We’ve described some of the known health benefits of coffee in previous articles, but we couldn’t help sharing the results of two independent research projects to emerge over the past week. One associates consuming caffeine with healthier hearts, and the other indicates that drinking coffee is good for the liver. We’re not scientists, but we reckon those are two pretty important organs…
Let’s take a look at the heart news first. The study was carried out by researchers at Heinrich-Heine-University and the IUF-Leibniz Research Institute for Environmental Medicine in Düsseldorf, Germany. It turns out that a protein called p27 helped both protect and repair the heart muscle cells in mice, and that caffeine encourages the protein to move into cardiovascular cells. Of course, the next step would be to conduct tests on human subjects, but the research does hint that caffeine might be particularly useful in older people and those recovering from heart attacks. The researchers were even able to estimate that the optimum number of caffeinated coffees to drink would be four cups a day.
The liver news comes courtesy of a 26-year-long study of more than 14,000 people in America. A team of researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health analysed the data from a national heart disease study, whose participants had completed questionnaires which included a question on their coffee consumption. Their medical records had been tracked over the course of 26 years. Now, because the effect of coffee on liver function wasn’t the objective of the study, there’s no way of proving cause and effect. But by following the trends revealed in all those thousands of reports, the researchers worked out that the people who drank three or more cups of coffee a day were 21% less likely to be taken into hospital with a liver-related problem. The average person who took part in the study drank a little less than two 220g cups of coffee a day.
Judging by those two research results – and some of the other reports of the effects of coffee on human health we’ve seen before – perhaps three or four coffees a day are the ideal to aim for.
Something to mention to your customers in conversation, perhaps?
Don’t forget, Thursday 28th June is National Freelancers Day, so if you’re keen on creative types sitting on laptops, conducting meetings and generally filling up your coffee shop with jargon, make sure you promote availability on your social media accounts!