Coffee | Caffeine and You

5 Ways Coffee Fights Cancer

September 2, 2013 By Kate Heyhoe

Will coffee help keep you cancer-free? Possibly.

Coffee reduces the risk of certain cancers, according to the American Institute for Cancer Research. Of course, there’s no guarantee that a coffee habit will ensure a cancer-free life: cancers are complex and for that matter, coffee’s got its own mysteries. But mounting evidence suggests moderate coffee drinking may help reduce the risks of these cancers:

Basal Cell Carcinoma (the most common form of skin cancer)
Colorectal Cancer
Prostate Cancer
Kidney Cancer
Liver Cancer
Oral Cancer

What’s in coffee that prevents cancer?

Coffee’s considered a good scavenger of free radicals, because it’s rich in antioxidants and phytochemicals. Antioxidants neutralize chemicals (free radicals) that may damage body tissues. Phytochemicals are non-essential nutrients that plants develop for defense, protection, and disease-prevention. Phytochemicals include flavonoids, lignans and phenolic acid. Among the caffeine-rich foods we enjoy, tea and chocolate are rich with these compounds, but based on current research, coffee is the wealthiest.

5 Compounds in Coffee That Fight Cancer

Studies show that at least five compounds in coffee help reduce cancer risk:

Chlorogenic acid – This antioxidant compound is the major phenol in coffee. It’s technically an ester formed between quinic acid and caffeic acid. Caffeic acid is its main component; lab studies show it increases self-destruction of cancer cells and reduces inflammation. Chlorogenic acid’s antioxidants may be slightly lower in decaf and in instant coffee, but they’re still abundant. Quinic acid contributes to the acidic taste of coffee and is another phytochemical with antioxidant benefits.

Cafestol and kahweol – These fat-soluble compounds are extracted from coffee’s oils during brewing and are most available in unfiltered coffee (as in French press or boiled coffee; to drink more of these compounds, don’t use paper filters). Studies suggest kahweol and cafestol stimulate enzymes that neutralize carcinogens and block the proteins that activate carcinogens.

Caffeine – Everyone knows caffeine acts as a stimulant. It’s also a powerful antioxidant. Caffeine appears to reduce the risk for basal cell carcinoma (the most common form of skin cancer), though not for other skin cancers. Studies also show that caffeinated coffee, tea and soda reduce the risk; decaffeinated versions do not. Don’t stop applying sunscreen, experts advise, but caffeine appears to act like a sunscreen by directly absorbing damaging UV rays and blocking ATR, a protein activated by ultraviolet light.

Caffeine also reduces the risk of colorectal cancer risk. Researchers believe caffeine speeds carcinogens’ passage through the digestive tract, reducing exposure to these substances. Caffeine may also influence cell signaling to decrease colorectal cancer development.

NMB – N-methylpyridinium (NMB) appears to boost the potency of antioxidants, but it doesn’t occur with raw beans. It’s created during the roasting process, from trigonellin, its chemical precursor in raw coffee beans. NMB is present in both caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee, including instant.

Contrary to early studies, current research provides good evidence that moderate coffee drinking does not increase cancer risks in most people, and instead may reduce cancer risks.

Coffee Dosage for Cancer-Prevention

How much coffee does it take to get its cancer-fighting benefits? Each study varies in consumption. Some found benefits with as little as one to two cups a day, others averaged four cups, and none of the studies reported benefits when consumption exceeded six cups a day. (Six cups is considered a high dose, and risky for heart and other conditions.) Benefits didn’t happen overnight. Participants generally had a history of several years, if not decades, of daily coffee consumption. (Some research was replicated as lab and cell studies, others as human studies.)

Bottom line:

In the U.S., most coffee drinkers drink from one to three cups a day. If you enjoy coffee, you may be getting cancer-fighting benefits, as long as your daily habit stays within reason, and remains below six cups a day.

