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Best time to drink coffee

The best time to drink coffee? Probably not what you are used to

By Health & Beauty

It’s always time to drink coffee. Or is it?

If you’re used to gulping a gallon of coffee as soon as you jump out of bed, you might want to rethink your habits.

Let’s start with a bit of science.

We all have an internal biological clock, the circadian rhythm, which regulates our daily wake and sleep cycles. This clock is responsible for the release of cortisol, a hormone affecting our levels of alertness throughout the day. Cortisol has a peak around 8 to 9 a.m., effectively functioning as a natural alarm clock.

How does coffee keep us awake? Find out in this article about coffee and the brain!

Does caffeine help increase the effects of cortisol?

The answer is no. Drinking coffee during periods of high cortisol levels actually diminishes its effects and builds a greater tolerance for caffeine, so you need more and more to feel that energy boost.

What’s more is that, taken at cortisol peak times, caffeine interferes with the natural production of the hormone. You’ll end up increasingly relying on your cup of joe instead of your body’s own wake-up mechanism.

So, what is the best time to drink coffee?

Scientists have found that there are various times at which cortisol levels peak: between 8 and 9 a.m., between 12 and 1 p.m. and 5.30 to 6.30 p.m. So the best time to drink coffee to get a little energy lift would be in between these periods.

But what if you wake up really early or really late?

According to AsapScience, as soon as you wake up cortisol levels increase by 50%, thus it would be best to wait at least an hour after you get out of bed before your first cup.

And what time should you stop drinking coffee?

Basically, your body is affected by caffeine up to 6 hours after you have last ingested it, even if you are not aware of it, and might disrupt your sleep. If you don’t want to toss and turn in your bed all night, I suggest you try to resist that sweet cup of temptation or switch to decaf in the afternoon.

Now you know:

  • Wait at least an hour after waking up before drinking your first cup
  • Take advantage of dips in cortisol levels for a little energy boost, so between 9.30 and 11.30 a.m. and 1.30 to 5 p.m.
  • Hold off or switch to decaf in the afternoon for a good night sleep

So, have you been drinking your coffee wrong this whole time?

A cup with coffee beans with an Electrocardiagram made out of coffee beans

The health benefits of coffee: the human body

By Health & Beauty

Is coffee good for our body or is it bad for our health?

The latest research shows that coffee doesn’t have any serious negative health effects, but it can actually carry some surprising benefits! (1)

Did you know that roasted coffee is a complex mixture of more than 1000 bioactive compounds and that some of those molecules may help you lose weight, protect your liver as well as lower the risk of Type 2 diabetes and Cardiovascular diseases (CvD)?

Stay with me while we investigate the health benefits of coffee on the human body!

Does coffee make you live longer? How does it affect the brain? Check out our previous article on the benefits of coffee!

 

Caffeine can help you lose weight

 

Coffee beans on a scale

First off, let’s be clear on one point:

while black coffee is quite low on calories, a 24-ounce Starbucks mocha Frappuccino with whipped cream is not going to encourage any slimming down. It contains about 500 calories: that’s a fourth of your daily calorie intake! (1)

So do check how much milk or cream you’re adding to your coffee. You might be consuming more calories that you think.

And now… let’s get to the juicy stuff.

How does coffee promote weight loss?

There are three ways in which caffeine helps you lose weight: through thermogenesis and by stimulating fat oxidation.

These terms might sound haughty, but they enclose pretty useful information. Let me explain a bit more.

Caffeine boosts your metabolism

First of all, caffeine boosts your metabolism by increasing thermogenesis— that is, a metabolic process during which your body burns calories producing heat. You know when you exercise and you start feeling warm and then warmer until you’re all red and sweaty? That’s thermogenesis for you.

So, one study found that a single cup of coffee (100 mg of caffeine) could increase your resting metabolic rate by 3-4%. That means you’re burning calories even if you’re doing nothing at all!

