I've been using coffee for these reasons for years:
The latest here:
Naveed Saleh, MD, MS, for MDLinx | November 19, 2019
Caffeine—the principal active ingredient in
coffee, tea, and energy drinks—is found in more than 60 plants globally.
Experts believe that these plants evolved over millions of years to
produce caffeine as a natural pesticide against destructive insects.
The Canon of Medicine, written by the Persian
physician-philosopher Avicenna in 1025 CE, was the first medical text to
acknowledge coffee as a potential therapeutic agent. At that time,
coffee was largely used to clean the skin and improve body odor. Today,
most people use it and other caffeinated beverages to keep awake and
alert—but caffeine has a slew of other health benefits.
Cognitive performance
Researchers have shown that caffeine can boost alertness and wakefulness in some consumers. In
one study
involving 9,003 British adults, caffeine was linked to dose-dependent
improvements in visuospatial reasoning, simple reaction time, choice
reaction time, and incidental verbal memory. These results were durable
and more prevalent in older vs younger adults, which indicated that
tolerance to caffeine’s cognitive benefits may be incomplete. Moreover, a
muted response was observed in tea drinkers in which researchers
observed improvement only in simple reaction time and visuospatial
reasoning. Of note, caffeine can cause anxiety in some consumers.
Burning fat
Caffeine changes the body’s preferred metabolic substrate from
glycogen to fat, thus increasing lipolysis; it stimulates
hormone-sensitive lipase. At very high doses—as in those who binge on
energy drinks—caffeine kicks protein kinase A into action, an enzyme key
to lipid and glucose metabolism.
Post-exercise recovery
Intense exercise burns off loads of glycogen. Caffeine promotes
glycogen resynthesis, which is needed for recovery. In well-trained
athletes, when paired with carbohydrate intake, post-exercise caffeine
consumption stimulates glycogen build-up.
Atrial fibrillation
Before we look at caffeine’s potential benefit in those with atrial
fibrillation, let’s unpack more general effects of caffeine on the
heart. Caffeine increases heart rate and contractility, inhibits the
negative inotropic and chronotropic actions of adenosine, and acts as
both a positive inotrope and chronotrope by inducing β1-receptor
activation—thus setting off the sympathetic nervous system.
In high-power studies involving healthy adults, coffee intake was not
linked to atrial arrhythmias. Other researchers have shown that
caffeine does not increase the risk of atrial fibrillation. Drinking 9
cups of coffee a day, however, was linked to a two-fold increased risk
of premature ventricular contractions. Moreover, drinking 10 cups of
coffee a day has been linked to increased risk of sudden death in
patients with coronary artery disease who previously experienced cardiac
arrest. Of note, experts have shown that in habitual coffee drinkers,
the adrenergic and proarrhythmic effects of caffeine are reduced.
So, the reason why caffeine could possibly help people with atrial
fibrillation is that it has antifibrotic actions, and atrial fibrosis is
important in the pathogenesis of atrial fibrillation.
Parkinson disease
In observational studies, caffeine intake has been linked to a lower risk of Parkinson disease. According to the authors of an
editorial published in
Neurology discussing this association:
“The protective effect of caffeine (found not only in coffee, but
also in tea, and some sodas) has been demonstrated in large
prospectively followed populations of men, with a dramatic reduction in
risk (up to fivefold for persons who drank more than 4 cups of coffee a
day). Decaffeinated coffee afforded no protection, pointing to caffeine
rather than other substances in coffee or tea as the underlying
pharmacologic agent. No such linear relationship is found in women, in
whom the protective effects are either nonexistent or U-shaped.”
Furthermore, although caffeine does not reduce excessive daytime
somnolence in patients with Parkinson disease, some researchers have
shown that it may improve motor function in this population.
Alzheimer disease
In one
study
of the association between coffee and/or tea consumption at midlife and
the risk of dementia or Alzheimer disease risk in late-life (mean
follow-up period: 21 years), researchers found that compared with coffee
abstainers, coffee drinkers had a decreased risk of dementia/Alzheimer
disease. Interestingly, the lowest risk—65% decreased—occurred in those
who drank 3-5 cups of java a day.
In a review
article published in
Current Neuropharmacology, researchers offered one potential explanation for the neuroprotective effects of caffeine:
“Recent experimental evidence suggests that the primary target of the
neuroprotective effects of caffeine is either the activation or the
inhibition of the A1 and A2A adenosine receptor subtypes. The use of
adenosine receptor antagonists, such as caffeine, has shown its
usefulness not only in the treatment, but also in the protection against
[Alzheimer disease and Parkinson disease]. Experimental evidence
supports the use of caffeine and other adenosine receptor antagonists,
as well as adenosine receptor agonists, in the reduction of
hyperalgesia, excitotoxicity, inflammatory response, dyskinesia,
akinesia, sensory and motor deficits, and neuronal cell death related to
the pathophysiology of the discussed neurodegenerative diseases.”
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