Hey guys, Dr. Axe here.
I'm founder of DrAxe.com, one of the largest natural health websites in the world.
One of the most common questions I've been getting on my Facebook page as well as my
webpage recently is, people have been asking "Dr. Axe, is coffee good for me?"
or "Is coffee good for you?"
The answer is yes and no.
There's a lot of research, actually, that's been coming out on coffee and coffee is one
of the most popular beverages around the world today.
But let me just first talk about why coffee can be good for you and then also, why it
can be bad for you.
For starters, one of the biggest reasons why coffee is beneficial is because it contains
massive amounts of antioxidants.
You know, one of the things that we're exposed to all around the world today is large levels
of toxicity.
So antioxidants can really help and slow the aging process, it can help protect yourselves
against free radical damage.
Coffee is actually one of the five highest foods in antioxidants in the world today.
So again, coffee, incredible in terms of its antioxidants.
Also, coffee increases circulation and can stimulate the liver.
So it actually has maybe some supportive benefits for the liver.
Increases circulation, it's been shown to improve overall exercise.
It's been shown to increase blood flow to the brain.
So for those reasons, because of the mass amount of antioxidants and the increase in
circulation, that's where the benefits of coffee come from.
Now, here are the negatives of coffee.
The big thing is caffeine and consuming that much caffeine can have a, kind of an addictive
side effect as well as it can overstimulate the body and it can burn out your adrenal
glands and really over-tax your body.
So that's the big negative.
For a country in America and then across the world, 80% of people will suffer with some
form of fatigue or adrenal fatigue sometime in their life.
Because of that, if somebody is struggling with fatigue on a regular basis or has thyroid
issues, adrenal issues or hormonal issues, for that reason I do not recommend those people
consume coffee because of all of the caffeine that you're going to find there.
Again, that caffeine is really the main issue with coffee is that it will burn out your
adrenal glands.
Think about this.
Do you think you were created to rely on stimulants all the time?
That's really what caffeine is, it's a stimulant.
So doing large amounts of caffeine is not good at all for people with adrenal fatigue,
thyroid problems or people with even autoimmune disorders or other chronic illness, I do not
recommend coffee for those people.
But, if you're already generally healthy or let's say you just struggle with some circulation
issues or you're trying to support the brain and you don't have autoimmune disease or any
type of thyroid or adrenal issue.
In that case, consuming coffee in moderate amounts can be fine and even good for your
health.
Now, when you're consuming coffee, you need to consume it in the morning or before lunch.
Because what happens, if you start drinking it in the afternoon or especially in the evening,
the life of coffee and the caffeine and how long it will affect your body can be around
12 hours.
If you're consuming it in the afternoon, it can definitely affect your sleep cycle that
night.
Not just you falling asleep, but your overall quality of sleep while you're trying to sleep
that night.
So again, is coffee good?
Is it bad?
The truth is, coffee, it just really depends on your body.
It depends on if you have one of these conditions, coffee can make it worse.
Versus if you're looking for a little bit of a pick me up, you're going to do it earlier
in the day, you need more antioxidants and circulation, for those reasons, coffee can
have some of those major health benefits.
And when buying coffee, here's the other thing.
You must by organic, natural coffee if you're going to consume it.
Coffee is one of the most highly sprayed plants in the entire world today and I think, really,
a better option than coffee in general as well is doing things like teas.
Matcha green tea, an amazing superfood that has about a third the amount of caffeine as
coffee.
Also, white tea, rooibos tea, oolong tea.
These are good teas as well that you may consider adding in and most of those have about one-third
the amount of caffeine.
So you could consume a couple cups a day and you're actually going to be getting more benefits.
So that's what I would recommend overall.
If you want to, just get a little bit of caffeine and support your organs as well, then again,
switching over to tea is your best option.
I know there's a lot of coffee lovers out there.
So again, if your body does well with coffee, you do it earlier in the day and you do an
organic brand, I think you're going to do coffee.
But for other people, doing some herbal teas with some of those medicinal benefits is a
better option.
So this has been myself, Dr. Axe, answering your question "Is coffee good for you?"
The answer is yes and no.