is drinking coffee & tea good for you?

Each morning two-thirds of Americans begin their day with a cup of coffee, accounting for a daily U.S. coffee consumption that exceeds 400,000,000 cups. Coffee is our number two beverage, second only to water. We all know that water is healthy. But what about coffee?

Question: Is coffee a “health food?” Answer: A qualified yes.

Dozens of scientific studies examining millions of Americans over time address the health impact of coffee. The largest and most recent studies consistently produce the same conclusion: coffee drinkers stay healthier and live longer than do those who don’t drink coffee.

A recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine analyzed the relationship between coffee consumption and mortality in more than 400,000 Americans. That study found that the more coffee a person had each day, the longer the person was likely to live.

When considering the potential benefits, it is important to take the research with a grain of salt.  Not literally, of course.  However, the data supporting these effects comes from observational studies. These sorts of studies can only identify associations; they cannot prove causality. This means that coffee (and tea, as discussed below) are associated with health benefits, but may not be directly responsible.

Question: Is this health benefit attributable to the caffeine? Answer: No

A standard-sized cup of coffee contains 95 to 200 mg of caffeine, and it is this caffeine that is responsible for a mild dependence/craving for that morning cup of coffee. Your body becomes used to the daily caffeine, and failure to deliver it often results in irritability, fatigue and headache. Conversely, the caffeine makes people feel more awake, increasing energy and alertness. But the caffeine in coffee is not responsible for other important health effects. We know this because decaffeinated coffee has been associated with all of the same health benefits as has caffeinated coffee.

Coffee contains hundreds of biologically active chemicals. It is likely that antioxidants and chemical compounds are responsible for the health effects of coffee. Furthermore, it is the combination of these agents, rather than the individual chemicals that seems to exert the beneficial biological effect.

Question: Are there health risks to coffee? Answer: Yes

Over the last five centuries, coffee has been linked to a variety of unfavorable conditions. In the 1500’s, the mayor of Mecca banned coffee because he thought it led to illegal sex. Subsequently, coffee was tied to impotence, stunted growth, heart attacks and cancer. None of this turned out to be true. But coffee does pose some health risks.

Drinking unfiltered coffee (boiled, espresso) may increase LDL-cholesterol; filtering the coffee removes the chemical responsible for this effect. Coffee can also decrease bone density, although the addition of two tablespoons of milk to a cup of coffee may help offset this effect. The caffeine in coffee can contribute to insomnia and irritability. Finally, the addition of sugar, cream and other high-calorie additives can turn a cup of coffee into a 500-calorie dessert, and that could add undesirable inches to your waistline over time. 

Although coffee is the most popular caffeinated beverage in the United States, tea is number one in the rest of the world. Derived from the Camellia sinensis plant native to China and India, tea comes in a variety of forms; however, only green tea, black tea, white tea and oolong tea are considered “real” tea. The particular type of tea produced depends upon the extent to which the tea leaves are processed.

Question: Is drinking tea a healthy behavior? Answer: Yes.

Like coffee, tea has been studied extensively. Although tea generally contains less caffeine than does coffee, it has been linked to similar health benefits.