4. Coffee vs. Parkinson’s
People in Study Association to Coffee Hazard Ratio
301,164 Men Inverse in men
0.63, >=6 cups/d, P=
0.011
238,058 Women NS* in women 0.9, >=6 cups/d, P=0.57
Inverse in women who
never used estrogen 0.47, >=4 cups/d, P=0.11 NS, not significant
NS in women who ever
used estrogen 1.31, >=4 cups/d, P=0.93
77,713 Women
Inverse in women who
never used estrogen 0.5, 1-3 cups/d, P=0.06
Positive in women who
ever used estrogen 3.92, >=6 cups/d, P=0.26
8,000 Men Inverse in men
5.1, none vs. > 28 oz/d,
P<0.001
5. Coffee vs. Type II Diabetes
6 out of 9 studies
Have to drink more than 10 cups of coffee???
10. References
Andersen, L., Jacobs, D., Carlsen, M., & Blomhoff, R. (2006). Consumption of coffee is associated with reduced risk of death attributed to
inflammatory and cardiovascular diseases in the iowa women's health study. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 83(5), 1039-
1046.
Higdon, J., & Frei, B. (2006). Coffee and health: A review of recent human research. Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition, 46(2),
101-123. doi:10.1080/10408390500400009
Images from google stock, LIFE, and flickr
Notes de l'éditeur
There are a lot of people that drink a lot of coffee. Lots of them would like to believe that there is also some health benefits to them drinking all this coffee as well. After doing just a quick google search for the health claims for coffee these were some of the big ones that I saw. It is claimed that coffee can reduce the risk for cardiovascular disease, as well as help with people who have Parkinson’s. People who have, or may be at risk for Type II diabetes can also be helped with drinking coffee. Prevention against liver cancer can also be helped by drinking coffee. And surprisingly those who drink coffee actually suffer less from depression. Overall, the major thing that I read about the health claims for coffee is that the research for coffee health claims outweighs the bad and so more people are finding it acceptable to drink more coffee. However, I would warn that most of the tests that people are performing, the drinkers are probably drinking black coffee and by adding in cream and sugar would ruin some of the things that coffee claims to be healthy for.
Now lets take a look at some of these claims backed by studies and see what they say.
After looking up some studies I came across this one which was done in Iowa with a Women’s Health Study. In the study they were testing the effects of coffee on cardiovascular health and if drinking coffee could actually help prevent cardiovascular deaths. A total of 41,836 women ages 55-69 were followed around for 15 years to see the effects of them drinking coffee would have on their health. Some of them drank more coffee than others which is good because then it can give us a separation on how many cups of coffee may need to be consumed in order to have an effect on our health. What I have up here is a table for smokers and drinking coffee. Apparently there are a lot of people in Iowa who smoke cigarettes and this is a table that will show you just how much coffee you need to help bring down your risk for cardiovascular disease based on the amount of cigarettes that you smoke in a day. This is actually a very helpful table because it is said that a lot of people who drink coffee also seem to smoke. This way, if you are one of those people who smokes you can look at this table to see how much coffee you need to drink in a day in order to help bring down your cardiovascular risk without having to stop smoking. However, I would recommend that if you are smoking that you quit and your risk for cardiovascular disease will drop immensely.
Looking at the rest of the study and the results and the conclusion, it seems that they have come up with the conclusion that some people have better luck with coffee lowering the cardiovascular risks than others. Based on the whole study cardiovascular risk may reduce if you drink coffee. It is not guaranteed and it seemed you had to drink about 6 cups of coffee a day in order to see a major change in anything. This would show that it may not be worth it to drink coffee to reduce your risk for cardiovascular disease. There were some things that could have been better monitored in this study however. It seems that they more coffee that the participants drank, the more they consumed wine and smoked more cigarettes. This means that these things could have tweeked the results causing bad results.
According to this study that I found, they say that coffee and caffeine is inversely related to risk of Parkinson’s disease. In other words, by drinking coffee you are at less risk of Parkinson’s disease. In a study they looked at of 8,000 Japanese-American men, those who did not drink coffee were 3-5 times more likely to develop Parkinson’s disease compared to those who drank at least 28oz of coffee a day. In a study done by Cancer Prevention Study of about 500,000 men and women, they also found that coffee consumption was inversely related to Parkinson’s disease in men but strangely not women. However, they believe that this may be because the women may have been consuming medicine for estrogen replacement therapy and that apparently affects the results for this study.
6 out of the 9 studies that this article looked at found that there was an inverse relationship to drinking coffee and the risks with Type II diabetes. This is only 66% of studies saying that by drinking coffee you have a lower risk for developing Type II diabetes. You can pretty much take this however you want. Drink some coffee and just hope that it is going to help lower your risk or if you’re just not really big on coffee there would be no point in even drinking it. As you continue to look at the article you begin to see that they are telling you that some of these people are only seeing changes when they are drinking at least 10 cups of coffee. That is pretty absurd if you are not that big of a coffee drinker and definitely not worth it if you can find a better alternative than just drinking coffee.
After doing some research and looking around I was not able to find anything on this subject in particular.
Although I was not able to find any studies that specifically talked about this topic in general it was mentioned in some of the other studies that depression is helped when drinking coffee. Just like everything else though, coffee needs to be consumed in moderation and everything affects everyone differently so just because it works for someone else does not mean that it is going to work for you.
When consuming coffee make sure to take your time and don’t over do it. There is no need to be drinking more than 5 cups of coffee in a day if you do not absolutely need to. Try to stick to drip coffee, espresso and basic lattes. Once you begin to add special syrups, different types of milk and whip cream, you begin to add in the calories on your drink and the sugar content causing the coffee to no longer be all that good for you. The blacker your coffee the healthier it will end up being for you.
It has been said before, it will be said now, and it will be said again in the future. Everything can be good in moderation. If you drink nothing but coffee you will probably not be helping yourself but actually hurting yourself. That is why you need to think about how much these people are drinking in the studies. Do we believe that drinking this much coffee can actually beneficial to ourselves or is it just going to hurt us, not allow us to sleep, and give us caffeine rushes that we just do not need. There are other things out there that can help to reduce the risk of all of these diseases.