Coffee - how it affects your body

This week we're putting on another Community Barre and Coffee with our long-time community partners/sponsors Nine-Twenty-Nine Coffee Bar in Starkville, MS. At this event we offer a free barre class in the basement of the coffee bar and 929 donates free coffee for everyone who attends. We love providing this opportunity to our communities so that everyone can feel the benefits our classes provide, even just one time! (with no financial investment)

All that said, it has me dreaming of a Nine-Twenty-Nine Latte and just coffee in general-which begs the question: "From a health standpoint-how does coffee act in the body?"

After doing a little digging I found some pros, cons, and overall considerations for all the coffee drinkers out there.

Let's start with the cons:

Well there's not many actually and the only ones I could find were related to the caffeine content over the coffee bean itself.

High intake of coffee and caffeine on a chronic/long term basis were associated with higher cholesterol levels. This could be in part by the increased stress on the heart caused by caffeine. And we've talked before about how un-managed long term stress levels are also associated with high cholesterol in a previous blog post.

It's crucial to remember anything in excess can be harmful and have negative effects.

The PROS:

I was blown away at what I found. A compilation of a large amount of research finds that coffee intake of 3-5 cups daily has been associated with reduced risks for many chronic diseases such as:

-Parkinson's disease

-Type 2 diabetes

-Liver disease

-Cardiovascular diseases

Coffee also appeared to have a positive affect on certain cancers promoting the destruction of some cancerous cells.

It also was associated through a 30 year long study of 200,000 participants that moderate amount of coffee intake decreased mortality by 15%.

*caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee provided nearly the same results*

Things to consider:

Just because you're a coffee drinker doesn't mean you'll experience these same protective effects. There is NEVER a singular thing you should be doing for your key to health. It is a huge full body effort. We encourage everyone to evaluate their sleep, hydration, nutrition, stress levels, exercise frequency/type, and so much more.