Coffee drinking is associated with increased longevity, lower risk of cardiovascular disease

Posted on September 28, 2022 by Sridhar P

Drinking two to three cups of coffee a day is linked with a longer lifespan and lower risk of cardiovascular disease compared with avoiding coffee, according to research published today in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, a journal of the ESC.¹ The findings applied to ground, instant and decaffeinated varieties.

“In this large, observational study, ground, instant and decaffeinated coffee were associated with equivalent reductions in the incidence of cardiovascular disease and death from cardiovascular disease or any cause,” said study author Professor Peter Kistler of the Baker Heart and Diabetes Research Institute, Melbourne, Australia. “The results suggest that mild to moderate intake of ground, instant and decaffeinated coffee should be considered part of a healthy lifestyle.”

There is little information on the impact of different coffee preparations on heart health and survival. This study examined the associations between types of coffee and incident arrhythmias, cardiovascular disease and death using data from the UK Biobank, which recruited adults between 40 and 69 years of age. Cardiovascular disease was comprised of coronary heart disease, congestive heart failure and ischaemic stroke.

coffee

The study included 449,563 participants free of arrhythmias or other cardiovascular disease at baseline. The median age was 58 years and 55.3% were women. Participants completed a questionnaire asking how many cups of coffee they drank each day and whether they usually drank instant, ground (such as cappuccino or filtered coffee), or decaffeinated coffee. They were then grouped into six daily intake categories, consisting of none, less than one, one, two to three, four to five, and more than five cups per day. The usual coffee type was instant in 198,062 (44.1%) participants, ground in 82,575 (18.4%), and decaffeinated in 68,416 (15.2%). There were 100,510 (22.4%) non-coffee drinkers who served as the comparator group.

Coffee drinkers were compared to non-drinkers for the incidence of arrhythmias, cardiovascular disease and death, after adjusting for age, sex, ethnicity, obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, obstructive sleep apnoea, smoking status, and tea and alcohol consumption. Outcome information was obtained from medical records and death records. The median follow up was 12.5 years.

A total of 27,809 (6.2%) participants died during follow up. All types of coffee were linked with a reduction in death from any cause. The greatest risk reduction seen with two to three cups per day, which compared to no coffee drinking was associated with a 14%, 27% and 11% lower likelihood of death for decaffeinated, ground, and instant preparations, respectively.

Cardiovascular disease was diagnosed in 43,173 (9.6%) participants during follow up. All coffee subtypes were associated with a reduction in incident cardiovascular disease. Again, the lowest risk was observed with two to three cups a day, which compared to abstinence from coffee was associated with a 6%, 20%, and 9% reduced likelihood of cardiovascular disease for decaffeinated, ground, instant coffee, respectively.

An arrhythmia was diagnosed in 30,100 (6.7%) participants during follow up. Ground and instant coffee, but not decaffeinated, was associated with a reduction in arrhythmias including atrial fibrillation. Compared with non-drinkers, the lowest risks were observed with four to five cups a day for ground coffee and two to three cups a day for instant coffee, with 17% and 12% reduced risks, respectively.

Professor Kistler said: “Caffeine is the most well-known constituent in coffee, but the beverage contains more than 100 biologically active components. It is likely that the non-caffeinated compounds were responsible for the positive relationships observed between coffee drinking, cardiovascular disease and survival. Our findings indicate that drinking modest amounts of coffee of all types should not be discouraged but can be enjoyed as a heart healthy behaviour.”

Daily 4 cups of black or green or Oolong tea can cut diabetes risk by 17%

Posted on September 18, 2022 by Arun Kumar N

Sep 18 (IANS) A moderate consumption of black, green or Oolong (traditional Chinese drink) tea is linked to a lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes, a study involving over a million adults from eight countries has revealed.

The findings suggest that drinking at least four cups of tea a day is associated with a 17 per cent lower risk of diabetes over an average period of 10 years.

“Our results are exciting because they suggest that people can do something as simple as drinking four cups of tea a day to potentially lessen their risk of developing type 2 diabetes”, said lead author Xiaying Li from Wuhan University of Science and Technology in China.

benefits of green tea/Ians

The study, to be presented at the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) annual meeting in Sweden next week, scanned 19 cohort studies.

While it’s long been known that regularly drinking tea may be beneficial for health because of the various antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and anti-carcinogenic compounds tea contains, less clear has been the relationship between tea drinking and the risk of diabetes.

Overall, the new meta-analysis found a linear association between tea drinking and diabetes risk, with each cup of tea consumed per day reducing the risk of developing diabetes by around 1 per cent, said the study published in peer-reviewed journal Diabetologia.

