Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hi brain Stuff. I'm Lauren Vogelbaum and this this is another classic from our archives. In this episode we consider coffee, which I am drinking as I write this intro. Every few years, it seems there's another round of mildly sensational headlines about how it's great for you or the very worst. So let's break down the science. Hey, brain Stuff, Lauren
vogel Bomb. Here. Coffee is a beverage with laura and legend, as rich as a double caramel latte, but far more contrary. An advertisement from the first coffee house in England promoted coffee is good against sore eyes and excellent to prevent and cure the dropsy, gout and scurvy. But in the early seventeen hundreds, Germans believed the beverage made women sterile.
But an old wives tale states that have bubbles appear in your java, you're due to come into some money, which wouldn't be a bad thing considering the price of a cup of these days. In more recent times, another idea took hold of the public's imagination regarding coffee, that
it had the power to stunt a child's growth. But just as a pot of coffee boiling over doesn't actually mean that it's going to rain, which was a thing that people thought at one point, the assertation that the drink makes for a nation of hobbits has been proven false. How coffee got associated with this myth is cloaked in the espresso steam of history, but most experts agree that it has something to do with an early study linking
caffeine to reduced bone mass and osteoporosis. Those studies, however, were conducted on elderly people whose diets were lacking in calcium, which could easily have explained the loss of bone mass.
Subsequent studies showed that women ages sixty five to seventy seven who drank about eighteen ounces of caffeine daily did have greater bone loss over a three year period than those who did not, but the effects occurred only in women with unusual variations in their vitamin D cell receptors, and the effects were completely mitigated if the women ingested they're recommended daily one thousand, two hundred milligrams of calcium. Focusing exclusively on children, A more recent study tract eighty
one teenagers for six years. The result there was no difference in bone density between the biggest buzz catchers and those who drank the least amount of caffeine. But just because a cup of Joe won't keep your little Joe's and Josephine's pint sized all their lives doesn't mean that there isn't cause to be concerned about children and coffee. These days, coffee creations can seem more like a dessert
than a simple pick me up in a cup. The Starbucks menu include such treats as a mint mocha chip frappuccino blended with chocolate and tapped with whipped cream, while Duncan Donuts offers up vanilla bean Kolata's that list corn syrup not once, but twice on their ingredients list, along
with sugar and sweetened condensed skim milk. So although it's been proven that there are relatively minor health issues associated with caffeine jitteriness, anxiety, heartburn, insomnia, it's actually the other ingredients that are added to coffee, especially sugar, that have nutritionists worried. It's no secret that America has a burgeoning problem with childhood obesity and diabetes, and eight hundred and sixty calorie packed drinks like the large Koolatta are not helping.
This is particularly troubling when, according to the National Coffee Association, eighteen to twenty four year olds represent the fastest growing segment of people turning on to coffee every year. In addition to expanding young waistlines, coffee can cause the mouth
to dry out, which contributes to tooth decay. The problem is compounded by the fact that the tanic aciding coffee can stain teeth enamel, giving some grins an unwanted mocuchi no tinge and coffee doesn't just affect the health of twentysomethings. Pregnant women are also warned to consume no more than two cups per day. Researchers in England found that pregnant women who drank more than two hundred milligrams of caffeine per day, the amount in two average sized cups of coffee,
were more likely to give birth to underweight babies. Lower birth weights can also lead to spontaneous miscarriages, another health concern with which caffeine has previously been associated. But if you relatively limit your caffeine intake, drink enough water, get enough calcium, and don't add shovelfuls of sugar to your java. The health benefits of coffee may far outweigh it's negatives.
Far from being the devil's drink, as coffee was once called by Christians in the fifteen hundreds, study upon study has proven that coffee can have health benefits. At one time, coffee was thought to have negative cardiovascular effects, including heart attack and abnormal heart rhythms, although it does cause minor
and temporary increases in blood pressure. According to an Iowa women's health study that tract twenty seven thousand women for fifteen years, those who consumed one to three daily cups of coffee reduced their overall risk of cardiovascular disease by It was also once thought that coffee could be a major contributing factor in pancreatic cancer due to a Harvard study. However, coffee's role as carston gen has since been disproven, and current research has shown that it can help ward off
breast in uterine cancer in women but white. There's more. A study of over a hundred and twenty five thousand members of the Kaiser Permanente Health Plan showed that heavy alcohol drinkers cut their risk of cirrhosis by per cup of coffee per day, and even among non tipplers, coffee has been shown to slash liver cancer risk, and two global studies have shown that coffee reduces the risk of
type two diabetes, sometimes up to even better. Those beneficial effects are related to chlorogenic acid, which is found both in decalf and regular brews. However, excess consumption of anything, including caffeine, is never a good idea. The magic number four coffees benefits seems to be between one and four cups a day. So while the old wives tale about coffee stunting your growth isn't really true, another piece of
traditional wisdom certainly is all things in moderation today. This episode is based on the article will drinking coffee really Stunt Your Growth? On how stuff works dot com written by Michael Franco. Brain Stuff is production of I Heart Radio in partnership with how stuff Works dot Com, and it's produced by Tyler Clang. Four more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.