Coffee and Your Health: Good News, Bad News
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DRINKING COFFEE MIGHT MAKE YOU MOVE MORE but sleep less. Moreover, coffee might raise your risk for one type of heart palpitation. Those are the new findings from a small study recently published in The New England Journal of Medicine.
Unfortunately, most clinical research on coffee and health has been observational; scientists report on what happens to those who do and don’t consume coffee. This approach has remarkable limits, as some other factor may be driving whether someone happens to drink coffee.
Let me give an extreme example of association (without causality). Deaths among ocean swimmers rise in the summer. Ice cream sales explode in the summer seasons. Eating ice cream did not result in a big rise in swimming-related deaths; instead, both increased during the hot season.
Only a randomized clinical trial can mitigate potentially confounding variables. The new study is randomized.
“The big picture finding is that there isn’t just one single health-related consequence of consuming coffee, but that the reality is more complicated than that,” said the study’s lead author, Dr. Gregory Marcus, a cardiologist and professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (USA).
First, let’s explore the history of coffee from its discovery to the present day.
A brief history of coffee
Coffee, one of the world’s most popular beverages, has a rich history that spans centuries and continents. From its origins in Ethiopia to its widespread consumption, coffee has played a significant role in human history, culture, and economics.
According to the National Coffee Association, the story of coffee begins in Ethiopia, where legend has it that a goat herder named Kaldi first discovered the stimulating effects of the coffee plant.
One day, Kaldi noticed that his goats became very energetic after eating berries from a particular tree. Curious, he tasted the berries himself and experienced the same effects. Kaldi shared his discovery with a local monk, who brewed a…
