Coffee: A Friend or a Foe?

Even after so many years of coffee's presence in our lives, it remains shrouded in mystery.

While the coffee chains do their best to glorify a cup of cappuccino and claim that “a lot can happen over a cup of coffee”, the grandmas and their ilk have the ill-effects of coffee on their fingertips. Be as it may, for many people coffee still remains close to the heart.

Many of us rely on a cup of coffee to begin our day. But if you've wondered whether coffee is doing you more harm than good, then you're not alone. Experts have been at loggerheads over whether coffee is bad for health or not for years now. There are studies which point out that coffee can lead tomiscarriage in women and can initiate cardiac disorders and cause headaches. But at the same time there are also studies saying that coffee can boost mental performance and cure headaches!

When we were growing up, coffee-drinking was often touted as a “not-so-good” habit. Not "terrible" but certainly not "healthy". In recent years, however, studies have found that coffee drinking isn't so bad after all, and it may have some real health benefits. In fact, most nutritionists think that the benefits of an ordinary coffee can easily offset the associated drawbacks. 

Most medics will reach an agreement over the fact that it's not always coffee that is harmful in itself, but the way in which it is prepared also matters. Some experts argue that coffee gets blamed for a lot of things. They say that people have been drinking coffee for centuries and there's no conclusive evidence to prove that it's bad for health except in the case of pregnant ladies.

Here we try to answer some questions which are often asked about the coffee, an attempt to separate facts from fiction:

Should you Banish Coffee from your Diet?

Coffee affects people differently depending on how they consume it. If you drink coffee regularly, you tend to be less sensitive to it than those who drink it non-regularly. For the regular drinkers,caffeine is a stimulant which can speed up metabolism. In simple terms, it means that their bodies are able to break caffeine quickly and have a heightened coffee tolerance. Most dieticians say that two cups of coffee a day are reasonable.

Will Coffee Give me a Headache?

This depends on how much coffee you drink and how “caffeine sensitive” you are. (People who get easily hyper or experience palpitations after drinking coffee are said to be caffeine sensitive.) Caffeine can be both beneficial and harmful for a headache sufferer. It can serve as a treatment or, in some cases, can cause withdrawal or rebound headaches. But excess of caffeine can easily lead to problems such as restlessness, sleeplessness and anxiety and is definitely not recommended.

Can Coffee be a Cause of Heart Diseases?

Coffee may counter several risk factors for heart attack and stroke. It has also been found to bring down the risks of heart rhythm disturbances in men and women. However, filtered coffee that has been sitting around for many hours can be quite risky for the heart.

Will Coffee make me go the Loo Quite Often?

It is nothing but an urban myth that coffee is a strong diuretic. It is only a mild diuretic which means that you urinate more than you would without it. But again, for a regular coffee drinker, the diuretic effect of the coffee is extremely feeble as their kidneys are able to break it down easily than the kidneys of non-regular drinkers. (MensXP.com)