Still on coffee – by Dr Sylvester Ikhisemojie

Last week we took a detour to talk about one of the most commonly consumed beverages in the world, coffee and explored quite a range of health benefits that is attributable to this drink. Sadly, while there are no reliable statistics to determine just how much coffee is taken across Nigeria, it is probably the case that not a lot of people take it or perhaps, it is viewed as one of those elitist engagements that appear to be peculiar to certain socio-economic classes. And when you examine the additives that people would ordinarily include in a typical cup of coffee, namely milk and sugar both of which are now priced nearly beyond the reach of ordinary citizens, the scale of the deprivation can be better imagined. All the same, we shall delve further into the known benefits of taking this drink and seek to reassure others that taking it within the bounds of common sense and moderation is ultimately beneficial to the overall health of the consumer. Both a much older inquiry into the utility of this beverage and a more recent one have found that in both its regular form and its decaffeinated variant, coffee when taken in higher volumes is associated with healthier levels of liver enzymes in the human body. Now, the conclusion among these researchers is that the presence of certain antioxidants such as the phenolic compounds which are plentiful in coffee, may be responsible for this positive effect.

Besides this important conclusion was the fact, established in animal studies, that decaffeinated coffee in particular may have protective effects against the development of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. We discussed this entirely new disease condition, as it then was, on this page in 2016 and the conclusion at that time was that fatty liver disease occurs when excess fat begins to accumulate in the liver thereby quickly becoming one of the leading causes of liver disease against a background of burgeoning worldwide obesity. Therefore, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease has become a threat to the health of millions of people around the world. In the end, this happened to have been a study conducted in animals and it is important to be able to replicate it in humans before certain far-reaching conclusions can be reached. It is speculated that this protective function stems from the fact that humans have an intestinal barrier much as we also have a blood-brain barrier. This barrier is the structure which at normal times is responsible for the absorption of nutrients as well as forming a defensive line against intestinal toxins. When this barrier malfunctions either suddenly or on a long-term basis, or it is breached as a result of injury, there is an increased likelihood of developing fatty liver disease. This linkage helped in no small way to establish the probability that a relationship exists between the benefits to the liver from decaffeinated coffee and the health of the intestinal tract.

Decaffeinated coffee is a separate kind of drink in some ways; more than 90 per cent of the caffeine in the coffee is removed but the aroma and the stimulation you derive from taking it remain the same. However, the composition of this coffee is similar overall to regular coffee. It has a very similar nutritional composition to the regular one. And while many people actually think that taking decaffeinated coffee is beneficial to their overall health, it is clear from research findings that this thinking is probably correct. Given the fact that their intake of caffeine is thereby reduced, they still stand to experience the overall health benefits provided by this beverage. There remains some caffeine in the decaffeinated drink despite its decaffeinated status, with the amount of caffeine ranging between a minimum of two milligrams per cup to between eight and nine milligrams per cup depending on the brand. This kind of coffee has no calories, but it contains some micronutrients especially magnesium which has a beneficial effect on blood pressure. As we have noted above, the drink is rich also in phenolic compounds. This is also a study validated in further research about this drink that both decaffeinated coffee and the instant type of coffee may be associated with a reduced risk of developing cardiovascular disease. That same study went further to suggest that those people who participated in the study and drank between one and three cups of coffee per day had the lowest risk of having heart or vascular disease.