Coffee – Healthy or Best Avoided?

Ever since I became a health coach, one of the most common questions I’ve encountered is whether coffee is fine or whether it might lead to health issues down the road. So I thought I’d tackle that one head on – and as ever the devil is in the detail. If you use it the right way then yes, it can be very healthy but if you make a few common mistakes, then not so much so… But don’t worry I think I have a few solutions for you on how to minimise the downsides whilst gaining significant benefits!

First of all let’s have a look at the (many) benefits of drinking coffee before we look at the dark side of coffee consumption…

Benefits of Drinking Coffee

Where do I begin? Coffee is a natural fermented, roasted and brewed beverage which has been consumed by humans since at least the mid 1400s… Over the last 10 or so years more and more benefits of drinking coffee have been reported in nutritional research, so to list the most significant:

General Benefits: 

• Coffee is full of micronutrients – eg Vitamins B1, B2, B3, B5, folate, potassium, magnesium and phosphorous. It also contains a significant amount of beneficial ‘antioxidants’ such as chlorogenic acid – so much so that most westerners obtain more antioxidants from coffee than fruits & veggies!
• The caffeine in coffee can provide a short-term boost brain function – improving mood, vigilance, reaction time and concentration.
• The caffeine can boost energy metabolism (ie how many calories you burn at rest) by 3-11%
• The caffeine can also boost exercise performance by 11-12% on average, hence its popularity as a ‘pre-workout’ supplement.

Coffee May Protect Your Brain!

• Coffee drinkers have a 65% lower risk of getting Alzheimer’s disease!
• Coffee drinkers have a 32-60% lower risk of Parkinson’s disease

Mental Health Benefits

• People who drink coffee have a 20% lower risk of depression.
• In one review, people who drank more than 3 cups of coffee a day were 53% less likely to commit suicide.

Coffee Reduces Your Risk of Type 2 Diabetes:

• Type 2 diabetes has rocketed in recent years and now affects over 300 million people.
• Coffee drinkers appear to have a 23-67% reduced risk of getting type 2 diabetes.
• In fact, one recent review showed that each daily cup of coffee reduces risk by 7%.

Coffee May Protect Against Liver Disease:

• Liver damage can be caused by regular and excessive use of alcohol and fructose in sugar – eventually leading to cirrhosis (excessive scar tissue) of the liver.
• Coffee drinkers have up to an 84% lower risk of developing cirrhosis – with the strongest effect being for those who drink more than 3 cups per day.
• Liver cancer is the second leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide – yet coffee drinkers have a 40% lower risk of this condition.

Coffee May Even Protect against Cancer:

• A study in 2018 identified a decreased risk of liver, ovarian, thyroid, and endometrial cancers and melanoma associated with higher coffee intake.

Coffee Drinkers Live Longer!

• Long-term research in people aged 50-71 identified that coffee drinkers had a significantly lower risk of dying over the 13 year study period – with the optimum intake being 4-5 cups of coffee per day. Males had a 12% reduced risk of dying over the study period, and females had a 16% reduced risk!

So with all these many benefits, surely we should all be downing Frappuccinos at all hours of the day? No! 

Downsides of Coffee:

• Coffee WILL reduce your sleep quality if drunk in the late afternoon/ early evening – even if it doesn’t effect the duration of your sleep and how easily you fall asleep. Studies performed by Professor Matthew Walker at USC Berkley have shown via MRI brain scanning that even those participants who thought coffee had no effect on their sleep had a severely disrupted ‘sleep architecture’ – ie a reduced sleep quality – particularly the ‘deep sleep’ phase.
• Consuming excessive levels of caffeine can lead to anxiety, heart palpitations and even increased incidence of panic attacks. It also frequently results in a low level inability to relax – which may manifest in impatience, short-temper and even lack of empathy – due to the heightened level of stress hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol.
• Coffee can have a powerful diuretic effect (frequent urination).
• Caffeine is a drug and believe it or not it is actually one of the most addictive! If you consume it every day then like all drugs, you’ll become tolerant to its effects and will need to keep upping the dose to get the same effect. If you’re unable to get your ‘fix’ then you’ll most probably feel exhausted, irritable and often suffer headaches and brain-fog – ie a lot worse than a non-coffee drinker. Yikes!
• The evolutionary purpose of caffeine was to initiate movement, exploration and to stimulate change (ie ‘seeking’ behaviour) – so if you’re not coupling your coffee consumption with exercise/ movement, stimulating discussion or creative thought, you may feel irritable, stuck and anxious.
• Unfiltered coffee (eg from a cafetiere/ espresso machine) contains a substance called cafestol which has been shown to increase cholesterol levels.
• And don’t get me started on all the problematic stuff which is often added to coffee – ie sugar, syrups, flavourings, sprinkles etc. You know what I think of those!

