How Safe or Beneficial is Coffee?

In case you haven’t been paying attention, there’s been a lot of news articles about caffeine lately. Some say caffeine is totally safe, that it doesn’t increase risk of heart disease, that it might help with some other diseases. Others say it causes arterial hardening, leeches calcium from the bones, and increases the risk of heart disease.

So who’s right?

The Mayo Clinic has an article about the safety. In summary:

One large study of 128,000 men and women showed no increase in the risk of heart disease from drinking filtered coffee. The findings [...] indicated that it didn’t matter how much coffee participants drank.

But another study of 4,000 coffee drinkers [...] found that two or more cups of coffee a day can increase the risk of heart disease in people with a specific genetic mutation that slows the breakdown of caffeine in the body.

Regarding other health effects of coffee, some evidence suggests that drinking coffee may protect against type 2 diabetes and colon cancer.

Basically, it probably isn’t bad for you. It might even be a little good for you (like red wine). But, moderation is key. This shouldn’t be news