Coffee is a staple drink to most of us; in fact, an average person drinks 3 cups a day to improve focus and fight stress. It also promotes good health when consumed black and unsweetened. However, 50% of coffee drinkers don’t get its full benefits as they prefer to add sugar, cream, and other artificial sweeteners to alter its taste.^1,2

Though it’s popular, good for health, and can be made tastier, many still don’t like coffee because of its taste, price, or its effects.³ But why do most of us still find it as an enjoyable drink? How can it affect your lifestyle if consumed regularly? Here, we will tackle the benefits of drinking its healthier variant, the black coffee, and not the coffee-based frappes and shakes you can buy somewhere.

The Science Behind Drinking Coffee

After you drink coffee, the liver breaks down 95% of the caffeine into metabolites. These are natural substances that carry the essential nutrients for the body to use. The remaining 5% of the caffeine binds with the Adenosine, the sleep hormone. This explains why you feel awake after finishing a cup of coffee. However, this reaction may vary from person to person, depending on their caffeine tolerance and sensitivity.⁴

Also, a study by the Nijmegen Medical Center in the Netherlands states that caffeine increases the adrenaline (the emergency hormone) five times and can cause temporary insulin (the sugar-regulating hormone) resistance.⁵ This means that with more adrenaline, the body also converts more sugar and fats for energy. Moreover, temporary insulin resistance enables the body to burn fats faster and more efficiently.

Why Should You Drink Coffee

The effects of drinking coffee might vary from one person to another. It depends on your genetic makeup which dictates how your body should respond to it. And if your body accepts it well, you will also experience its various health benefits to improve the quality of life. These are:

• Increases brain performance - caffeine is absorbed by your bloodstream, goes to the brain, and blocks Adenosine. Through this, the levels of neurotransmitters such as dopamine and norepinephrine increase, improving neuron activity. This causes improvement in memory, mood, reflexes, and general mental performance.⁶
• Aids weight loss - drinking coffee causes a high level of adrenaline that puts the body in a dire need of energy while decreasing the insulin level. This state triggers the body to produce glucagon, a hormone that mobilizes fats (through a process called lipolysis) and stored sugar to convert them as energy sources for the body. Also, the decreased insulin level yields to a temporary insulin resistance that causes faster burning of fats.⁵
• Prevents neurodegenerative diseases - a Florida research shows that the mild memory impairment of adults over 65 will not progress to, or at least, will have a substantial delay before converting to Alzheimer’s disease if caffeine is taken regularly (about 3 cups a day).7 Moderate caffeine intake might also lower the risk of common neurodegenerative diseases like dementia and Parkinson’s disease, but this has yet to be proven by further studies.⁸
• Lowers the risks to several diseases - regular caffeine intake may lower chronic inflammation that is related to diseases due to aging such as type 2 diabetes, stroke, and heart disease.^{9, 10, 11} Coffee drinkers also show to be less prone to colon cancer, specifically proximal tumors, compared to those who don’t take caffeine at all.¹²
• Improves liver health - a 2016 study by John Wiley & Sons on 430,000 respondents shows that those who have two extra cups of coffee have 44% less risk to liver cirrhosis due to suppressing the connective growth tissue factor (CGTF) in the liver.13 A University of Missouri research also shows that drinking 3 or more cups of coffee a day lowers liver disease progression by 53%.¹⁴
• Fights depression - caffeine may also prevent early signs of depression. A 2011 Harvard research on women suggests that drinking 4 or more cups per day may reduce the risk of depression.¹⁵ Another Harvard study in 1996 tells that women who drink the same amount of coffee are less likely to die because of suicide.16 Though this shows promising results, more studies are still needed to prove coffee’s effect to depression.
• Improves physical performance - as mentioned, drinking coffee increases adrenaline levels in the body, causing it to become more active. Caffeine then helps to break down fats and convert them to energy, making more energy reserves for physical activities.⁵ At this state, physical performance can improve by 11-12%.¹⁷
• Strengthens the immune system for longevity - a freshly brewed coffee has vitamins B2, B3, and B5; manganese; and potassium. It is also the richest source of antioxidants in the western diet, more than fruits and vegetables can provide.^{18, 19} No wonder that it promotes longevity as it lowers death rate in men by 20% and 26% in women within ages 18-24. This also reduces the death rate for people with type 2 diabetes by 30%.^20,21

When is the Best Time to Drink Coffee?

