Conedo's Blog

Drink coffee for the benefit of your health! July 21, 2010

It has been called the gasoline for IT people and contains by far the most widely used stimulant product in the world. Coffee cheers up, sharpens memory and concentration and get our body to burn fat, breathe faster, produce gastric juice and urinate more often.

Three out of four Swedes drink coffee every day in such quantities, that it in a number of ways affect the body. And that we should do! Coffee is so good for your health that it even may be used as medicine in the future, according to new findings.

– There is evidence suggesting that a few cups of coffee in the morning may well be as effective as the medicine that the pharmaceutical industry tried to find to counteract age-dependent dementia, “said Bertil Fredholm, Professor of Pharmacology at the Karolinska Institutet and one of the nation’s leading experts on the caffeine.

– Large population studies in which participants were followed for a long time, shows clear evidence of positive effects on both Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s and type 2 Diabetes.

Animal experiments, as well as cognitive tests in old age, show that caffeine can improve thinking and learning abilities. Clinical studies show that caffeine also may help the body’s immunological defense against cancer.

It was previously believed that caffeine could be a risk factor for cardiovascular disease. New, large epidemiological studies in which participants were followed for a long time, do not show such what so ever. Even if coffee raises blood pressure temporarily, it is quickly normalized, as when walking in stairs.

According to a report by SBU, the National Council on Technology Assessment, coffee is positive even for people with diabetes. Those who drink more than two cups of coffee every day are less likely to die from cardiovascular disease than diabetics who drink less or no coffee at all.

Both Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease involves the loss of functionality of the nerves in the brain.
– It seems that coffee can prevent the loss of precisely those neurons that are important to control motor function, says Bertil Fredholm, who for over thirty years have studied the effects of caffeine.
– It also appears that the nerve cell’s support cells, ”glial cells”, are affected, making it possible to prevent the deterioration.

But we have to start early with regular coffee drinking to  get  any effect.
– Have you already incipient symptoms of Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s, it can certainly get some relief, but the loss of neurons is not halted.

So what is really happening in the body when we drink coffee? The researchers are now beginning to know more about that.

Caffeine sits on the cell surface. There are also receivers (receptors) for another substance, adenosine, which is formed after e.g working a lot or receiving too little oxygen in the body. Adenosine is a breakdown product that is always present in the body, but the amount increases when the body’s energy production can not match, when we get tired.

Bertil Fredholm’s group of researchers have shown that caffeine stimulates us in such a way, that it can put itself in the way of adenosine on a type of nerve cell in the brain that controls motor skills and motivation. Caffeine can therefore impede the adenosine effects and prevent that we feel too tired. Caffeine also interacts with those substances that affect one of the most important brain neurotransmitters – dopamine.

It also appears that caffeine may enhance the body’s defense against certain tumors, malignant melanoma, colon cancer and prostate cancer.
The explanation is that a tumor creates hypoxia, both in the middle of the tumor but also in the surrounding tissues, leading to increased production of adenosine.
– Adenosine suppress the immune system. Add caffeine, which inhibits the adenosine, and the body’s defenses can be strengthened.

The caffeine also seems to increase our ability to burn fat. This also has to do with the adenosine.
During prolonged and hard effort, as a marathon, the body requires that fat can be mobilized from fat (adipose) tissues to the muscles and heart. Two important barriers that inhibit the mobilization are insulin and adenosine.

– Adding caffeine may reduce the importance of the adenosine brake, which may explain that caffeine is used by long distance athletes, says Bertil Fredholm. In addition, caffeine decreases fatigue.

But to sit still and drink lots of coffee to lose weight, does not work.
– It is required that you move and exercise your body as well, to achieve that goal.
The disadvantage of coffee is to drink too much that you get upset, irritable, anxious and have difficulty falling asleep.

Pregnant women should also be careful with coffee.
– There is research, based on animal studies, suggesting that the offspring of mothers who ingested caffeine during pregnancy may have behavioral changes, they react stronger than others at a central stimulant, says Bertil Fredholm. The change appears to exist even a generation later.

The pharmaceutical companies are now trying to find substances that affect the adenosine like caffeine without the negative effects that caffeine can give. This is primarily to treat diseases like Parkinson’s.

– But the real impact will of course come with a successful development of a pill, that gives the West’s aging population a better memory.

 This is a translation of an article found in the Swedish Newspaper Dagens Nyheter. The article was written in Swedish by Astrid Johansson