The Real Side of Coffee
When a goatherd left his goats to graze and brought them home one night, he discovered that some of his goats simply didn’t sleep. He found this pattern repeating itself. One day, when he made it a point to follow his goats, he found that they had fed on the berries of a certain plant. He took the berries home and brewed a decoction of the strong liquid, and drank it up. Thus, was born Coffee. Today, most of us can’t seem to go a morning without the beverage, much less function around afternoon.
On the good side, Coffee has some interesting benefits that can help keep your health in good stead:
1. It can help reduce your risk of Type 2 diabetes by around 30%, particularly if they drank about 3-4 cups of coffee a day.
2. Coffee can keep cancer at bay, in that it has compounds that can activate proteins which have the capacity to repair DNA in the cells, and prevent them from turning cancerous.
3. Coffee can also help prevent strokes when taken in moderate amounts, given that its protein activation compounds can help keep your nerves healthy.
4. Your liver can benefit tremendously from coffee, by reducing the risk of liver cirrhosis and other liver diseases.
5. Coffee is also good for your brain. There are a range of studies that have shown that coffee protects the brain against Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease, and improves the brain’s cognitive function as well. Coffee is also good for the memory.
6. Coffee is filled with antioxidants that keep diseases at bay, as each bean has over 1000 phytochemicals (antioxidants) which fight harmful free radicals in the body and prevent diseases such as heart disease, skin ageing, cancer, gall stones and even cognitive decline.
Even as these good qualities may seem like Coffee should be a part of your diet for good measure, there are some issues that account for the downside as well.
1. Coffee can actually give you a headache because it dehydrates your body, and leave you with the kind of a headache that a hangover can leave you with.
2.Coffee can damage your skin and leave you with wrinkles. The caffeine content can leave your skin tough, wrinkled and weakened, and can make you look sallow. It can also stain your teeth.
3. Drinking too much coffee can cause your body to get rid of the extent of calcium through urine, and can culminate in osteoporosis through the reduction of bone density. It can also trigger arthritis and leave your body much weaker than a non-coffee drinker’s body.
4. Coffee can keep you up at night and leave you as a bit of an insomniac, especially because the consumption of caffeine can affect your circadian rhythm, i.e., your body clock. Your body needs six hours to flush the caffeine out of your system – and over-consumption can throw your system out of balance.
5. Unfiltered coffee could be bad for your cholesterol because it contains cafestol and kahweol, which can increase your bad cholesterol. It can also cause acidity, being a highly acidic beverage that can irritate the stomach lining.
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