Then, scientists gave participants more cups of coffee and, after 12 hours, they observed that they had consumed more energy than usual: an increase of 150 kcal in the lean volunteers and 79 kcal in the postobese subjects. (2)

Not too bad burning calories simply by drinking coffee!

Caffeine helps burn fats

Secondly, it stimulates fat oxidation: that’s when the bigger fat molecules in your body are broken down in smaller ones.

And as usual, some scientists got together, gave some caffeine to a group of women and, next day, lipid oxidation had increased by 29 and 10% in lean and obese women, respectively. (3)

Bottom line:

high caffeine consumers reduced weight, fat mass, and waist circumference more than low caffeine consumers. (4)

However, weight loss is not the only health benefit of caffeine. It also makes you last longer… in sports!

 

Coffee enhances sports performance

Silhouette of woman running

Do you remember when we talked about caffeine causing fat oxidation? Well, the smaller fat molecules which come out of that process are a great source of available energy for the body.

When exercising, for example, it increases endurance (in athletes and, if you ever wondered, also in rats). (5) A study found that caffeine improved exercise performance by 12.3%. (6) This makes caffeine an ergogenic substance.

However, other scientists think caffeine’s ability to break down fat is not the only factor involved. In fact, they suggest that caffeine may also be fooling you into feeling less physically tired: it messes with your perceived exertion. (7)

What’s more, caffeine also produces an increase in adrenaline (epinephrine), the hormone that, by making the heart beat faster and muscles contract, provokes our “fight or flight” response which makes us ready for action or a good run. (8)

But there is more!

 

Coffee reduces the risk of Type 2 Diabetes

Three donuts with sprinkles on a wooden table, one is bitten

Diabetes is a chronic disease that occurs either when the pancreas does not produce enough insulin or when the body cannot effectively use the insulin it produces. Because insulin regulates blood sugar, hyperglycaemia (high blood sugar) is a common effect leading, over time, to serious damage to many organs in the body.

Sadly, in 2015, diabetes was the direct cause of 1.6 million deaths worldwide and Type 2 Diabetes is the most common form. (9)

Remarkably, studies have repeatedly shown that coffee consumption is directly related to a reduced risk of developing Type 2 Diabetes: in particular, for each extra cup up to six cups the risk lowered. (10)

Two particular components of coffee seem to be responsible: cafesol, which increases blood sugar intake in the cells, and caffein acid. Both also increased insulin secretion. (11)

However, as this was a study on rat cells and not human cells, there is a lot which needs to be confirmed with more studies.

 

Coffee has protective effects on the liver

Frontal image of shelves full of beer bottles

Coffee contains molecules such as Chlorogenic acid, caffeine and diterpens (cafesol and kahweol), which have anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effects. Surprisingly, coffee is the most common source of antioxidants in the Western diet. (10)

These are likely responsible for the mechanism behind the beneficial associations between coffee consumption and liver diseases such as hepatitis, fibrosis and cirrhosis. In addition, caffeine could have direct antifibrotic effects by preventing hepatic stellate cell adhesion and activation. (12)

Put it this way:

usually, the liver does a great job at detoxing the body. But when it’s under too much strain, it can get damaged. So, it tries to repair itself and as a consequence develops scar tissue (fibrosis). When this gets worse it develops into a cirrhosis.

What it all comes down to is that coffee can help reduce the damage to the liver and prevent scarring. And, impressively, people who drink even one cup of coffee against people who drink none have a 29% lower risk of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, a 27% lower risk for liver fibrosis and a 39% lower risk for liver cirrhosis. (12)

 

Coffee has beneficial effects on Cardiovascular diseases

Three ceramic cups. One contains coffee beans, one espresso, another has latte art with a heart

Admit it:

we’ve all felt our heart flurry at least once after a cup of coffee and it wasn’t because of that attractive colleague by the coffee cart. We might have had an irregular blood pressure that day or maybe we hadn’t been drinking coffee in a while.

