s data.
How about Starbucks coffee? My favorite is café latte which, according to Diet Bites, has a whopping 260 calories in it! By the way, that is with whole milk in it. Other combinations range from 160 to 210 calories. For more information on other drinks, go here.
So, will this affect my coffee intake? Maybe I’ll lessen my Starbucks visits. Maybe I’ll put 1 tablespoon of creamer instead of 2. What I know for sure is I’ll still have a cup or two – or even three, a day.
Coffee Can Increase Risk of Miscarriage?
Alright I am officially confused. If you recall, I posted an entry on Coffee and the Risk of Miscarriage a week or so ago. That post was all about a study stating that small amounts of coffee during the early stages of pregnancy do not increase the risk of miscarriage. Today, I saw an article on Yahoo about a study that states that coffee can double the risk of having a miscarriage! So which one do I believe?
According to Dr. De-Kun Li of Kaiser Permanente Division of Research:
Women who are pregnant or are actively seeking to become pregnant should stop drinking coffee for three months or hopefully throughout pregnancy.
Ok, that was the original premise. She qualifies her statement though:
To me, the safe dose is zero. If you really have to drink coffee, try to limit it to one cup or at the most two cups.
There you go – the limit is 2 cups, which the first research we featured also mentioned. So I guess it is the amount that determines the results. Anyhow, another research done at Harvard Medical School shows that coffee decreases the risk of ovarian cancer. Researcher Shelley Tworoger says:
With regard to caffeine and caffeine-containing beverages, we generally observed a lower risk of ovarian cancer with increasing intake.
This, at least, is a positive thing for us coffee drinkers, don’t you think? Just a note – decaffeinated coffee does not count. Apparently, it is the amount of caffeine intake that has the benefits.
Coffee and the Risk of Miscarriage
One of the biggest concerns of female coffee lovers is the fact that they would have to cut themselves off from their favorite brew once they become pregnant – at least that is the popular belief. A new research conducted at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City gives us hope with regard to drinking small amounts of coffee even during pregnancy.
According to Dr. David A. Savitz, the proponent of the study, “Based on what we’ve seen, it’s not a cause for great concern.” He was talking about the fact that there even if a pregnant woman drinks coffee, the risk of miscarriage does not increase. Of course, he was talking about moderate coffee intake here, moderate being less than 2 cups of coffee per day.
As a matter of fact, similar studies have been conducted in the past. However, Savitz’s study is a bit different because of the fact that his subjects reported the consumption of coffee before pregnancy and during the early stages of pregnancy.
So what are the implications? I, for one, am quite happy to have a solid scientific basis that I do not have to totally cut myself off from coffee if I get pregnant. Of course, it does not mean that I can continue drinking 3 to 5 cups of coffee a day – less than 2 cups would have to do.
Then again, I am sure that there will be some people who would be a bit iffy about drinking coffee while pregnant. You can’t get rid of old beliefs that easily. My suggestion is for you to consult with your OB and make the decision for yourself.
Coffee for the Skin
I depend on my morning cup of coffee. I’d rather have brewed coffee, of course, but when on trips, sometimes, I have had to settle for the instant kind. It does not matter, as long as I have my morning dose of caffeine – taken orally in the form of a hot cup of coffee.
I was pleasantly surprised and amused when I read about skin care companies experimenting with coffee-based products, though. Does coffee have skin care properties? Though I have not really seen or tried these products, it seems that in the US and other world markets, coffee-based skin products were released last year.
The idea is that caffeine perks you up – thus my dependence on that morning cup. Skin care companies think that if applied topically, their coffee-based products could perk you up as well and make your skin look and feel better. I don’t know about this, but it could work.
Then again, if you are thinking of using coffee-based skin products to perk you up, I doubt that it will be as effective and as enjoyable as simply brewing a pot of coffee and drinking a cup or two. For one, though the products may contain caffeine, I doubt that there is enough there to give you a jolt. Another thing is that these products are applied topically. That means that if the caffeine is to enter your blood stream, it has to go through the skin – that takes a while and the amount is probably small. The bright side is that you will smell like coffee all day long!
In any case, these products should be worth a try, don’t you think?
