As you may know, coffee is one of the most widely consumed drinks worldwide.
But not all of those coffees are healthy… Starbucks and other coffees often put loads of sugars and fats in their coffees. But black coffee, just espresso shots and hot water, actually has some pretty cool health benefits you need to know about.
We’ve spoken about coffee before, without fully addressing the fact a lot of these health benefits go away once you start adding heaps of sugar and fatty additives. Below are some of the benefits of black coffee.
A single cup of coffee contains:
- Riboflavin (vitamin B2): 11% of the Reference Daily Intake (RDI).
- Pantothenic acid (vitamin B5): 6% of the RDI.
- Manganese and potassium: 3% of the RDI.
- Magnesium and niacin (vitamin B3): 2% of the RDI.
A few cups of coffee in a day, like a lot of people have, and these small looking percentages can build up. These vitamins and minerals are essential for normal bodily functions, and can benefit you enormously.
Black coffee is said to be good at clearing your gut. Coffee has laxative effects for starters, which makes you need to go to the toilet, and slightly unrelated, but it’s also a diuretic, which makes you produce more urine than usual. This “flushes” you out, and clears your body of a lot of bad bacteria and other nasty things, leaving you feeling better, and possibly improving your health.
As mentioned in another article, coffee has actually been proven to help you lose weight. It’s weight loss properties include; making you less hungry, and speeding up your metabolism. Both of these things combined make a good difference to your health – unless you load up your coffee with double cream and sugar!
Drinking a cup or two of black coffee everyday reduces the risk of cardiovascular diseases, and reduces the risk of stroke in humans. Black coffee also reduces levels of inflammation in the body, which can benefit you in numerous ways.
Brain health is obviously important. It’s the thing in your head that keeps everything going. Black Coffee has been shown to increase your mood, memory, and help prevent Alzheimer’s and other degenerative diseases. The active ingredient here seems to be caffeine, as there is a significant reduced risk of these diseases in coffee drinkers, whilst decaf drinkers don’t seem to have the same protection, according to numerous studies.
There are obviously more we haven’t mentioned here – but you get the point. Black coffee isn’t something you should really consider unhealthy! But keep in mind a lot of these benefits will go away if you start tainting your coffee with heaps of sugar and fat!
