MAGAZINE

“It’s a rainy Sunday morning. You are seated on the porch of your home wrapped in a thick blanket and enjoying your steaming hot cup...

“It’s a rainy Sunday morning. You are seated on the porch of your home wrapped in a thick blanket and enjoying your steaming hot cup of coffee. Every sip you take gives warmth to your body as the cool wind brushes on your face. You stare at nothing as you let your mind drift of to a dreamy place.”

Remember the feeling?

Time and time again, coffee has always been there to cheer us up when we are down. The melancholy that coffee brings to our lives is phenomenal. If we want to stay up late at night for work, there’s coffee. If we want to zap out our sleepy head in the morning, there’s coffee. If our tummy squeals for something to satisfy us in the afternoons, there’s coffee. After enjoying a sumptuous meal, again, there is coffee.

Coffee is pretty much a big part of our diet. But do you really know the benefits that coffee can offer to our bodies? There is more to it than just a warm treat; it is also a constant source of healthy things for me and you. These benefits will most likely make you proud to be coffee drinkers.

Reduced Diabetes Risk

A study published in the journal Diabetes indicates that those women who drink about 4 cups of coffee a day can stave off diabetes by as much as 56%. Coffee tends to increase the levels of “sex hormone binding globulin” in the blood which is known to be an essential hormone that reduces the risk of diabetes mellitus type 2. You just have to take it easy on the sugar and creamers though if you want to enjoy the full benefits of coffee against diabetes, otherwise excessive sugar and creamer use could give the exact opposite result.

Enhances Brain Function

The fact that coffee makes you wide awake also means you have heightened brain activity during times when the caffeine kicks in. This keeps your brain in high alert and in doing so exercises the brain to remain active helping prevent the occurrence of Alzheimer’s disease and other brain-related diseases in the long run.

Coffee is also known to increase cognitive functions of the brain. Functions of the brain like total reaction time to stimulus, verbal memory, as well as reasoning are significantly enhanced as effects of constant coffee consumption.

Keeps Stroke at bay

According to the Journal of the American Heart Association, a cup of coffee a day can significantly reduced your risk of a stroke. This is widely attributed to the antioxidant effect of coffee where it helps to eliminate free radicals in the body clearing the body from unwanted “trash” in the blood that causes cell damages. Although coffee is not considered to have the highest levels of antioxidant, it is however, the easiest and most consumed source.

Coffee makes you happy

Yes, drinking coffee does make you happy. Not from the experience of meeting friends and relatives over coffee, although it may count too, but mostly because coffee has very high levels of dopamine; a substance that will make a person’s mood light and happy. This fact should not be taken advantaged with, however, because if you drink too much coffee just to be happy, chances are you’ll end up with high anxiety attacks.

Fighting the Big C

Cancer will always be a dreaded disease. It is nice to know however that due to the high antioxidant content of coffee, it helps to fight off cancer. Studies show that men that drink coffee everyday had 60% less risk of acquiring prostate cancer.

The trick here is moderation. We have heard over and over again, that too much of anything is bad for you. Same goes with drinking too much coffee. While there are numerous benefits that you can get by constant and frequent coffee consumption, drinking too much of it will also have its side effect like anxiety, jumpiness, trembling, and high state of panic. It is safe to say “Drink Moderately” then, to reap all the benefits without actually suffering from its ill-effects.