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Is coffee a tonic, or a toxic brew? If the question is confusing, so are the answers. Is it good or bad for your body? Does it cause cancer, PMS, and vitamin deficiency? Or is it a super antioxidant that prevents cirrhosis of the liver? --SGS Java. I love it. I hate it. Every morning I pad into the kitchen and turmoil jumps out of my cupboard. Should I have a cup? Caf or decaf? A gravely voice intones in my head, "You shouldn't be drinking that possibly wicked black juice at all! You might get cancer or an ulcer or yell at the kids or have a nervous breakdown? Have a nice cup of broccoli-soy-seaweed juice or some other good cancer preventive." Then a whiny "Awwww come on? It can't be that bad! Tons of people drink gallons of coffee and they're OK. And mmmmm ... that lush bitter taste, the electric thrill of the zing! Come on? You'll get more done." The arguments aren't necessarily logical, but the battle rages. So what do the experts say? Is coffee good for you or not? Should I drink it at all? Caf or decaf? What is "moderation"? Other coffee lovers and I have been heating for years about alleged links between coffee and a plethora of ills; the biggies are cancer, fertility and birth issues, osteoporosis, and heart disease. Every side with an interest in this question draws on its own bank of experts, credentialed researchers, and files full of studies. In this article, I've highlighted reports from across the spectrum--the coffee industry, consumer watch-dogs, and both allopathic (traditional) and naturopathic medicine. Coffee Science Source, sponsored by the National Coffee Association, concludes that "decades of research and centuries of human consumption confirm the safety of coffee and caffeine.... The US Food and Drug Administration still considers caffeine to be `generally recognized as safe.'" On the basis of CSS's summary of current research ("collected from scientific journals, industry, reports, and reviewed by experts in the field"), we can and perhaps should be drinking two to four cups a day. Coffee's benefits, according to CSS, include lowering the risk of colon cancer (by 25 percent), gallstones (by 45 percent), cirrhosis of the liver (by 80 percent), and Parkinson's Disease (by 50 to 80 percent), and reducing the incidence of asthma (by 25 percent). With four times the amount of antioxidant as green tea, maybe coffee is the next health food and we can all look forward to enhanced performance, memory, and (of course) energy. Citing various scientific studies, CSS finds no link between coffee and miscarriage, premature birth, birth defects, low birth weight, infertility, or SIDS. They say that 300 to 400 mg of caffeine a day is safe for pregnant women, but that the extra-cautious may want to consume only 200 mg a day (see chart on next page for caffeine content in various products). CSS notes that decaf may be linked to miscarriage, but says that studies are not well controlled. CSS also unlinks coffee and many other health problems: cancer, hypertension, reflux, anxiety, cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, and breast pain from fibrocystic breast disease. CSS offers a few caveats. For instance, women who drink five cups of coffee or more a day are encouraged to drink at least one cup of milk a day to offset loss of calcium. [Researchers have determined that the more coffee a woman drinks, the more calcium she excretes through her urine, but they have yet to identify the mechanism. The loss amounts to about five milligrams of calcium for every six ounces of coffee or two cans of cola, according to Janet Barger-Lux of Creighton University's Osteoporosis Research Unit.] CSS notes a temporary but "harmless" rise in heart workload in men with hypertension if they drink more than three cups a day, and a similarly harmless rise in blood pressure. Five percent of us will experience a headache when we remove caffeine from our diets, and boiled unfiltered coffee can negatively affect serum lipids. Women with fibrocystic breast disease may be more sensitive to caffeine and should moderate their caffeine intake if they notice breast discomfort. Some very sensitive people may be more prone to anxiety with caffeine, says CSS. The Center for Science in the Public Interest is the nonprofit consumer organization that brought us nutritional information labeling on food. They focus on improving the safety and nutritional quality of our food supply and "working to ensure advances in science are used for the public good." In 1996, CSPI published a special section,"Caffeine: The Inside Scoop," in its Nutrition Action Healthletter (NAH). They cited some science that you and I already know, confirming the reality of the coffee withdrawal headache and disturbed sleep. However, and contrary to popular belief, they concluded that coffee won't sober you up and won't help you keep your weight down over the long term. CSPI paints a dimmer picture for coffee-drinking women than the coffee industry does. Though studies on PMS and breast lumpiness are still inconclusive, CSPI asserts that pregnant women who consume 300 mg of caffeine or more a day are twice as likely to miscarry and that consuming 150 mg to 300 mg of caffeine makes a woman twice as likely to have a low birth-weight baby (five times more likely if she consumes more than 300 mg). CSPI recommends drinking decaf or cutting back on caffeine consumption for women trying to conceive, taking a tablespoon of milk or yogurt for every cup of coffee to offset calcium loss (and, better still, consuming a whole cup of milk or yogurt per cup of coffee to build healthy bones). CSPI seems just as adamant as the coffee industry in concluding that cancer (anywhere in the body) is not linked to coffee consumption. They also say that paper-filtered coffee has no affect on cardiovascular disease. Studies conducted over the past three years and cited in The Journal of the American Medical Association (]AMA), one of the pillars of allopathic medicine, show no links between coffee and hypertension or heart disease. The risk of Parkinson's Disease is decreased in one study, as is gallstone disease. by Thalia DeWolf  TopBack Your comment |
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