Health Benefits of Drinking Black Coffee

We all know how good it feels to drink a strong black coffee first thing in the morning. We feel more alert, confident and ready to seize the day. But what if your daily cup or two of strong black coffee wasn’t just good for waking you up and tasting good? Are there any other health benefits to drinking black coffee? Well, after some extensive research we have found plenty of reasons to drink it. Read below to find out more but please note that we are an excellent coffee roaster in Thatcham and not scientists so please do your own research too! 

Improves Memory 

Getting older is inevitable and comes with many benefits, they say with age comes experience - for instance, you know that instant coffee is the Devil’s work and freshly roasted beans are best but, unfortunately, one of the drawbacks is a decrease in our cognitive ability. With age comes an increased risk of cognitive decline and diseases such as Dementia, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Drinking black coffee helps keep your brain active which, in turn, can increase one’s memory power. It does this by stimulating the nerve endings in your brain and helps keep those cognitive functions active and healthy. Some studies have pointed out how regular black coffee consumption reduces the risk of Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s by over 60%.

Working Out

The benefits of consuming caffeine before and after working out (we recently did a piece on the latter here) are well documented so we won’t spend too long on this point. Your physical performance is improved because of the caffeine in black coffee. Why? One of the reasons is that the caffeine in the black coffee increases the amount of adrenaline in your bloodstream which enhances your ‘fight or flight response and, as such, your aerobic and anaerobic performance. You may have heard of our gymBrew coffee which is extra strong, perfect taken black and great for people who love working out optimally (check out our reviews!).  

Your Liver

As one of your vital organs, you could say that your liver is rather important. And, as such, it’s important to look after it. But, here’s the thing — did you know that your liver loves black coffee? Black coffee can help prevent liver cancer, fatty liver diseases (like cirrhosis) and also hepatitis. It’s been found that if you drink more than four cups of black coffee a day your chances of developing one of these nasty diseases of the liver can be reduced by up to 80%. Why? Coffee can help lower the level of nasty enzymes in the blood which can cause these types of diseases of the liver. 

Cognitive Functions

Coffee isn’t just good for improving the brainpower of people of a certain age. Drinking black coffee improves our energy, mood and cognitive functions due to the psychoactive stimulant known as caffeine! 

Your Gut

Drinking black coffee is good for your gut. Why? Coffee, more specifically the psychoactive stimulant caffeine is a diuretic. We all know that if we drink a lot of liquid we need to pass water but by drinking black coffee (without sugar) toxins and bacteria are flushed out of our gut when we pass water. 

Can aid weight loss

Keeping our BMI at a healthy level is really important, especially during these Covid times! The consumption of black coffee increases your metabolism, especially if you drink it before your workout (which is why we created gymBrew!). Caffeine also sends a signal to our nervous system that it should break down the fat cells and ‘burn’ them rather than being stored as glycogen. Remember this only works if you take your black coffee without sugar!

Cardiovascular disease

Those health and performance benefits of drinking black coffee just keep coming, don’t they? Studies have shown that drinking black coffee will increase our blood pressure temporarily it will go down. Counterintuitively almost, the same studies have also shown that by drinking 1-2 cups of coffee a day can significantly reduce the risk of strokes and heart attacks. 

Antioxidants

Coffee beans come packed with antioxidants. You’ll find, amongst other things, magnesium, B vitamins and potassium. Potassium, specifically, is known for its great antioxidant properties and why all those celebrities swear by coconut water and loads of bananas. 

Decreases risk of Type 2 Diabetes

Some studies have shown that drinking one to two cups of black coffee each day can reduce one’s susceptibility to Type 2 Diabetes. Why is this? Type 2 Diabetes comes from a lack of insulin (which is typically related to diet). Caffeine stimulates the production of insulin which can protect the body against Type 2 Diabetes. 

Ageing 

Drinking black coffee (without sugar) as we know, helps to protect against the diseases typically associated with old age both cognitive and physical. It also increases our dopamine levels which help us in feeling happy and young. 

Reducing the risk of cancers

It’s a sad and alarming fact that one in two people in the UK will develop cancer at some point in their life. Drinking black coffee helps reduce inflammation and inflammation is one of the main causes of cancer. So, your daily cup of the black stuff can help protect against cancers such as liver, breast and colon. 

Wellbeing, stress and depression 

Far be it from us to say that black coffee is a wonder drug, but it really kind of is. Drinking black coffee increases our stocks of dopamine and serotonin and both of these are important neurotransmitters that really do affect our mood, how we feel and our outlook on life. 

Helps protect against gout 

Contrary to the popular perception the gout sufferer isn’t an overweight port drinking Victorian. Gout is caused by too many purines in the bloodstream and purines are present in foods like whole grains. The antioxidants in black coffee help protect against gout by flushing out purines and cleansing the body. 

We hope you found this (non-exhaustive) list of the health benefits of drinking black coffee useful. You’ll note that we refer to the benefits of drinking black coffee without sugar. Why? Because sugar will negate a lot of the health benefits. Black coffee without sugar is a low-calorie drink, add in the sugar and you’ll lose all of the weight loss benefits. Of course, if you would like to know more about our coffees or would like to test any of our coffees in our roastery, please get in touch!