Coffee - Caffea arabica

Coffee, coffee, coffee!

I love coffee and I love thinking about coffee as a medicine. My three favorite ways of using coffee are:

1. As a bitter digestive: coffee powerfully stimulates peristalsis so can really help to bring on a bowel movement.
2. As a central nervous system stimulant: coffee directly stimulates the cerebral cortex of the brain, helping you to think more rapidly and clearly.
3. And as an anti-oxidant: OK, I don’t necessarily use it as an antioxidant but I find it fascinating that coffee is America’s largest source of anti-oxidants! So for me, including it in the diet to potentially reduce the inflammatory markers underlying the physiology of many (most!) diseases seems really important!

But coffee has many other uses. For example, as a bronchodilator it opens the bronchioles of the lungs to assist with breathing (such as in mild asthma or colds). Coffee is also an isoflavone so has the phytoestrogenic benefits of hormone balancing and cancer prevention. It can be used as a heart tonic, a diuretic (reduce blood volume by increasing urination), a hypoglycemic (reduces blood sugar levels – except, of course, when your coffee is also full of sugar!), a decongestant, an antibacterial and more.

~We often think of these latter things as “side effects” of drinking our morning cup, but these are powerful and important actions in and of themselves~

All around the world, it is the seed of the coffee plant that is primarily used (though the leaves actually contain a higher amount of caffeine!). Caffeine is one of the primary constituents but coffee also contains caffeic acids, theobromine, theophylline and many others that account for the actions above.

But as we all may have anticipated, there can be a sad ending to the ‘coffee as medicine’ story. Coffee can also cause insomnia, nervousness, restlessness, gastric irritation, nausea, vomiting, tachycardia (increase in heart rate) and tremors so can adversely affect many conditions. It can even affect the absorption of important nutrients such as iron. In fact, coffee is one of the first things we consider removing from the diet of someone presenting with a chronic disease. Further, psychological dependence and withdrawal symptoms such as headache, nervousness and dizziness can be quite significant.

So as with all medicines, consider potential benefits and harms and use as needed and as appropriate.

I hope you learned a little extra something about coffee today!

Warmly,
Kimani