by JUSTIN LOCK Staff Writer
Coffee was thought to be bad for people’s health, but now studies show even that though coffee has some non-benefits, there are benefits for drinking coffee.
A benefit of drinking coffee is that it could protect people against diseases like Parkinson’s disease. It also contains a lot of antioxidants.
Coffee also contains chemicals that lower blood sugar, and people that drink coffee often can increase their metabolism to help protect against type 2 diabetes.
Researchers found that people that drink coffee were half as likely to get liver cancer compared to people that did not drink coffee.
Coffee is also said to increase a person’s metabolic rate, which means people burn calories quicker, so the body starts to burn fat instead. One study has shown that taking in 500 milliliters of coffee each day for four weeks lead to a two and a half kilograms (around 2 pounds) loss of weight.
Caffeine in coffee can speed up recovery and reduce muscle soreness after working out, according to one study. Another study has found caffeine can also improve a person’s reaction time based on a soccer skills test when athletes were sleep deprived.
Freshman Matt Skibenewski said, “Coffee just tastes really, really good like hot chocolate… I don’t drink it to help me wake up.”
Long-term studies show that coffee might not increase the risk of high blood pressure as thought in the past, and it improves the health of blood vessels.
However, in addition to coffee’s benefits, there are some drawbacks.
If a large amount of caffeine is taken in from several cups of coffee, it could cause restlessness, anxiety, irritability, and sleeplessness.
Nutritional Biochemist Stephen Cherniske has written that if a person was injected with 500 milligrams of caffeine, an hour later they would experience hallucinations, paranoia, panic, mania, or depression.
Side effects of coffee may vary for certain people and include headaches, insomnia, heartburn, fast heartbeat, and having to go to the bathroom often. For some people, coffee can upset their stomach.
The substances kahweol and cafestol in coffee can increase cholesterol levels when not filtered out.
Caffeine in coffee can increase stress hormones, which increases insulin. Insulin then increases inflammation, which makes people feel lousy.
People that drink coffee can also be addicted it and make it hard to rely on the body’s natural source of energy.
Sometimes people add cream and sugar to their coffee, which also increases the amount of fat and calories taken in.
Freshman Toni Rothchild said, “I like the taste and it is much better than hot chocolate or any other warm beverge.”
Studies show that coffee does not increase the risk of heart disease or cancer as thought in the past, since people did not consider other factors like people that drink coffee and smoke. The only exception is people that drink at least two cups of coffee a day and have a gene mutation that causes caffeine to be broken down slowly can have an increased risk of heart disease.
In 2010, Woody Will Smith claimed he was driven temporarily insane from caffeine intoxication, which lead him to murder his wife.
Do you think the benefits of coffee outweigh its non benefits?