If we’re not used to drinking coffee, when we do, it gives us a significant increase in blood pressure which declines after our body habituates itself to the drink, in about a week. Even after a couple of weeks we still see our pressure being a bit higher than usual. (1)

Does it mean that coffee is bad for your heart? Not necessarily.

Oddly enough, many long-term studies have found that moderate coffee consumption (around 3 cups a day) was associated with a decreased risk of Cardiovascular Diseases (CVD) and mortality. If you drink more or less than 3 cups a day there is no improved benefits, but also no more risks. (13)

And the benefits are impressive:

compared with non-drinkers, risks were reduced by 19% for mortality from Cardiovascular Disease, 16% for mortality from coronary heart disease, and 30% for mortality from stroke, at this level of intake. (13)

Coffee and cholesterol

By contrast, there seems to be consistent evidence for small increases in our total cholesterol levels, LDL cholesterol (that’s the “bad” one) and triglyceride. And the culprit might be diterpenes.

Interestingly, the brewing method influences the amount of diterpenes in our drink: filtered coffee gets rid of most of them, while Turkish and French coffees have high levels, and espresso is sort of in the middle. But if we abstain from coffee for a while, lipid levels usually go back to normal. (12)

A word of caution:

There are some people who are more sensitive to coffee, who are not able to metabolise it as fast as others. It’s not their fault: it’s in their genes!

More accurately it’s caused by a specific manifestation of one of their genes: the *1F allele associated to Cytochrome P450 1A2 (CYP1A2), which is the main responsible enzyme for the metabolism of caffeine.

If people have this slow allele, it’s probably a good idea to abstain from coffee or risk hypertension. (14)

 

In a nutshell:

Coffee has many surprising positive effects on the body.

On the one hand it helps you lose weight by boosting your metabolism and breaking down fat cells. Beyond that it enhances sports performance because it gives you energy and makes you feel less tired.

On the other hand, with its antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects it protects your liver, while also lowering your risk of Type 2 Diabetes and Cardiovascular diseases.

But remember:

You probably want to stick to black coffee most of the time and leave that whipped cream pick-me-up for a rainy day.

 

Warning: The contents of this website are for educational purposes and are not intended to offer personal medical advice. You should seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read on this website.

References

 

(1) Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Ask the Expert: Rob van Dam on coffee and health. 2015

(2) Normal caffeine consumption: influence on thermogenesis and daily energy expenditure in lean and postobese human volunteers. Am J Clin Nutr, 1989

(3) Effects of caffeine on energy metabolism, heart rate, and methylxanthine metabolism in lean and obese women. Am J Physiol,  1995

(4) Body weight loss and weight maintenance in relation to habitual caffeine intake and green tea supplementation. Obes Res, 2005.(5) Caffeine as a lipolytic food component increases endurance performance in rats and athletes. J Nutr Sci Vitaminol (Tokyo), 2001.

(6) Effects of caffeine ingestion on exercise testing: a meta-analysis. Int J Sport Nutr Exerc Metab, 2004.

(7)Effects of caffeine ingestion on rating of perceived exertion during and after exercise: a meta‐analysis. Scandinavian journal of medicine and science in sports, 2005.

(8) Morning Coffee Boosts Blood Pressure, Stress Hormones All Day. Science Daily, 1999.

(9) Diabetes fact sheet. WHO, 2017.

(10) Coffee consumption and health: umbrella review of meta-analyses of multiple health outcomes. BMJ, 2017.

(11) Cafestol, a Bioactive Substance in Coffee, Stimulates Insulin Secretion and Increases Glucose Uptake in Muscle Cells: Studies in Vitro. J. Nat. Prod., 2015.

(12) Four or more cups of coffee a day may keep prostate cancer recurrence and progression away. FredHutch, 2013.

(13) Tea and coffee consumption and cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Arterioscler Thromb Vasc Biol. 2010.

(14)  CYP1A2 genotype modifies the association between coffee intake and the risk of hypertension. J. Hypertens, 2009.

