{"id":18887,"date":"2011-08-11T09:57:37","date_gmt":"2011-08-11T13:57:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=18887"},"modified":"2016-01-06T05:09:28","modified_gmt":"2016-01-06T10:09:28","slug":"the-health-benefits-of-coffee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=18887","title":{"rendered":"The Health Benefits of Coffee"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n

I was eighteen the first time I enjoyed a cup of coffee.\u00a0 My boyfriend Mike<\/a> (who later became my husband) invited me to meet him for coffee at a cafe in downtown Jerusalem.\u00a0 I had just graduated from high school in Texas and in that pre-Starbucks era, coffee – to my mind – was something only old people drank.\u00a0 But there I was sitting with the coolest, handsomest guy I’d ever met, and to my shock and horror, he was ordering coffee.\u00a0 Please don’t say the word “decaf” like my grandmother, I thought.\u00a0 Please don’t ask for Sanka.\u00a0 Mike ordered a cappuccino.\u00a0 I vaguely knew what it was, and though my instinct was to go for a Diet Coke, I decided to try to be sophisticated.\u00a0 “I’ll have one, too,” I said to the waitress.<\/p>\n

The cappuccinos arrived and looked lovely, but I stared at mine as if it had a fly in it.\u00a0 The first thing I said to Mike was, “What do I do with it?”<\/p>\n

“Drink it,” he said.<\/p>\n

“No, I mean, do I put sugar in it?”<\/p>\n

“I don’t,” Mike said.\u00a0 “But you can.”<\/p>\n

Since I liked coffee ice cream, I figured sugar was a good idea.\u00a0 I mixed in a packet, and took a sip.\u00a0 It was delicious.\u00a0 From then on I was hooked.\u00a0 In fact, I liked coffee so much I didn’t even want sugar with it.\u00a0 That was something I felt lucky about after my diabetes diagnosis<\/a>– at least I didn’t have to change the way I drank my coffee.\u00a0 And coffee was the one thing I knew I wasn’t going to give up.\u00a0 I’ll give up all the carbs in the world in order to take care of my diabetes.\u00a0 But coffee isn’t negotiable.<\/p>\n

In her blog, Leaf-Stitch-Word<\/a>, Jane Kokernak<\/a> wrote something similar:<\/p>\n

In 1992, during a hospital stay after my diagnosis<\/a> with diabetes, I was faced for the first time with a meal that, at that time, was institutionally considered nutritious: undressed turkey, steamed vegetables, a boiled potato, diet Jello. No salt, no butter, no sweets. Worst of all: no caffeine in the coffee.<\/p>\n

Feeling all hope bleed out of me, I implored the dietician, \u201cCould I just have one cup of real coffee? One?\u201d (Insulin, I could deal with. But a life with no coffee?)<\/p>\n

\u201cHoney, have as much coffee as you like,\u201d she said, to my great relief. \u201cEveryone needs a vice, and this is not such a bad one.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s become almost a mantra for me, and I\u2019ve embraced coffee like a maniac.<\/p>\n

\n

What Are The Health Benefits of Drinking Coffee?<\/h2>\n

I, like Jane, embrace coffee like a maniac.\u00a0 I don’t usually worry about how it’s influencing my diabetes because over and over again I see studies that suggest drinking coffee has health benefits.\u00a0 Several large observational studies have shown that drinking coffee lowers risk of type 2 diabetes<\/a>. An article<\/a> on Web MD says coffee may counter several risk factors for heart attack and stroke, and higher consumption of coffee is also associated with a decreased risk of Parkinson’s disease.\u00a0 In May The New York Times reported<\/a> men who are heavy coffee drinkers have a lower risk of prostate cancer.\u00a0 Last month Men’s Health ran an article<\/a> that said drinking caffeinated coffee might help protect against Alzheimer’s disease.<\/p>\n

This all makes me feel good about my coffee consumption, but I also stop and say, wait a minute, what does “might help protect” really mean?\u00a0 Does it mean anything at all?\u00a0 Are there really any health benefits in coffee, or could it be harming me?\u00a0 Sam Apple, editor-in-chief of The Faster Times<\/a>, who drinks 3-6 cups of coffee a day says, “Generally speaking, I don’t give much credence to the small studies that make headlines. Often these studies only show correlations, and, if you’re not a scientist, it’s hard to evaluate the methodology. As for coffee, I’m going to keep drinking it unless there’s incredibly compelling evidence that it’s harmful. It’s just too good to give up.”<\/p>\n

Should People with Diabetes Drink Coffee?<\/h2>\n

Some studies<\/a> do suggest that caffeine affects blood glucose levels.\u00a0 Researchers at Duke University Medical Center found giving caffeine to a small group of people with type 2 diabetes caused their blood sugar levels to rise through the day, especially after meals.\u00a0 And caffeine is also sometimes associated with restlessness, anxiety, irritability and sleeplessness- things that can cause a rise in blood sugar levels.\u00a0 But what about caffeine consumption in people with type 1 diabetes?\u00a0 In 2000 a study<\/a> published in the journal Diabetes Care concluded, “Ingestion of modest amounts of caffeine enhances the intensity of hypoglycemia warning symptoms in patients with type 1 diabetes without altering the prevailing standard of glycemic control or increasing the incidence of severe hypoglycemic episodes.”<\/p>\n

Caffeine hasn’t just been shown to increase hypoglycemic awareness.\u00a0 A 2005 study<\/a> investigated the effect of caffeine, in doses equivalent to normal daily ingestion, on rates and severity of hypoglycemia in patients with type 1 diabetes.\u00a0 Using continuous glucose sensing technology and simultaneous assessment of autonomic function with Holter monitoring, the investigators studied the effect of caffeine versus placebo in 19 patients with long-standing type 1 diabetes.\u00a0 The results of this study suggested that caffeine is associated with a significant reduction in nocturnal hypoglycemia. “The reduction in nocturnal hypoglycemia was not linked to the concomitant rise in parasympathetic activity associated with caffeine,” according to the study.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, after looking at these and other studies, I have not been able to draw any solid conclusions about how coffee consumption is influencing my diabetes overall.\u00a0 For clarification I turned to Dr. Zachary Bloomgarden, clinical professor at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, who told me he neither recommends coffee to his patients nor tells them to limit their consumption.\u00a0 “I know about the research,” he said. \u00a0“But it seems particularly to pertain to a protective effect of very high coffee intake, and one cannot be sure that this implies causality or is simply an association, and\u00a0certainly would not suggest benefit in moderate coffee consumption.\u00a0 There’s also interesting evidence that it has some effects which might either be beneficial or harmful (depending on how you interpret) on hypoglycemia.\u00a0 Furthermore there are complicated and contradictory studies of filtered versus unfiltered coffee. “<\/p>\n

“Should people with diabetes drink coffee?”<\/p>\n

“I like coffee myself, and am enjoying my second cup now,” Dr. Bloomgarden said. ” I see no reason people with diabetes should not!”<\/p>\n

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