From reducing the risk of diabetes to staving off Alzheimer’s and cancer, your daily caffeine hit is more powerful than you realise. There’s nothing quite like the smell of freshly ground coffee in the morning, but your caffeine fix isn’t just a costly habit - it could be benefiting your health. Early research has suggested a cup of coffee raises the risk of heart disease and asthma, “but when you look at the evidence, it doesn’t say give up coffee, it actually says drink more”, says Professor Clare Collins, an expert in nutrition and dietetics at the University of Newcastle in New South Wales.
Around a third of people in the UK already have a few mugs a day, while a quarter limit themselves to one and a tenth have two to three cups a week. “For people who are always asking, ‘What else can I do to try and be healthy?’ or [saying], ‘I’m going on a health kick’, the one thing you want to keep doing is to continue to drink coffee,” Collins says. Health benefits of black coffee Heart protection For decades, coffee was linked to poor heart health .
But research has now consistently suggested it can protect the organ. Scientists from the University of Colorado, who examined data on the diet and medical records of more than 15,000 people, found compared to people who didn’t drink coffee, for every extra cup of coffee drunk per week there was a 7 per cent drop in the risk of heart failure and an 8 per cent reduction in stroke risk . Experts believe this ef.
