The merits and demerits of coffee

With the gradual increase of international exchanges, more and more people like coffee. Coffee is the extract of coffee beans, which contains no less than hundreds of ingredients. Among them, caffeine is undoubtedly the most important. Although there is decaffeinated coffee, for most coffee lovers, it is not "real" coffee. Caffeine can stimulate nerve excitement, so the role of coffee is first of all "refreshing". In particular, caffeine plus glucose can promote each other to make the pick-me-up effect better. Caffeine is also added to many sports drinks as a legal "stimulant".

Health care function

Whether caffeine has other "health functions" has also attracted a lot of attention from scientists. There are a lot of such studies, and on the whole, some studies have shown that they may be effective. For example, some old people will get dizzy because of low blood pressure after a meal. If you drink a drink containing caffeine, it may relieve this symptom. The so-called "caffeinated drink", in addition to coffee, tea or cocoa can also be. Parkinson's disease is a common geriatric disease, and studies have shown that caffeine is effective in reducing the risk of Parkinson's disease. Men drink three to four cups a day to achieve the maximum effect, while one or two cups a day also have a significant effect. Women, on the other hand, have little to do with consumption and achieve maximum results with one to three cups a day. Interestingly, however, this effect does not exist for smokers. In addition, caffeine can also help reduce gallstones. 400 milligrams of caffeine (about three or four cups of coffee) a day can show an effect. Interestingly, the relationship between the effect on type 2 diabetes and intake has much to do with race. Among people in Europe and the United States, drinking six cups of coffee a day can reduce the risk by more than 50% for men and about 30% for women. Among Japanese, drinking three drinks a day can be reduced by 42%.

Bad performance

Besides caffeine, coffee also contains many other "active ingredients", such as antioxidants. Especially roasted coffee beans, the content of antioxidants will increase. Antioxidants are good for cardiovascular health, but coffee also contains "harmful substances", such as diterpenes, which increase the risk of cardiovascular disease. In this case of "fighting between the left and the right", it depends on which side takes the lead. Fortunately, diterpenes can be filtered out by coffee paper, so unfiltered coffee or metal mesh filtering is not recommended. The "anti-cancer" effect has a similar situation, with studies showing that three cups of coffee a day may reduce the risk of rectal cancer. However, baking not only increases the content of antioxidants, but also produces acrylamide, and high doses of acrylamide show carcinogenicity in animal experiments.

The "bad performance" of coffee is much more than that. If you drink too much coffee every day (for example, more than six cups), it may lead to addiction, reduced sensitivity to coffee, and will drink more. Drinking too much may lead to insomnia, tension, stomach discomfort, nausea, vomiting, accelerated heart rate and breathing, headache, tinnitus and other symptoms. For people with heart disease, five cups a day reach the "unsafe" amount.

Many people are concerned about whether pregnant women can drink coffee. Based on current scientific evidence, it is generally accepted that no more than two cups of caffeine a day (about 200 milligrams of caffeine) are acceptable. Pregnant women who exceed this amount can increase the risk of miscarriage, premature delivery or underweight babies. In pregnant women with breast milk, more than this amount may stimulate the baby's digestive tract and affect the baby's sleep.

Generally speaking, children are more sensitive to caffeine than adults. Considering that avoiding side effects is more important for children, children are advised not to drink coffee.

Although there are survey data showing that coffee can reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes, there are both increased and decreased effects of caffeine on blood sugar. Therefore, for people with diabetes, if you want to drink coffee, you must pay attention to monitoring their blood sugar changes and make timely adjustments.

In addition, coffee can also increase calcium loss. If you have symptoms of osteoporosis, your daily caffeine intake should not exceed 300 milligrams (equivalent to two or three cups of coffee). Older women are prone to osteoporosis and need to pay more attention to it.

For drinking coffee, more attention should be paid to the reaction with drugs. The most important thing to be careful is ephedrine, which stimulates nerve excitement. If you add coffee, the effect will be greatly enhanced, resulting in the symptoms of "overdose". Cold drugs containing ephedrine are very common, such as Contec, Baijiahei and so on.

In addition, the metabolism of many drugs interacts with the metabolism of caffeine. Some of these effects increase the effect of caffeine (including side effects, of course), some increase the effect of the drug, and some reduce the effect of the drug. The dose of the drug is designed according to the effect of normal use, whether enhanced or weakened, will affect the treatment. There are so many drugs that interact with caffeine that ordinary people may not be able to remember, so the easiest thing to do is not to drink coffee while taking all kinds of drugs.

As a natural extract with complex components, different ingredients have different effects, and it is not surprising that different experiments get different results. As a drink, coffee may have amazing "health functions" or worrying "side effects". Most of these findings are epidemiological investigations, and the conclusions are not conclusive. Combining these positive and negative studies, the more widely accepted recommendation is that healthy adults drink two or three cups of coffee a day, the "benefits" outweigh the "risks", and for pregnant women, no more than two cups are acceptable. Other groups need to be weighed according to the specific situation.

Insertion: as a drink, coffee may have amazing "health functions" or worrying "side effects".