"To drink or not to drink coffee" has been the focus of many researchers in the past. Up to now, scientists are still in conflict on whether coffee is good or bad for the body.

Caffeine, which is the main ingredient of coffee, causes increased heart rate and blood pressure. Naturally, people would assume that increased consumption of coffee would be bad for one's health.

This idea was supported by previous studies associating heavy coffee drinking and heart disease.

Flawed studies

However, some of these studies were flawed. Further review showed that many of the subjects enrolled were also smokers.

The analysis showed that it was the smoking that caused the heart attacks and not coffee.

In fact, pure coffee drinkers did not have episodes of heart disease.

Beneficial effects

Data from succeeding studies even showed coffee to be beneficial.

It protects against heart failure, diabetes and stroke.

In a most recent study, Dr. Junxiu Liu comes up with a clear cut-off for when coffee is beneficial to the body and when it becomes harmful.

Risks of death

The Aerobics Center Longitudinal Study enrolled 43,727 participants to be observed over a 17-year period. There were 2,512 cases of death of all types of causes. One-third of the cases were due to heart attacks.

Results showed that the men who drank more than 4 cups of coffee per day had a 56% increased risk of dying of any cause whether from a heart attack, suicide, accident or infection.

In women, the risk of death was higher at 113% compared to non-drinkers.

Skip the 5th cup

Scientists still cannot explain the increased numbers. The mechanism is not clear. Could it be that caffeine increases aggression, depression and lowers the immune response? At the moment, we do not know. More studies are underway.

Just remember the golden number: 4.

Drinking no more than 4 cups a day still allows you to reap the beneficial effects of coffee. But drinking more than 4 cups a day increases your risk of death of any cause. That’s according to the latest study

So, hedge your bets and skip that 5th cup of joe… tomorrow is another day!

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Article Source:
By Dr. Diana Sarmiento, The Blogging Doc

Healthy Living News