The health benefits of coffee: life expectancy and the brain

By Health & Beauty

Have you ever wondered about the health benefits of coffee? I can already see it:

You’re pouring your fourth of fifth cup of the day. And suddenly a malicious voice from the other side of the room interferes saying the last thing a coffee lover wants to hear: “That stuff will kill you”.

We’ve all been there.

You’d like to laser them with your eyes, instead you panic wondering whether your enemy is right and you should quit. With no answers ready at hand the only thing you’re left with is sipping that warm, comforting drink still in your hand. It’s good, isn’t it?

But the question you’re asking is: is coffee bad for you?

Luckily for you, it seems like it is not. Not only it will not kill you but, apparently, coffee can make you live longer.

Yes, you read that right.

Roasted coffee is a complex mixture of more than 1000 bioactive compounds (1), some of which are very familiar, like caffeine —a good friend responsible for getting us through those prolonged study or working sessions, but also of some more surprising benefits. This molecule and many others contained in coffee beans have the potential to lower the risk of some of the most common diseases of our age, such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, type 2 diabetes and even some types of cancers.

Let’s jump right in and have a look at some of the amazing health benefits of coffee beans.

 

Coffee will not kill you

 

Let’s start with a great news: coffee will not kill you. If anything, it might prolong life.

Bare with me as I give you a bit of background.

Sometimes scientists conduct what are called long-term observational studies, following people’s daily habits for even as long as 20 years! It’s not “bigbrothery” with a young man in a lab coat watching everything you do and taking note in his little pad.

Instead, every once in a while people report what they’ve been up to: if they feel sad or happy, if they’ve had a heart attack, if they exercise, how many coffees they drink or cigarettes they smoke. And sometimes what scientists look at is how many people have died in that period and what are the differences between their lifestyle and the lifestyle of those who are still alive.

What did they find?

Firstly, that there is no higher risk of dying, for any cause —not even from cancer or cardiovascular diseases— if you drink coffee or decaf, even for those who drink up to 7 cups of coffee a day. (2)

Dr. Robert Van Dam, who teaches Nutrition and Epidemiology at Harvard School of Public Health, said that “These findings fit into the research picture that has been emerging over the past few years: for the general population, the evidence suggests that coffee drinking doesn’t have any serious detrimental health effects.”(3)

According to him, this is an important finding because many people who want to improve their health think they have to give up that hearty, stimulating drink they so enjoy in the morning. To the people who ask themselves “Is coffee bad for me?” they should be reassured. Rather, they should focus their efforts on other aspects of their lifestyle like physical activity, quitting smoking and eating more fruits and veggies.

But there is one little catch.

Keep in mind that the Harvard study in question identifies a “cup” with a 8-ounce cup containing approximately 100 mg of caffeine, not the 16 ounces you would get in a grande at Starbucks containing 330 mg of caffeine. So you should probably still keep count if you’re a bit shaky as you come out of the coffee shop.

Also, beware:

black coffee is very low in calories, but not the same can be said for a 24-ounce mocha Frappucino at Starbucks with whipped cream: it has almost 500 calories—I mean, if you have four, that’s probably your whole daily calorie intake!

And, no offence to Starbucks, that sounds more like cake than coffee. So do check how much milk or cream you’re adding to your coffee. You might be consuming more calories that you think.

But the best part is:

some recent research has found that people who drink coffee usually live longer than people who don’t.

One recent meta-analysis (that is, a study studying other studies on a certain subject) found that people who drank 7 cups of coffee a day had a 10% lower risk of all-cause mortality. (1)

However, drinking 3-4 cups a day seems to bring the most advantages, lowering the risk of all-cause mortality by 18%. (4)

Does this mean that people who hate coffee should start drinking it or that you should drink more?

Of course not. As one of the most consumed beverages in the world, along with water and tea, it is important to know that at least it has no concerning health effects and that it can be part of a healthy diet.