While drinking a few cups of coffee would surely bring out its benefits to your body, when to drink is another thing. This is not just pertaining to the exact time of the day, but it is also considering the state of your body as this could make or break your fitness target. Here are the suggested periods to drink coffee:

• When insulin level is low - this is usually during mornings on your fasting days. Drinking coffee at this time allows your body to initiate a more fat-burning response and convert those fats to energy.²²
• Before a mentally challenging task - drinking coffee enhances neuron activity but might not work well if you drink it immediately before a mental task. Take it 45 minutes to 1 hour to prepare your brain for the rapid firing of neurons and the increased levels of receptors such as dopamine, serotonin, and acetylcholine. This simply improves the raw brain performance, and not giving off an artificial mental alertness.²³
• Pre-workout - taking in caffeine 1 hour before workout allows your body to use fat as the energy source. In return, the glycogen is stored in your muscles as a reserved fuel. This can decrease glycogen utilization up to 42% and increases body fat conversion to energy by 30%.^{22, 23}
• Post-workout - sipping small amounts of coffee after workout promotes higher glycogen uptake by 66%, shuttling the carbs you take to the muscles. This is because caffeine also unlocks the glycogen stored in the liver, letting the sugars neutralize the insulin-sensitive muscles due to workout. This helps you recover faster.^{22, 23}
• When cortisol level subsides - is worth noting as well that coffee also induces the cortisol level in the body. Cortisol is the body’s natural stress-regulating hormone that manages blood pressure, inflammation, and sugar-mobilization. Drinking coffee when cortisol level is already high (normally in the morning and in midday) is a bad idea as it promotes caffeine addiction and tolerance, pushing you to crave more caffeine but missing its benefits. The solution is to wait an hour after waking up and/or an hour after lunch to allow cortisol to subside first before you drink a coffee.²⁴

Experts also suggest you should have your last cup of coffee at around 2pm.²⁵ This is to give the body an ample amount of time to process the caffeine so that it won’t affect your sleep. But if it can’t be helped to drink coffee a few hours before sleeping, make sure to switch to less caffeinated drinks to make sure of a sound bedtime.²³

Keto Diet, Fasting, and Coffee

When talking about fasting and ketogenic diet, it all boils down to mobilizing fat deposits and allowing those to be used as energy sources. By drinking coffee, its caffeine component stops Phosphodiesterase (PDE) in blocking the natural fat burning process, a great benefit for keto diet and fasting. While it can hit two birds in one stone, coffee still has specific effects for each.²⁶

For keto diet, the main goal is to reach ketogenesis, allowing the body to consume fat as the primary source of energy. Coffee helps to reach this state by increasing the ketone levels in the body. A study by Universite de Sherbrooke suggests that having higher amounts of caffeine can increase ketones by 88-116%.²⁷

Coffee can also improve ketogenic efficiency by stopping the deactivation of cyclic Adenosine Monophosphate (cAMP), the responsible agent for blocking lipolysis, the breakdown of fats. This results in mobilizing fatty acids and being converted by the liver as the body’s energy source.²⁷

Meanwhile, when it comes to fasting, autophagy is one of its major effects. It’s a process where the body recycles the old cells to generate newer ones. Coffee enhances it in 3 ways:^28,29

• Its temporary insulin resistance allows the body to break down fats easier for the cells to consume during autophagy
• It gives off polyphenol that mainly promotes a more effective autophagy process
• Its caffeine component triggers further a specific enzymatic activity that happens only during fasting, affecting autophagy even more

Coffee can already boost autophagy in the body’s normal state, predominantly in the liver and the heart; but drinking a cup of joe during fasting enhances it even more.