So, How Can We Maximise the Benefits of Coffee Whilst Minimising the Downsides?

So, the challenge is how can we leverage all those many wonderful benefits of coffee whilst side-stepping the potential drawbacks – and yes these tips will work for most people!

• Most importantly, aim to cut off your consumption of ALL caffeinated beverages after lunch – since we know this will affect your sleep quality – even if it doesn’t affect your sleep duration. If you’re particularly sensitive (like me) then try to cut off caffeine consumption by 10am. Just switch to decaff versions or any type of herbal tea after lunch.
• If you can, aim to have at least one day off between each day of coffee in order to prevent building up a tolerance to its effects. Some of my clients choose to drink tea throughout most of the week for a very mild caffeine boost and save coffee for the weekend…
• No surprise here – but avoid the added sugar, syrups, flavourings and sprinkles if you want to maximise the health benefits.
• If you have a sweet tooth, then add a healthy natural sweetener such as Stevia/ Erythritol/ Monkfruit – or even a teaspoon of raw honey.
• Instead of high-fat cream, I recommend unsweetened almond milk/ coconut milk. If you’re in a coffee shop most plant milks will be the sweetened variety, so for non-vegans I’d just recommend going with normal milk. Organic, unsweetened soya milk is another option – but I’d definitely recommend going organic when it comes to soya milk.
• If you have the option – use a paper filter to remove the ‘cafestol’ that may increase cholesterol in some individuals (metal filters are not fine enough apparently). Even if you have an espresso coffee maker at home, why not just pour the coffee through a paper filter after you have brewed it?
• Why not add a sprinkle of spices such as cinnamon – which has been shown to have blood stabilising effects?
• Or what about a teaspoon of raw cacao powder which has powerful benefits for your heart and circulatory system?
• Time your consumption of coffee so you can really make the most of the benefits of caffeine – eg just before embarking on some early morning creative work or challenging exercise. If you’re just using it to wake up, then consider my cool shower protocol instead (it’s not as difficult as it sounds!) – which will wake you up in no time – and has been shown to have a more prolonged effect than drinking coffee. More on that in a future post!

Should Anyone Be Avoiding Caffeinated Coffee?

If you fall into one of the following groups, you should probably significantly reduce or ideally cut out consumption of caffeinated coffee and monitor the impact on your health:

• Pregnant and breastfeeding women
• Sufferers of anxiety or insomnia – or just chronically feeling ‘tense’ throughout the day.
• If you have high blood pressure (in some instances coffee can slightly raise high blood pressure – although this can often be mitigated via regular exercise).
• If you are a slow-metaboliser of caffeine – ie it remains in your system for many hours after drinking it. (Slow metabolisers of caffeine may be at heightened risk of heart attack according to this study – particularly if drinking more than 3 cups per day.) You can determine this for yourself via genetic testing companies such as 23andme.

So – Should You Be Drinking Coffee or Not?

If you follow the above tips, then I believe coffee is an extremely healthy addition to your diet – which has many proven health benefits over the last 20 years. You can always switch to decaff after lunch to help minimise the impact on your sleep (although do bear in mind that decaff coffee still has some caffeine in it!) Just make sure you follow the caveats outlined above to really get the most benefit, and remember – a grande salted caramel Frappuccino drunk at 8pm is definitely not going to provide a net health benefit! 

Any questions on anything coffee-related – please just shoot me an email to rob@enhancedenergy.co.uk. And if you want to discover many other easy health tips you can incorporate into your day to day routine, why not sign up to the 2-week free trial to my Enhanced Energy online membership programme?