The Surprising #HealthBenefits of #Coffee

By Ty Bollinger

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Coffee is a diverse beverage enjoyed by people the world over. As one of the most popular drinks on the planet, experts estimate that approximately 400 billion cups of coffee per year are consumed! While many people use coffee as a stimulant to get them going in the morning or help them through the afternoon slump at work… there are health benefits to coffee and it can actually be good for you.
That isn’t to say that drinking two pots by yourself every morning is good (you need water!), but 2 cups a day of the antioxidant-rich brew made from quality coffee beans can go a long way toward helping your body stay healthy and strong.
So what about information that’s been floating around for decades that coffee is “bad for you?” This myth was actually laid to rest several years ago.
In a 2008 study led by the Harvard School of Public Health, it was determined that men and women who drank as much as six cups a day did not increase their risk of disease or early death. Rob van Dam, Assistant Professor in the Department of Nutrition, was one of the study researchers and explained, “For the general population, the evidence suggests that coffee drinking doesn’t have any serious detrimental health effects.”
Those involved in the 20-year study realized that prior “coffee is bad for you” data was not taking into account the unrelated bad habits of participants such as smoking, physical inactivity, or overall poor diet. That means you can enjoy the benefits of real coffee without guilt.

Bioactive Compounds Found in Coffee

• Caffeine
• Diterpenes cafestol
• Kahweol
• Polyphenols – chlorogenic acid and quinic acid
• Mangenese
• Potassium
• B vitamins – riboflavin, pantothenic acid, and niacin
• Magnesium

The active compounds in coffee not only neutralize free radicals in your body, they also work to repair the damage they cause. Since cancer cells result as mutations to healthy cells, the possible

Coffee helps depression and halves suicide tendency

http://the-tap.blogspot.com/2013/08/coffee-helps-depression-and-halves.html

Women who drink coffee cut their risk of depression by 15 percent compared to those who don’t. Caffeine has also been found to promote production of the neurotransmitters serotonin, dopamine and noradrenaline. As explained by World of Caffeine:

“Many of caffeine’s powers depend on its power to pass into the central nervous system (CNS). To enter the CNS, caffeine must cross the blood-brain barrier... Even when injected into the bloodstream, many drugs fail to penetrate this barrier... However, caffeine passes through the blood-brain barrier as if it did not exist. All psychoactive drugs, including caffeine, achieve their effects by imitating or altering the release or uptake of neurotransmitters, the chemical messengers that direct how the neurons of the CNS interact with each other.

Caffeine achieves many of its effects by blocking the activity of adenosine... Because one of the primary actions of adenosine is to make us tired or sleepy, caffeine, by blocking the uptake of adenosine, keeps us from feeling the effects of fatigue. But scientists have learned that, largely as a consequence of its blockade of adenosine receptors, caffeine also has profound effects on most of the other major neurotransmitters, including dopamine, acetylcholine, serotonin, and, in high doses, on norepinephrine.”

Increasing your dopamine levels may have a beneficial impact on mood, while increasing acetylcholine may help improve long-term memory. Meanwhile, it is commonly thought that adjusting your serotonin levels upward may play a role in relieving depression. This is primarily how antidepressants work.

That said, it’s worth noting that the low serotonin theory, which antidepressant drugs attempt to address, has been thoroughly debunked. Investigations have been done to see whether or not depressed people actually have lower serotonin levels in their brains, and in 1983 the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) concluded that:

"There is no evidence that there is anything wrong in the serotonergic system of depressed patients."

Still, coffee appears to affect a number of neurotransmitters related to mood control, so it’s certainly plausible that this could have an effect on your general sense of wellbeing.

Research has also shown that coffee triggers a mechanism in your brain that releases a growth factor called Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF), which activates your brain stem cells to convert into new neurons, thereby improving your brain health. Interestingly enough, recent research also suggests that low BDNF levels may play a significant role in depression, and that increasing neurogenesis has an antidepressant effect! This may be yet another piece of the puzzle explaining why exercise tends to have a higher success rate in treating depression than antidepressant drugs do, as exercise naturally increases BDNF levels in your body.