With a couple of exceptions. Like everything else coffee has some pros but it also has its cons.

There are some people who should avoid or at least reduce their coffee intake.

Women with osteoporosis for example. Also, some research suggests that caffeine during pregnancy can reduce foetal growth and may even increase risk of miscarriage or stillbirth (5-6). And even though some studies propose that there are no long-term effects of coffee on high-blood pressure, if you are having trouble controlling your hypertension you might want to try switching to decaf for the time being. (3)

Now that we’ve put our minds at ease, let’s look at why coffee is good for your brain!

 

Coffee improves your energy levels and makes you smarter

 

It might surprise you to discover that caffeine (aka 1,3,7-trimethylxanthine) is the world’s most frequently ingested psychoactive substance. (7) In other words, caffeine is a drug. So after we’ve drunk a cuppa, caffeine travels through our bloodstream to our brain and because it is both fat- and water-soluble, it easily passes through our blood-brain barrier. (8)

But why does caffeine make us less tired? Let me explain.

When you’re awake, your brain is continuously working: your neurons are happily firing away all day. A by-product of all this partying is adenosine, a biochemical compound which regulates the activity of your central nervous system. The brain keeps monitoring levels of adenosine and when there’s too much it slows down neural activity. And we become sleepy.

What has this got to do with caffeine?

Caffeine is a bit sly, you’ll find. Because it has a similar molecular structure to adenosine it is able to bind itself to its receptors in the brain, but without activating them. So the brain can’t detect adenosine levels even when they are high. (8)

One of the most interesting consequences of caffeine’s action on arousal, vigilance and fatigue is that it also improves learning, memory, performance and coordination (even though it’s just short term)! (9)

It turns out, this might be an evolutionary advantage for plants containing caffeine: one study showed that honeybees were three times more likely to remember the scent of a flower after consuming caffeine. This means that it will be easier for those bees to go back to that plant, thus ensuring its reproductive success. (8) Smart plant makes bees smarter. And humans too.

 

Coffee can help you improve your mood and fight depression

 

As part of the 30-year-long Nurses’ Health Study, started in 1976, following more than 100.000 registered nurses in the US, a group of scientists from Harvard School of Public Health analysed the links between depression and coffee consumption in a sample of 50.739 women in a study that lasted 10 years.

Impressive, right?

The results showed that the risk of depression was lower in those women who drank more caffeine, and the more coffee you drank the lower the risk. (10)

So what was going on?

It’s probably due to coffee’s psychoactive effects: apart from adenosine, caffeine also acts on other neurotransmitters, for example serotonin, which is a natural mood stabiliser, and dopamine, which helps control the brain reward and pleasure centre — this hormone doesn’t just cause an emotional response: by pushing us to seek rewards, it leads us to action. Thus, they contribute to regulating anxiety and to a general feeling of well-being as well as putting our lives in motion.

One note from this study:

for some people with particular genetic backgrounds or who are oversensitive to it, caffeine could have an opposite effect: it can make you anxious and induce insomnia or other sleep disturbances, which are not particularly uplifting nor pleasurable.(10)

Coffee lowers the risk neurodegenerative diseases: dementia, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s

 

Fact:

Worldwide, around 50 million people are affected by dementia with 60-70% of these cases attributable to Alzheimer’s disease, while 10 million worldwide suffer from Parkinson’s. Because of these neurological disorders cognitive function deteriorates beyond what is expected from the normal ageing process, affecting memory, thought, comprehension, coordination, motor functions and language, among other things. (11-12)

But that’s not all:

these diseases don’t only have an impact on the people living with them but also on their families, both emotionally and economically. In 2015, the total global societal cost of dementia was estimated to be US$ 818 billion, equivalent to 1.1% of global gross domestic product (GDP). (11)

The combined direct and indirect cost of Parkinson’s in the US alone is estimated at $25 billion. And there is no known cure, at the moment, only some treatments to help slow down the process and manage the symptoms. (12)

So it is exceptional that numerous studies have found that drinking coffee significantly reduces the risk of developing dementia, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. (1) In particular for Alzheimer’s, the effect is more pronounced for caffeinated coffee than for decaf and the lowest risk was found in people who drank 3-5 cups per day: a 65% decrease! (13)

But before you gets your hopes up, consider this:

much of the research has been done through observational studies which, even if long term and statistically accurate, can only point us in the right direction, but cannot fully explain the link or prove the connection. Further studies are needed to confirm the potential, positive interaction.