How Can You Enhance the Effects of Coffee?

Your cup of joe is actually a very versatile beverage that can go well with additional ingredients. These can help enhance the current nutritional facts of black coffee or even add more to its nutritional value. To put a little twist to your cup of coffee, here are healthy ingredients that you can add:³⁰

• Coconut Oil/Cream/Milk - it has lauric acid which forms antibacterial compounds upon digestion. The cream/milk variant adds a creamier consistency to your coffee without the guilt of consuming lactose
• Ghee - it is a type of clarified butter that has butyric acid responsible for keeping healthy cells in the gastrointestinal tract. It is also lactose-free and low in casein
• Cacao - it helps to stimulate serotonin production to regulate mood. It also increases the nitric oxide production by blood vessels to widen blood pathways and improve their function
• Reishi - this aids the activation of autophagy and reduce body compounds that contribute to inflammation
• Turmeric - its components help regulate blood flow to the kidney, balance platelet function, strengthen stomach linings, treat inflammation, prevent ulcers, and stimulate bile production from the gallbladder for breaking down fats.
• Salt - it helps to curb your cravings for sweet food which greatly contributes to hypertension
• Cinnamon - contains a polyphenol called methylhydroxychalcone polymer (MHCP) that can copy the chemical structure of insulin and works well with the insulin’s receptors and cells
• Collagen - it triggers the body’s cartilage-producing cells to keep hair strength, skin elasticity and regeneration, and connective tissue integrity
• Beta-alanine/citrulline malate - these two work as a team to boost up your pre-workout coffee: beta-alanine helps the body to last long during workout routines, while citrulline malate promotes the sustained release of arginine, the amino acid that gives you that certain “pump” during exercise, preventing you from experiencing arginine crash.

Things to remember when drinking coffee

While coffee gives out a bunch of health benefits and greatly enhances diet options like keto diet and fasting, it can still harm you if taken without moderation or precaution. To guide you, we have come up with a list of conditions that you should keep in mind when drinking coffee:

• Don’t take coffee with a huge amount of carbs - too many carbs elevate the blood sugar, and if you drink coffee with it, it spikes up the adrenalin and forces the body to generate more sugar. While the sugar level is high in your body, the adrenalin will process it as fast as it could for energy, causing a crash once all sugars are used up.²²
• Don’t drink coffee with elevated cortisol level - this doubles up the cortisol level in your body as coffee also gives it upon drinking. This develops caffeine addiction and resistance, making you crave for more coffee but with minimal to no effect. Cortisol level is at peak in the morning and during midday. To solve this, wait an hour after waking up and after lunch before drinking coffee.²⁴
• Always time your coffee intake - make it a habit that your last cup for today is 6 hours before you sleep, or else, it will cause sleeping problems if you drink coffee a bit later. If you can’t help it, be sure to take less caffeinated drinks instead.²⁴
• Know your caffeine threshold - your genetic makeup plays a huge role in this, but to know your threshold on your own, you can try drinking moderate amounts of coffee and observe how it will affect you after a few minutes or so. Better yet, consult your physician to guide you in your caffeine intake.⁴

Like everything else, drinking too much coffee is bad. Always drink it in moderation and should not be taken as a replacement for proper diet, rest, and exercise. Also, if you’re new to coffee and considering it to be a part of your diet, drink small amounts first and observe its effects to your body, or you can always get your doctor’s advice to help you determine if it’s good for you or not.

Main Takeaway

More than just an enjoyable beverage to drink, coffee has become a lifestyle staple because of its promising health benefits. It also helps to enhance the effects of certain dietary methods to hit fitness goals. It is definitely a good concoction to add to your diet as long as you take the necessary precautions to maximize its benefits.