Today, we will be reporting on caffeine and two popular drinks: tea and coffee. We discuss a study that found black tea to be healthier than coffee. We also discuss a separate finding that suggests coffee drinkers may be less likely to develop oral cancer. Finally, we look at how climate change could impact one of the most popular types of coffee.
For many years, caffeine has been the ‘drug’ of choice in many cultures. It is considered socially acceptable because it is found in popular drinks such as tea and coffee. People who consume a lot of these drinks may think they are addicted, as they have become dependent on the substance. However, if they stop drinking these beverages, they will only experience mild withdrawal symptoms for a few days.
The real addiction may be emotional. Many people claim that they cannot start their day without their “fix”, which in many cases is a cup or two of coffee. Some people drink coffee throughout the day. Even young people who don’t drink tea or coffee are still consuming caffeine when they have energy drinks, which contain high amounts of the substance. Caffeine is a bitter substance found in coffee, tea, soft drinks, chocolate, kola nuts and some medicines. It has many effects on the body, including activating the central nervous system. This can make you feel more awake and give you increased energy.
The US National Institutes of Health says that drinking two to four cups of coffee a day is not harmful for most people. However, it also warns that too much caffeine can cause restlessness, irritability and anxiety. It may also cause headaches, abnormal heartbeats, and other issues. The NIH advises pregnant or breastfeeding women to limit their caffeine intake. It also says that caffeine may affect how the body reacts to certain drugs and vitamins. If you have any questions, it suggests talking with a doctor.
Would you like a coffee or a cup of tea? A mathematical study showed that tea, especially black tea, might be the healthier option. The study found that few people have type 2 diabetes in countries where tea is widely consumed. Diabetes is a life-threatening condition that reduces the body’s ability to convert glucose, or sugar, into energy. It is an increasingly prevalent problem around the world. It is expected that the number of people with diabetes will rise sharply to 438 million over the next 20 years.
A team of researchers studied the amount of black tea sold in 50 countries. They compared these sales records with information from the World Health Organization about diseases in these countries. The top tea-drinkers were people in Ireland. On average, each person drank more than two kilograms of black tea per year. Conversely, people in China, Morocco and Mexico drank the least. The study revealed a correlation between black tea sales and diabetes rates, but not with any other health condition. The organisers of the study say that this does not necessarily prove that black tea prevents diabetes. However, they added that earlier research had suggested that certain components of black tea may be beneficial to health. People have been drinking tea for many centuries. It is one of the world’s most widely consumed hot drinks.
Coffee is perhaps the world’s most popular drink. The results of a large American study may make it even more popular. The study showed that drinking coffee might reduce the risk of oral or pharyngeal cancer, which is deadly.
Researchers questioned 970,000 American men and women taking part in the 30-year Cancer Prevention Study. One of the questions asked about their coffee consumption. The researchers were from the American Cancer Society. They found that people who drank around four cups of coffee a day were 49 per cent less likely to develop oral or pharyngeal cancer than those who drank little or no coffee.
Oral and pharyngeal cancers are aggressive forms of cancer. They are also difficult to treat. Oral and pharyngeal cancers are rare in the United States. However, they are among the top 10 most common cancers worldwide.
Janet Hildebrand, an epidemiologist and population expert at the American Cancer Society, led the study. She led the study. She found that the less coffee someone drank, the higher their risk of cancer. Conversely, the more coffee someone drank, the lower their risk of cancer. ‘So the risk decreased slightly with each cup. The lowest risk was found for four to six cups per day.” The researchers found only a small health benefit in drinking two cups of decaffeinated coffee per day. They also found that tea drinkers did not have a reduced risk of cancer, despite the fact that tea — especially green tea — is known to promote human health in other ways.
Janet Hildebrand says that coffee is thought to contain substances that benefit the human body.
‘Two compounds, for example, have been studied for their anti-cancer properties and have been found to potentially help regulate cell replication and prevent proliferation.’ Ms Hildebrand says that she and other researchers would like to know whether drinking coffee helps people who already have oral and pharyngeal cancers.
A study describing how coffee consumption can reduce the risk of oral and pharyngeal cancer has been published in the American Journal of Epidemiology. However, scientists in England and Ethiopia are warning that coffee could be affected by rising temperatures in the Earth’s atmosphere.
Around 70 per cent of all commercially grown coffee is Arabica. While Arabica coffee is cultivated on plantations worldwide, it only grows naturally in the highlands of southern Ethiopia. It is highly susceptible to climate change. However, the wild plants have a genetic diversity that growers use to improve the cultivated crop, which does not react well to climate change.
The scientists work at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in London and the Environment and Coffee Forest Forum in Ethiopia. They have created the first computer model to show the impact of climate change on wild Arabica coffee. The model indicates that coffee plants will face challenges throughout the remainder of this century. The scientists predict that Arabica could disappear from at least one area within ten years due to climate change, deforestation, habitat loss and agricultural pressure. As Arabica is the only coffee variety grown in Ethiopia, climate change could badly affect the local industry. This could result in a loss of farmland, necessitate stronger government intervention and potentially lead to crop failure.
The findings were published in the journal PLoS ONE. The scientists hope that the study will lead to new ways of helping Arabica survive in the wild.
Meanwhile, a company in Thailand is producing some of the world’s most expensive coffee with the help of elephants. This coffee is called Black Ivory. It is grown in an area known as the Golden Triangle. The coffee beans are fed to the elephants. The partially digested beans are gathered from the elephants’ faeces and roasted. According to the Canadian man who developed Black Ivory coffee, enzymes in the elephants’ stomachs break down the proteins that make coffee taste bitter. He says the result is coffee with a unique, earthy taste. Using elephants — not to mention the people required to search through their waste for the beans — is costly, so the coffee is expensive. It costs around $1,100 per kilogram. That’s almost $50 per cup! According to the Black Ivory Coffee Company, it takes 33 kilograms of raw beans to produce one kilogram of usable beans. Eight percent of the company’s sales go to the Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation, which monitors and improves the health of the local elephant population.