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Further reading:

Foods That Fight Cancer: Coffee

Study: Coffee May Reduce Risk of Oral Cancer

Study: Coffee Consumption Reduces Risk of Oral Cancer

Highly Active Compound Found In Coffee May Prevent Colon Cancer

Coffee Consumption and the Risk of Cancers: An Overview

Coffee May Protect Against Skin Cancer

Coffee: Chemistry in Every Cup

Cancer Fighters: A Guide to Phytochemicals (American Institute for Cancer Research)

5 Ways to Up Coffee’s Caffeine

July 6, 2013 By Kate Heyhoe

Wanna Up Your Cup? Tweaking Coffee’s Caffeine

The amount of caffeine in your coffee depends on many factors. You can’t control growing conditions, but you can raise – or lower – the caffeine in your cup with these tips. (They also affect flavor, so choose wisely.)

Longer Brewing Delivers More Caffeine: The longer hot water is in contact with coffee, the more caffeine it extracts. A French press steeps grounds for 4-6 minutes; with drip coffee, water drips through in about 3 minutes.

Robustas Are Twice as Caffeinated as Arabicas: Coffee experts prefer Arabica beans because of their smooth taste. The Robusta variety is harsher, stronger in flavor, and usually less pricey; it’s often mixed into blends to boost impact or lower the price, but good quality espresso blends include robusta for its lovely crema (foam).

Lighter Roasts Retain More Caffeine: Roasting destroys some caffeine content. Longer, darker roasts actually contain less caffeine than light or “blonde” roasts. Espresso is made with dark roasted beans, giving it less caffeine than one would expect.

Hotter Water Extracts More Caffeine: Experts recommend 195-205 degrees, and the higher temperatures extract more caffeine than lower ones. Water boils at 212 degrees F, but that temperature can produce a harsh tasting brew.

Finer Grinds Yield More Caffeine: Finer grinds expose more of the coffee bean to water than course grinds, so more caffeine is extracted more quickly. Despite a longer brewing time, a French press using the customary coarse grounds yields less caffeine than drip brewing with fine grounds. Burr grinders create rougher surfaces, and yield more caffeine, than blade grinders.

More Coffee Grounds Produce More Caffeine: This is logical. The greater volume of coffee grounds, the more caffeine is extracted, with a stronger flavor.

So obviously, the amount of caffeine in coffee (and tea as well) can vary considerably. But as a rule of thumb, I use 100 mg per 8-ounce cup of home-brewed coffee. (Starbucks lists a 16-ounce grande coffee at 330 mg caffeine.) Tea typically ranges from 30-80 mg per cup, so my rule of thumb is 50 mg caffeine per cup of black tea, and 25 mg for green tea.

More to explore:

Calculate Your Caffeine – Infographic compares caffeine per ounce, in coffee, tea, energy drinks and more.

Coffee Profile – in Caffeine Basics, free online book

Cheating Death: Do Coffee Drinkers Live Longer?

May 31, 2013 By Kate Heyhoe

Does coffee drinking cheat death?

Death is inevitable, but a major study shows…

“Coffee drinkers have a lower risk of death.”

I read this twice and still wondered: What exactly does this mean?

“Older adults who drank coffee, both caffeinated or decaffeinated, had a lower risk of death overall than people who did not drink coffee,” says a study sponsored by the National Cancer Institute (NCI, a division of the National Institutes of Health) and AARP.

Coffee drinkers aren’t immortal – and they didn’t necessarily live longer – but they were less likely to die from such common killers as heart disease, respiratory disease, stroke, injuries and accidents, diabetes, and infections. (The association was not seen for cancer, at least in this study, but other research shows coffee reduces the risk of certain cancers.)

Bottom line: coffee is safe to drink – that’s the biggest takeaway from this study. And coffee may even benefit your health. You’ll still die, but maybe not as soon.

A Relief for Billions Worldwide

Americans alone consume 400 million cups of coffee per day, so coffee’s health effects are a big deal.

For decades, coffee’s safety has been questioned. Early studies didn’t weed out smokers, who tend to live life on the edge by eating more red meat and few fruits and vegetables, drinking alcohol, and avoiding exercise. Smokers also tend to drink a lot of coffee. (Previous coffee research is also complicated by conflicting results, which may be due to poor methodology, small samples, conflating caffeine and coffee, or for other reasons.)

But unlike early research, the NCI/AARP study is the largest and longest running of its kind. It analyzed coffee-drinking habits of 400,000 men and women aged 50 to 71 – and it controlled for people with poor health habits, known chronic diseases (like cancer), and other data-skewing factors.