How does it all work?

Coffee has amazing effects on motor and cognitive skills which are affected in dementia. Some have suggested that coffee also has protective effects against inflammation in the brain.

Think about it this way:

an unregulated release of adenosine in the brain causes a chain reaction of enzymes leading to inflammation, thus through its ability to block adenosine receptors, caffeine might also reduce the inflammation itself, often linked to neurodegenerative diseases. (14)

As Parkinson’s affects predominately dopaminergic brain cells, it is thought that the neuroprotective effects of coffee are linked to its influence on dopamine, but it is still not clear how. (15)

 

In a nutshell

 

Let’s rewind and gather our thoughts a moment before finally responding to our rude (and ignorant) villain from the beginning.

Coffee does not kill you. It actually may lower the risk of all-cause mortality by 18%.

In addition, it stimulates the brain in many ways: from improving cognitive performance (it basically makes you smarter for a little while), to reducing depression, to potentially benefitting neurodegenerative diseases such as dementia, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

Remember: three cups a day give the most benefits, even though drinking more doesn’t really carry many side effects. But be careful about adding milk, cream and syrups to your coffee. They make it much more caloric.

Check your intake if:

  • you’re a pregnant woman;
  • a woman prone to fractures;
  • a person with hypertension.

Now, it’s your moment. Go and tell that fool how wrong they were!

Don’t miss Part 2 of our in-depth guide to the amazing health benefits of coffee: follow us on social media for updates on this and other topics.

 

Warning: The contents of this website are for educational purposes and are not intended to offer personal medical advice. You should seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read on this website.

References:

 

(1) Coffee consumption and health: umbrella review of meta-analyses of multiple health outcomes. BMJ, 2017.

(2) The Relationship of Coffee Consumption with Mortality. Ann Intern Med, 2008

(3) Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Ask the Expert: Rob van Dam on coffee and health. 2015

(4) Association of Coffee Consumption With Total and Cause-Specific Mortality Among Nonwhite Populations. Ann Intern Med, 2017

(5) Maternal caffeine intake during pregnancy is associated with risk of low birth weight: a systematic review and dose-response meta-analysis. BMC Med, 2014

(6) Caffeine intake during pregnancy and adverse birth outcomes: a systematic review and dose-response meta-analysis. Eur J Epidemiol, 2014

(7) Caffeine (1, 3, 7-trimethylxanthine) in foods: a comprehensive review on consumption, functionality, safety, and regulatory matters.  J Food Sci. 2010

(8) Lani Kingston, How to Make Coffee: the Science Behind the Bean. 2015

(9) Caffeine and the central nervous system: mechanisms of action, biochemical, metabolic and psychostimulant effects. Brain Res Brain Res Rev, 1992

(10) Coffee, Caffeine, and Risk of Depression Among Women. Arch Intern Med. 2011

(11) Dementia factsheet. World Health Organisation, 2017

(12) Causes and Statistics. Parkinson’s Foundation.

(13) Midlife coffee and tea drinking and the risk of late-life dementia: a population-based CAIDE study. J Alzheimers Dis. 2009

(14) What influences neuroprotective effects? Hypoxia/Reoxygenation Impairs Memory Formation via Adenosine-Dependent Activation of Caspase 1 J Neur, 2012.

(15) Dopaminergic Neurotransmission in the Human Brain: New Lessons from Perturbation and Imaging. Neuroscientist, 2012