Coffee and Antioxidants
I am sure you’ve heard all about this before. I wouldn’t be surprised if coffee companies start producing TV commercials promoting the health benefits of coffee because of antioxidants – they probably have! In any case, how true is this? Is coffee really good for our health because of the amount of antioxidants it contains?
There have been different studies about this matter but here is one done by Joe A. Vinson, a chemistry professor at the University of Scranton, Pennsylvania. According to his study:
“The average adult consumes 1,299 milligrams of antioxidants daily from coffee. The closest competitor was tea at 294 milligrams. Rounding out the top five sources were bananas, 76 milligrams; dry beans, 72 milligrams; and corn, 48 milligrams. According to the Agriculture Department, the typical adult American drinks 1.64 cups of coffee daily.”
What’s this again – in English, please? Coffee does contain a high amount of antioxidants. The question that remains is whether the antioxidants are enough to offset some of the possible negative effects of coffee.
Don’t get me wrong – I can’t survive without coffee. But I also know that too much coffee (I don’t want to admit that there is something such as too much coffee, really) can induce hyperacidity, among other things. Some people feel jittery. Others (naturally) have a hard time falling asleep. The effects are different with different people.
I am no scientist but at this point, if they say coffee has antioxidants and that it can be good for you, I take it as a good thing. Whether or not it has antioxidants, I still love this drink, don’t you?
Why People Prefer Coffee with Jelly Drinks?
Every item, drink or food that is presented in the world today will always have its impact on people. People always look for something new. Adding whipped cream, caramel syrup and even this new entry in the market, that of which have been termed coffee jelly, will always arouse the curiosity of people in any region.
Coffee jelly is something that is not different from the usual jelly bits that people would consume. The only difference is that of its color and appealing coffee flavor. There is no nutritional additives that would make coffee different from the usual beverage that a person would consume. It is more of a person finding some new ways of enhancing their drink wherever they may be.
One can say that such would be more of a psychological attribute towards drink or food consumption. But with regards to new food and beverage preferences, people will always find something different to make such things addictive to the average consumer.
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Wake-Up Call and Coffee
All people have to sleep some time and all people have to stay awake as well. This is what the caffeine in coffee brews offer, especially the black brewed coffee known to give that extra kick to wake up the drowsy eyed person.
Offices store coffee for a reason. It is not primarily because your boss would want a cup every time he walks into his office. It is a necessity for people who need to work hard on routine work and at times during extended hours to get the job done. Deadlines are the easiest underlying culprits to which people need to resort to drinking coffee to keep them awake.
It has been proven over the years that coffee wakes up minds. But the consumption level should also be monitored since excess intake may lead to nervous misalignments and may be bad for the overall health of a person especially if he abuses his health and lacks the necessary sleep to recharge his normal stored energy.
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Coffee Cups and Work
Employees would usually see the usual Styrofoam coffee cups at work. Usually a person would need a wakeup call of sorts since chances are, people would start a day slow before their adrenaline would start pumping and energize them to perform their assigned tasks and move through the motions of taking part in a hyperactive working environment.
Coffee is believed to make people awake, get them on their feet and continued to perform duties as needed. This especially holds true for people who need to put in the extra hour to accomplish work, notably the people who need to perform overtime work to meet deadlines.
So what does a coffee in coffee cups bring? It offers a formula for being awake and get on with the job expected to be delivered. Caffeine may be bad for the body, but in times of need, the human mind and body will need all the assistance it would need from any source available and possible.
Technorati Tags: coffee, caffeine, work, office, organization
Preserving the Quality of Coffee Beans
The quality of coffee beans depends on how people would store them and be sensitive to the various forces that would allow it to lose its fine quality after harvesting. A good thing to note is that exposing these beans to open air contributes to losing its actual quality. This is why it has been a practice to keep coffee in tightly sealed containers so that people can consume them at any time they would wish.
Storing them as well in cold temperatures, help retain its level of freshness. Freezing them is a good practice especially for coffee beans that are not immediately consumed and are meant for storing. This allows people to consume them at any time they wish wherever they are.
It should also be good to note not to place them beside aromatic food such as garlic and onions. Coffee beans absorb odors and once placed beside high aromatic elements, chances are that the coffee beans would solicit their smell.