When compared with adults who didn’t drink tea, those who drank 1-3 cups daily lowered their risk of diabetes by 4 per cent, while those who consumed at least 4 cups every day reduced their risk by 17 per cent.

The associations were observed regardless of the type of tea participants drank, whether they were male or female, or where they lived, suggesting that it may be the amount of tea consumed, rather than any other factor, that plays a major role.

“While more research needs to be done to determine the exact dosage and mechanisms behind these observations, our findings suggest that drinking tea is beneficial in reducing the risk of type 2 diabetes, but only at high doses (at least 4 cups a day)”, said Li.

It is possible that particular components in tea, such as polyphenols, may reduce blood glucose levels, but a sufficient amount of these bioactive compounds may be needed to be effective.

Despite the important findings, the authors noted that the study is observational and cannot prove that drinking tea reduces the risk of diabetes, but suggests that it is likely to contribute.

Here’s how coffee and cigarettes are complementary

Posted on August 17, 2022 by Arun Kumar N

In a cell-based study, the researchers identified two compounds in coffee that directly affect certain high-sensitivity nicotine receptors in the brain. In smokers, these brain receptors can be hypersensitive after a night of nicotine withdrawal.

The recently published findings have yet to be tested in humans but are an important step toward better understanding how coffee and cigarettes affect nicotine receptors in the brain, said Roger L. Papke, Ph.D., a pharmacology professor in the UF College of Medicine. Caffeine is coffee’s feel-good ingredient for most people but smokers may get another kind of boost.

“Many people like caffeine in the morning but there are other molecules in coffee that may explain why cigarette smokers want their coffee,” Papke said.

The researchers applied a dark-roasted coffee solution to cells that express a particular human nicotine receptor. An organic chemical compound in coffee may help restore the nicotine receptor dysfunction that leads to nicotine cravings in smokers, the researchers concluded.

The findings have led Papke to a broader hypothesis: One of the compounds in brewed coffee, known as n-MP, may help to quell morning nicotine cravings.

Papke said he was intrigued by the idea that nicotine-dependent smokers associate tobacco use with coffee in the morning and alcohol in the evening. While alcohol’s effect on nicotine receptors in the brain has been thoroughly researched, the receptors’ interaction with coffee has been studied less.

“Many people look for coffee in the morning because of the caffeine. But was the coffee doing anything else to smokers? We wanted to know if there were other things in coffee that were affecting the brain’s nicotine receptors,” Papke said.

Coffee increases consumer spending, says another study

However, a global research team said customers are prone to impulsive purchases after consuming coffee, tea, or soda at retail stores or car dealerships.

About 85% of Americans consume at least one caffeinated beverage every day with coffee being the primary source of caffeine, followed by tea and soda. Caffeine is also found in energy drinks, chocolate, and in many over the counter and prescription medications.

These researchers said, “Understanding how and why caffeine consumption influences spending is important since caffeine is one of the most powerful stimulants that is both legal and widely available.”

The study finds that drinking a caffeinated beverage before shopping leads to more items purchased at the store and increased spending. Their studies also show that the effect of caffeine is stronger for “high hedonic” products such as scented candles, fragrances, décor items, and massagers and weaker for “low hedonic” products such as notebooks, kitchen utensils, and storage baskets.

Yoga awareness campaign of the Ministry of Ayush with the help of human size Yoga mascots in the run up to the International Day of Yoga, at Metro Walk Mall, Rohini, in New Delhi on June 10, 2017.(PIB Photo)

Caffeine also impacted the types of items bought at the stores. The group that took in caffeine bought more hedonic (enjoyable/fun) items such as scented candles and fragrances. However, there was very little difference between the two groups with regard to utilitarian purchases such as utensils and storage baskets. Also, the effects of caffeine on spending hold for those who drink a little over two cups of coffee (or less) daily and is weakened for heavy coffee drinkers.

“Overall, retailers can benefit financially if shoppers consume caffeine before or during shopping and that the effects are stronger for high hedonic products. This is important for retailers to factor in to determine the proportion of hedonic products in their stores. Policy makers may also want to inform consumers about the potential effects of caffeine on spending,” conclude the researchers.

Black tea may help with weight loss, too

Posted on October 4, 2017 by Arun Kumar N

UCLA researchers have demonstrated for the first time that black tea may promote weight loss and other health benefits by changing bacteria in the gut. In a study of mice, the scientists showed that black tea alters energy metabolism in the liver by changing gut metabolites.

The research is published in the European Journal of Nutrition.

The study found that both black and green tea changed the ratio of intestinal bacteria in the animals: The percentage of bacteria associated with obesity decreased, while bacteria associated with lean body mass increased.