The study analyzed the habits of 229,119 men and 173,141 women over 14 years. Respondents completed questionnaires about their diet and health information in 1995 and 1996, and were tracked through 2008; by the end of the study, 52,000 had died.

The Bottom Line

Generally speaking, here’s what the data showed:

• The more coffee consumed, the less likely a person was to die from various common health problems, including diabetes, heart disease, respiratory disease, stroke, infections, and even injuries and accidents.

• The risk of dying during the 14-year period was 10 percent lower for men and 15 percent lower for women who drank from two to six or more cups of coffee per day, regardless of whether the coffee was caffeinated or decaffeinated coffee.

• Regular, long-term coffee consumption is associated, then, with a lower risk for certain life-threatening diseases. This study doesn’t support cause and effect: it doesn’t show that drinking coffee itself creates better health or longer life. We can’t be sure why the coffee-drinkers had less disease, only that a significant percentage of them did – and that 5-cup a day drinkers had less incidence of disease than the 2-cup a day group.

Coffee has more than a thousand compounds, including caffeine, which has been well-researched but still confounds scientists. The next step, says Dr. Neal Freedman, the study’s lead author, is to explore these compounds to determine their health impact, both singly and in combination.

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The results of the study were published in the May 17, 2012, edition of the New England Journal of Medicine. You can read the actual study here:

Association of Coffee Drinking with Total and Cause-Specific Mortality

Coffee Life in Japan: book review

May 4, 2013 By Kate Heyhoe

Everyone knows that coffee houses have been magnets for artists, writers, and political free thinkers throughout history. But in Japan??? The culture where teahouses, matcha, and tea rituals were born?

Wake up to the world of Coffee Life in Japan, a book brimming with surprising tidbits, astute observations, and stories from the heart.

Author and cultural anthopologist Merry White knows Japan as only an outsider living on the inside can. She’s written several books on Japan, artfully weaving together social customs, timelines and personal experience.

Coffee Life in Japan reveals 130 years of Japan’s love affair with coffee. It’s a story that includes mass emigrations to Brazil, risqué modern art, “wise women” cafe masters, trade fortunes, modern kissaten cafes, and global trendspotting of Japanese glass siphon machines.

Like a soothsayer reading tea leaves (or coffee grounds), White picks out clues in the minutia of Japanese daily life; then she enlightens us, deciphering what these signs mean about coffee’s impact – past, present and future – not just in Japan, but worldwide as well. I’m fascinated by “what makes people tick” and Coffee Life in Japan gave me enough to go back for second-helpings; I couldn’t absorb everything in just one reading. What fun!

Coffee in Time

I discovered more details about coffee’s impact on modern culture than I had previously imagined, along with events not typically taught in History 101. For instance…

Japan’s first “coffeehouse master” was Tei Ei-kei, who in 1888 opened Japan’s first coffeehouse, the now famous (and long gone) Kahiichakan. Tei Ei-kei was a Japanese son adopted by a Chinese gentleman, raised in Beijing and Kyoto, and fluent in four languages. He enrolled at Yale University at age sixteen, and developed a taste for coffee in America before dropping out. In London on his journey home, he seized on the model for his coffeehouse: a cushy, club-like salon with Western style and modern appeal. Alas, he was a better dreamer than businessman, and his cafe closed in just five years. Both his first and second wives (who happened to be sisters) died of tuberculosis. After a failed suicide attempt, he started a new life in Seattle, but soon died at the age of 36. Yet even today, coffee fans and industry leaders visit his gravesite there. And in Tokyo, the Sanyo Electric Company honors his legacy – and the importance of coffee – with a brick monument and oversized coffee cup, dedicated to the master on the site of Japan’s first coffeehouse, the Kahiichakan.

Brazil is home to the most people of Japanese-descent (other than Japan itself), in large part because of coffee. And Japan’s people assisted Brazil’s rise to coffee domination. Brazil’s immigrant recruitment policies, coupled with Japan’s economic hardships, led to a win-win relationship. In the 1880s, Japanese laborers were first brought to Brazil to work the coffee plantations and to grow coffee. Waves of workers arrived through the 1970s, especially after the Kanto earthquake in 1923. Some Japanese earned enough to buy land to grow coffee, and others returned home with a taste for coffee. By 1923, Japanese plantations owned 60 million coffee trees in Brazil. A large Japanese coffee chain, Mizuno Ryu’s Cafe Paulista, grew out of this surge, and spread Japanese-grown Brazilian coffee throughout Japan. A national coffee habit was born.

