Coffee in a healthy diet: To drink or not to drink?
Since its discovery - around 900 AD - coffee has been the subject of an incredible number of myths. Today, the data about it continues to be updated, but it is still unclear whether coffee has more benefits or harms. There is information that this drink reduces the risk of Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases, protects brain cells from aging and is an inhibitor of the mTOR gene, which prolongs life. So far - only in lab animals, but who knows! At the same time, coffee speeds up heart rate, leads to pressure fluctuations, can provoke an exacerbation of gastritis, increase "bad" cholesterol (with regular use of more than 5 cups a day) and disrupt sleep, which is very important for controlling appetite and preserving youthful skin. At the same time, nutritionists believe that moderate coffee consumption does not contradict the basic principles of good nutrition, and the decision whether to drink it or not is a matter of personal choice.
What kind of coffee is healthier?
Natural coffee without milk, sugar and sweeteners is a low-calorie product. In one serving (70-100 ml) is only 2-4 kcal, so 1-2 cups in the first half of the day are allowed on many diets and nutrition programs. Coffee consumption is prohibited on yeast-free and white diets, detox programs, spa starvation and autoimmune protocol nutrition. On the paleodiet and lean program, coffee can only be drunk with plant milk, on the others - with any milk. The choice of plant milk is great: soy milk, hemp milk, rice milk, any nut milk (in the absence of allergies), you just need to remember to add additional calories to the nutrition program. 20 ml of almond milk will add 5-8 kcal to your diet, soy milk a little more - 8-10. Ordinary cow's milk with a fat content of 3.2% will "weight" the diet by 12 kcal, and coconut milk by as much as 30 kcal.
The devil is in the details
A separate and most important question is how this drink affects you personally. Coffee is a complex conglomerate of substances. There are about 2000 of them, less than half of them have been identified, and even less have been studied from the point of view of chemistry and physiology. The role of individual components in the chemical changes that take place during the processing and brewing of coffee is unclear. In the era of preventive and predictive personalized medicine, it is more appropriate to talk about the effect of coffee on each individual. And here it is necessary to take into account several factors - the presence of diseases, peculiarities of the type of nervous system, lifestyle, psychological stress and genetic features of metabolism. For example, the liver enzyme CYP1A2 is involved in the metabolism of caffeine. Carriers of genotype AA are called "fast" caffeine metabolizers, and carriers of genotypes AC or CC - "slow". Depending on the activity of the enzyme, the human body neutralizes caffeine at different rates, so the acceptable rate of cups of coffee per day for everyone is different. There is only one general rule that everyone should adhere to: for every cup of coffee you should additionally drink 1 glass (250 ml) of clean non-carbonated water to prevent dehydration of the body.