Previous studies indicated that chemicals in green tea called polyphenols are absorbed and alter the energy metabolism in the liver. The new findings show that black tea polyphenols, which are too large to be absorbed in the small intestine, stimulate the growth of gut bacterium and the formation of short-chain fatty acids, a type of bacterial metabolites that has been shown to alter the energy metabolism in the liver.

“It was known that green tea polyphenols are more effective and offer more health benefits than black tea polyphenols since green tea chemicals are absorbed into the blood and tissue,” said Susanne Henning, the study’s lead author and an adjunct professor at the UCLA Center for Human Nutrition, which is part of the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. “Our new findings suggest that black tea, through a specific mechanism through the gut microbiome, may also contribute to good health and weight loss in humans.”

“The results suggest that both green and black teas are prebiotics, substances that induce the growth of good microorganisms that contribute to a person’s well-being,” she said.

In the study, four groups of mice received different diets — two of which were supplemented with green tea or black tea extracts:

Low-fat, high-sugar
High-fat, high-sugar

High-fat, high-sugar and green tea extract

High-fat, high-sugar and black tea extract

After four weeks, the weights of the mice that were given green or black tea extracts dropped to the same levels as those of the mice that received the low-fat diet throughout the study.

The researchers also collected samples from the mice’s large intestines (to measure bacteria content) and liver tissues (to measure fat deposits). In the mice that consumed either type of tea extract, there was less of the type of bacteria associated with obesity and more of the bacteria associated with lean body mass.

However, only the mice that consumed black tea extract had an increase in a type of bacteria called Pseudobutyrivibrio, which could help explain the difference between how black tea and green tea change energy metabolism.

Dr. Zhaoping Li, director of the UCLA Center for Human Nutrition, chief of the UCLA Division of Clinical Nutrition and the study’s senior author, said the findings suggest that the health benefits of both green tea and black tea go beyond their antioxidant benefits, and that both teas have a strong impact on the gut microbiome.

“For black tea lovers, there may be a new reason to keep drinking it,” she said.

The findings build on a 2015 UCLA study that demonstrated that both green tea and black tea helped prevent obesity in mice that consumed a high-fat, high-sugar diet.

Demand for Coffee Can Create Rift with Poorer Nations: Study

Posted on August 23, 2015 by Arun Kumar N

The explosion in worldwide coffee consumption in the past two decades has generally not benefitted farmers of coffee beans in poorer nations along the equator, said a new study.

A University of Kansas (KU) researcher studying trade and globalization has found that the shift to “technified” coffee production in the 1970s and 1980s has created harsher economic and ecological consequences for heavy coffee-producing nations, such as Honduras, Colombia, Guatemala, Brazil, Vietnam and Ethiopia.

“Historically, coffee has been exploited by the West in various ways, because it’s consumed in rich countries, and grown in poor ones,” said Alexander Myers, a KU doctoral candidate in sociology.

Myers will present his study, “Trading in Crisis: Coffee, Ecological Rift, and Ecologically Unequal Exchange,” at the 110th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association (ASA). The paper examines how the shift to technified coffee for mass production and to meet greater demand hurt peasant farmers of those countries and had a major ecological influence there, especially with the amount of water required for the crops.

Myers said the shift to technified coffee production changed the process to look more like traditional large wheat or soybean farms in the United States as opposed to allowing coffee plants to grow in smaller shaded areas. The latter process used much less water, for example, and it allowed farmers to diversify their crops and use their land to plant other crops as well.

Technified production requires farmers to exclusively grow coffee.”Especially these peasant farmers who maybe have a small plot of land, they rely almost exclusively on coffee sales to sustain themselves,” Myers said.

Major drops in commodities prices of coffee beans to around $0.50 per pound in 2001 nearly wiped out economies of those nations, for example.”That really hit the famers hard, and it caused a lot of these family farms that have historically relied on coffee to keep themselves afloat,” Myers said.

The technification of coffee production also required a new type of coffee bean to grow effectively, but the process also required much more water to produce. Some ecological researchers have estimated the average cup of coffee takes 140 liters of water to grow.”It’s very taxing environmentally,” Myers said.

The fair trade movement in the past two decades has helped to offset somewhat both the economic and ecological changes, especially for poorer farmers in developing countries. Myers said such movements could help raise awareness especially among coffee drinkers in Western nations.

“What we do matters. The choices that we make, the products that we buy have an impact on somebody,” he said. “Sometimes it’s a good impact. Sometimes it’s negligible or negative. But they do have impacts, so just trying to keep that in mind is important, especially in researching what is behind these consumption choices.”

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