There are other tasty tidbits, too.

• Early Portuguese missionaries and traders introduced Brazilian coffee to Japan. (They also, as I’ve written about at GlobalGourmet.com, introduced deep-fat frying to Japanese cooks, which evolved into fried “tempura” dishes.)

• In the 1990s, white-collar businessmen who had been unceremoniously fired from their jobs would leave for “work” and hide out in cafes, before returning home to their unsuspecting families.

• The Germans warehoused coffee in Yokohama before World War II. During the war, coffee imports into Japan dried up. Faux-coffee drinks were brewed from nuts, soybeans and grains. Towards the war’s end, the Japanese raided and distributed the German coffee to the Japanese army, as part of the national war effort.

White’s focus is on the role that coffee and cafes play in today’s Japanese culture, which is much more nuanced than I’ve recounted here. But these few concrete examples serve as welcoming entry points for Western minds to enter the kissaten, or Japanese cafes, which are found on every block – and unlike Starbucks, are uniquely Japanese in form, function, and feel.

When in Japan: Cups of Culture

Make no mistake: this book is not a travel guide, but as a bonus material it includes White’s “Unreliable Guide” to key cafes. Descriptions entertain even the armchair traveler, like this entry:

Tokyo’s Kafe do Ramburu: “Sekiguchi opened the shop in 1948 using Indonesian beans that had been stored for shipment to Germany before the war. Specializing on old beans (such as Cuban 1974s and Colombian 1989s) roasted to order, Sekiguchi has as idiosyncratic, demanding style and has been called koohiimaniakku (coffee maniac), but the coffee is indeed worth the visit.”

If you’re a koohiimaniakku, clearly Coffee Life in Japan is the must-have book for you.

Coffee Life in Japan

by Merry White. Published by University of California Press (2012). California Studies in Food and Culture, Darra Goldstein, Editor. Available as hardcover, paperback and ebook.

Does Death Wish Coffee Live Up to Its Claims?

April 20, 2013 By Kate Heyhoe

Journalists do crazy things to chase a story.

Taste-testing Death Wish Coffee isn’t as harrowing as being waterboarded – which Christopher Hitchens did in 2008. But for a caffeine-sissy like me, the prospect of hyper-caffeination was nearly as unnerving. Fortunately, my actual experience was far more pleasant than Hitch’s (which he details in Vanity Fair). His was torture, mine was…well, I’ll get to that later.

It’s not my fault I’m a caffeine wuss; I blame it on my genes. A mug of half-caff is my morning max. So when Death Wish Coffee claimed it was 200 times more caffeinated than regular coffee, I realized – reluctantly – that to write about it, I would have to try it. Reporters do what we gotta do.

Death Wish Coffee does a masterful job of sounding ominous – and fun. “The World’s Strongest Coffee” comes in a pitch-black bag, emblazoned with skull and crossbones. The website screams out to daredevils: “This is Extreme Coffee, not for the weak. Consider yourself Warned.” And the company pastes this statement – more of a challenge – on every bag:

In Truthiness We Trust

But what really sparked my attention was the claim – or claims – of caffeine potency. They confused me. In comparing itself to regular coffee, Death Wish Coffee advertises:

200% more caffeine
twice as caffeinated
close to 200% more caffeine

Words matter. If something is 200 percent MORE caffeinated, it’s actually three times as caffeinated. If it’s 200 percent AS caffeinated, it contains twice the caffeine. I’m not sure how to interpret “close to 200% more caffeine.” Maybe this is nitpicking, but when it comes to caffeine, three cups of coffee deliver far more punch than two cups. And Death Wish’s pitch is all about the caffeine.

So I asked the owner, Mike Brown, to clarify:

Q: I’ve seen media stories saying Death Wish Coffee is 200 percent more caffeinated than regular coffee. Is this an accurate statement?

