Boy, the controversy over coffee is endless. I love the beverage.
I love the taste.
I love the aroma.
I love the preparation, even that of instant coffee.
I love the drinking of it, the savoring action of intermittent sipping. It is a love affair. My first cup of coffee with my dad was a 5am-cup of hot coffee poured carefully from his Thermos as we made our way on Highway 101 in the morning night through Thousand Oaks, California from Los Angeles to Monterey, CA. Coffee is a many splendid thing.
But getting to the truth about coffee is no love lost, let me tell you. We keep hearing of the benefits of coffee--staves off heart attacks, protects you against all kinds of morbid conditions, adds 7 years to your life . . . the list is endless. But aren't these palliatives all a bit conspicuous? I mean don't they kind of go against what we see and experience? I mean I don't care what scientists say about smoking cigarettes, they will cause you to get ill. Ulysses S. Grant, 18th President of the United States, got throat cancer from smoking so many cigars. Even if he didn't inhale, that backdraft of smoke on a puff is going to irritate tissue, its ability at moisturizing itself, and neighboring systems. So imagine my shock when I came across an NCBI article that professes the benefits of coffee on tooth enamel. Really? You mean to tell me all those acids in coffee help clean the mouth and teeth? Well, that's what the NCBI article is saying. Now before you go out and prepare a pot and consume 3 cups with sugar and cream, note well that the benefits come under certain conditions. Before we look at the NCBI article, let's what folks from the early 19th century had to say about coffee:
It is rarely mentioned today the strange theory that Hahnemann
created before the Psora theory, that Coffee was the cause of all human
illness. Reference is: 'On the Effects of Coffee from Original Observations'
(Leipzig, 1803) and listed in his Lesser Writings, pp391-410.
'...Hahnemann himself alludes to the essay he
wrote upon the action of coffee in 1803, where he had ascribed the production
of a multitude of chronic diseases to the action of that all but universal
beverage, and he confesses that he thinks he had ascribed an exaggerated
importance and gravity to its use; since his discovery of psora as the cause of
many chronic diseases, he is inclined to attribute to that agent the production
of most of those affections he had imputed to coffee.' (Dudgeon, 1853, Lectures
on the Theory & Practice of Homeopathy, p259)
I will not
quote in full length his essay, but in the course of it Hahnemann ascribes the
following chronic disorders to the use of coffee:
'constipation, impotence, dental caries,
abscesses in children, pulmonary mucus, blue rings around the eyes, leucorrhea,
ulcers, general megrim, nervous affections, chronic diseases, insomnia,
stammering of speech, lack of appetite for food, ophthalmias, rattling in the
chest, etc.' (On coffee, 1803, Lesser Writings, pp401-9)
This list
very closely resembles many of the entries in his list of conditions for Psora
(given both in Chronic Diseases and in other essays from the 1820s and '30s)
and it is perfectly clear to me - as Dudgeon states - that Hahnemann was
tempted in 1803 to ascribe to Coffee a grand theory of chronic disease
remarkably similar to that which he later, in 1827, ascribed to the Itch animal
of Scabies.
'That the drinking of warm coffee and Chinese
tea...has further augmented the tendency of this period to a multitude of
chronic diseases and thus aided psora, I least of all can doubt, as I have made
prominent, perhaps too prominent, the part which coffee takes with respect to
the bodily and mental sufferings of humanity, in my little work on the 'Effects
of Coffee' (Leipzig, 1803). This perhaps undue prominence given was owing to
the fact that I had not then as yet discovered the chief source of chronic
disease in Psora.' (Chronic Diseases, Jain Edition, 1978, (Tafel translation of
1896), Vol 1, pp13-14)
I tend to agree with Hannenman.
Remember, too, that coffee is addictive; unlike a lot of other addictive substances, coffee is socially acceptable. Try getting someone to listen to your rationale about why you love heroin.
And then there's NCBI, who claims that coffee prevents cavities. I kid you not.
The
DMFS score of the control subjects was 4, indicating that coffee if consumed
alone had anticaries action but in the presence of additives the antibacterial
and anticaries action was totally minimized.
This is too fantastical. Unbelievable. In the twenty years that I've been fiercely studying the effects of food on health, this is the first time that I've heard that coffee benefits your teeth. I'd always thought that acids in coffee erode enamel, not protect it. But here is the evidence:
It
elevates mood and can treat severe headaches. If coffee is drunk in limited
amounts it can help in having healthier and whiter teeth as well as enjoying
other health benefits. Besides keeping one alert and awake, coffee has been
linked to an increasing number of potential health benefits. Coffee provides
more than just a morning jolt and has been found to contain substances called
antioxidants, which are beneficial to the human body. Several years ago, in
California, a research conducted by Takayuki Shibamoto, a professor of
environmental toxicology, found that freshly brewed coffee contains potent
antioxidants equal to the amount found in three oranges.
Then we learn that the antioxidant in coffee is the result of the roasting process.
The antioxidant in coffee is called methylpyridinium. Oddly
enough, this tongue-twister chemical is not found in large amounts in other
foods. Even odder, it is not present in the raw coffee bean. It is created
during the roasting process from the trigonelline that is present in raw coffee
beans.[3]
Coffee helps with tooth decay? Prove it.
The
caffeine in coffee is known to affect the manner in which the body handles
sugar absorption: A few cups of coffee a day can greatly reduce the onset of
type II or adult-onset diabetes. Coffee also contains substantial amounts of
potassium, niacin, magnesium, and important antioxidants such as tocopherols
and phenol chlorogenic acid. It is also been known to thwart migraine
headaches, (the results show that both green and roasted coffee possess
antiradical activity, and their more active component is 5-O-caffeoyl-quinic
acid. Moreover the roasting process induces Maillard reaction products, such
as, melanoidins, which also possess antiradical activity, in coffee. These
results could explain the neuroprotective effects found for coffee consumption
in recent epidemiological studies)[4]and to ease pain
and relieve symptoms associated with asthma.
The evidence does seem to be developing.
A new
research published shows that coffee made from roasted coffee beans has
antibacterial activities against certain microorganisms. Both Gram-positive and
Gram-negative bacteria, including S. muans are a major cause of dental caries. [2]Inhibition by cocoa, coffee, and tea is due partly to
gelatin-precipitable tannins and partly to components that exhibit properties
of monomeric polyphenols. Catechin, a known constituent of these beverages, is
an effective inhibitor of the enzymes. The effects of fruit juices are
attributable mainly to the inhibition of the glucosyltransferases, by the
endogenous fructose and glucose. The findings show that the naturally occurring
constituents of foods can inhibit extracellular polysaccharide formation from
sucrose. Such constituents may play a role in regulating dental plaque
formation in vivo and, thereby,
have long-term effects on the development of dental caries.
To reduce the bitterness of coffee, some folks use a pinch of salt. I've never tried that but a business associate from India, a gentleman by the name of Tanveer, did take his coffee that way.
As delicious as coffee is, it is complicated. For example, you don't want to take your morning multivitamin with a cup of coffee because coffee interferes with vitamin C and vitamin B1 absorption. Bill Sardi explains,
The problem of thiamin deficiency may be traced to another daily practice, the consumption of coffee, tea or beer. Many millions of people consume coffee or tea at the same time they take their morning multivitamin. What's the problem with tea or coffee? They contain tannins (bitter parts) that alter vitamin B1 and render it useless. Sulfite preservatives, as found in wine, are another antagonist to B1. Alcohol also interferes with B1 absorption. In fact, about 30-80% of alcohol users have low circulating levels of B1. The lesson here is not to take vitamin B1 pills with coffee, tea or alcohol.