A: Yes, if brewed correctly.

Q: Your website also says: “200 percent more caffeine” which seems confusing. Do you mean 200 percent as caffeinated, not 200 percent more caffeinated [than regular coffee]?

A: Double the amount of regular coffee. When brewed to our specs.

Okay. So I got my answer, but not without a slight disconnect. It’s twice as caffeinated, not three times as caffeinated – when brewed “correctly” (the company recommends a generous 2-1/2 tablespoons ground coffee per 6-ounce cup).

Death Wish has a lot going for it as a product. I think “double-the-caffeine” is a terrific marketing angle. But when the word “more” is inserted after 200 percent, the claim ripples with Stephen Colbert-style truthiness – people believe it’s three times as caffeinated, even if it’s not. From Good Morning America to NPR, media outlets have blindly repeated this claim.

But does this language-thingy matter? Not to extreme caffeine-junkies. Death Wish has plenty of Facebook followers and 17,800 Likes. Clearly, if you’re into caffeine from coffee (as opposed to energy drinks), this is the brew for you.

A Blast-o-Caff

So what makes Death Wish Coffee more caffeine-rich than other coffees? “Different types of beans and brew methods have different levels of caffeine. Most can be found with a little research,” says Brown; he’s a barista who’s been tinkering with caffeine levels for the past five years.

Coffee experts would agree. For instance, dark roasting destroys more caffeine than lighter roasting. Fine grinds and longer steeping put more caffeine in the cup. Most importantly, caffeine varies according to plant species. Coffea robusta is more caffeinated than her sister bean, Coffea arabica. Robusta also leans toward strong and bitter in flavor, and is typically valued in espresso blends. Arabica is the choice of premium coffee roasters, who find it smoother, more refined. Robusta is hardier to grow, less expensive, and often mixed with arabica to help control costs.

So what beans does Death Wish contain? A passage on their website clearly and accurately details the nuances of robusta, arabica, and roasting levels. I read it several times before realizing: it never specifies what types of beans Death Wish actually uses.

So I asked the owner:

Q. Are you using robusta or arabicas? Your media kit/website is unclear on which bean you’re actually using.

A. We can tell you that our coffee comes from the regions of Central America, Ethiopia and Indonesia. That is all we can say for now. We like to keep the type of beans a secret within the Death Wish staff. 🙂

Brown’s position is understandable; trade secrets are a brand’s lifeblood. So consumers will have to be satisfied with his statement that ” …we went on a mission to find a coffee that is not only dark, rich, bold and flavorful but also has high caffeine content. All while being grown organically, fairly traded, and shade grown (saves the land). To boot we found one that is also bird friendly.” Brown adds that his coffee is not genetically modified, contains no artificial ingredients, and is organic (though not Certified Organic) – all good stuff.

If Rambo Drank Coffee…

Now, to my testing. Brown shipped me a bag of ground Death Wish Coffee. How does Death Wish Coffee taste? Powerful, but not in a bad way. What a relief! I was afraid it would be so bitter I’d prefer waterboarding, but it was fine. Death Wish didn’t send me to heaven, but it sure wasn’t battery acid from hell either. My Jura-Capresso poured out a stout brew with a thick and lovely layer of crema.

One taster in my office said it reminded him of what you’d drink at a business hotel – for executives on the go, go, go. Another taster who leans to milder coffee even enjoyed the robust aroma and taste, but wouldn’t make a habit out of it – adding it was not much different from popular coffees served today. Fans on the Death Wish website praise the flavor, and I can see how it would appeal to many. Taste is in the buds of the beholder.

Here’s what I would add: Try it in cooking. Most recipes calling for coffee use too little to inject a noticeable caffeine jolt; but when I added Death Wish to tiramisu and brownies, they seemed to buzz a little bit brighter. You could say they were addictive.

Tech Guy and Chief TWiT Leo Laporte once podcasted his love for Black Blood of the Earth, a hyper-caffeinated coffee concentrate. I asked Brown if he’d heard of it and what he thought. “Yes, it’s a great product…made with our beans.”

Cost: $19.99 per 1-pound bag (ground or whole beans); $80 per 5-pound bag. At DeathWishCoffee.com and on Amazon.com