Coffee

Consumption and Health Implications

Adriana Farah

• Publisher: Royal Society of Chemistry
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9781788016650
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Nutrition, Dietics & Bariatrics
• Index: Technology & Engineering

Coffee is one of the most popular drinks in the world but what are the health advantages or disadvantages from consuming it? This book covers how health is influenced by the consumption of coffee from protective effects and potential contributions of bioactive compounds to health to potential risks involved. Written by an international collection of contributors in the field who concentrate on coffee research, it is edited expertly to ensure quality of content, consistency and organization across the chapters.

Aimed at advanced undergraduates, postgraduates and researchers and accompanied by a sister volume covering how production and chemistry influence the quality of coffee, these titles provide an impactful and accessible guide to the current research in the field and information on the health aspects for nutritionists and other health professionals.

CHAPTER 1

Coffee Consumption and Health Impacts: A Brief History of Changing Conceptions

Edward F. Fischer^*a , Bart Victor ^b , Daniel Robinson ^c , Adriana Farah ^d and Peter R. Martin ^e

^a Department of Anthropology, Vanderbilt University, 2301 Vanderbilt Place, Nashville, TN 3723, USA

^b Owen School of Management, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, USA

^c Department of Anthropology, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, USA
^d Coffee Research Core, Nutrition Institute, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
^e Institute for Coffee Studies, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, USA
^*E-mail: [email protected]

Scientific understandings of how coffee affects health have been closely linked to the moral and political discourses of the changing times. Inquiries into coffee began in the 16th century, as Europeans wrestled with understanding the effects of this newly introduced beverage. These early studies built on the nascent fields of chemistry and physiology to examine how coffee stimulated the body. Coffee invoked strong scientific and moral opinions about its effects, and its portrayal in the literature has swung from seeing it as the cause of a variety of conditions to seeing it as a potential cure for an equally impressive range of ailments. Most recent studies on the bioactivity of coffee emphasize its salubrious potential, and popular opinion and health promotion policies are changing their recommendations accordingly.

1.1 Introduction

From its origins as a humble Ethiopian pick-me-up to its current status as a fuel of our fast-paced world, coffee has been an object of fascination and passion, and a mirror for how we see the human body and nature. As the mysteries of its effects and chemical components have been uncovered, we are only now beginning to have a clear understanding of coffee's health impacts.

In the modern world, coffee has become a familiar part of everyday life. Coffee is a source of and medium for the stimulant caffeine, the most widely consumed psychoactive drug in the world. Despite its prevalence, very little was known about the health effects of coffee or caffeine until quite recently. Coffee was introduced to Europe in the late 16th century, caffeine was isolated in the early 19th century, and only recently has attention been directed to the plethora of other chemical constituents of this complex beverage. ^2,3

Diverse social, economic, and scientific factors have affected the historical development of coffee science. The health effects of coffee have been contested on both medical and moral grounds, and the history of coffee research is a case study of what Bruno Latour terms the “interruptions” and “translations” that go into the creation of scientific discovery. ¹ The story of coffee consumption and health is also a history of Western science and the progression of medical understanding related to the development of the modern fields of biochemistry and physiology.

1.2 African Origins, Islamic Consumption, and Spiritual Health (9th–15th Centuries)

Coffee is derived from the seeds of the flowering plants of the genus Coffea. The small bushes are native to the higher elevations of tropical sub-Saharan Africa and parts of tropical Asia, with possible origins in the lowlands and semi-highlands of Ethiopia. ^2,3 The first accounts of coffee consumption are found in Ethiopia among the Oromo peoples. The most common origin story is that of Kaldi, an Ethiopian goatherd who noticed the stimulating effect of the coffee plant on his goats. This led Kaldi to try the bush's bright red berries for himself, the story goes, and to share them with monks, who threw them in a fire. The roasted berries smelled enticing, and led them to grind and mix the roasted beans with water, yielding the first cup of coffee. ² While apocryphal, the Kaldi story is likely representative of the types of interactions that first led to coffee's identification and use. ⁴

Islamic knowledge of coffee likely dates to the migrations of Muslims fleeing persecution in Mecca to the kingdom of Aksum, on the coast of modern Ethiopia, between ad 615 and 629. Some of the first possible mentions of coffee in medical texts date to the times of the Third Caliphate. The Islamic physician and astronomer Rhazes (852–932) described the qualities of a plant known as bunn and the beverage buncham in his lost medical text Al-Haiwi (The Continent). Rhazes describes coffee as “hot and dry and very good for the stomach”. ⁵ Later, the Islamic doctor Avicenna (980–1037) included an entry for buncham in his text Al-Ganum fit-Tebb (The Canon of Medicine). He describes coffee as coming from Yemen and, expanding on Rhazes, explained that it “fortifies the members, cleans the skin, and dries up the humidities that are under it, and gives an excellent smell to all the body”. ⁶ Both of these early accounts describe coffee and its effects within the confines of humoral theories of medicine, which would later be used by their counterparts in Europe. The descriptions of bunn and buncham by Rhazes and Avicenna seem to describe coffee, but curiously written references to coffee and its effects almost disappear from the time of Avicenna to the 15th century, almost 500 years. While documentation is sparse for coffee during this period, it is clear that it was known to and being utilized in the Islamic world, for when references to coffee reappear, it was fully integrated into the life of Yemeni Sufi monasteries. ²

Yemeni Sufis are the source of many modern cultural traditions and health beliefs of coffee use. Although Yemeni Muslims had encountered coffee use through their interactions with Ethiopia, the Sufis popularized the use of coffee within their religious ceremonies. Sufism emerged as a practice related to the mystical inner dimensions of Islam around the 9th century ad. Sufism rose to prominence by the 12th century, and was at the center of the “Golden Age” of Islam between the 13th and 16th centuries. Sufis found that the drink (qahwa) “drove away fatigue and lethargy, and brought to the body a certain sprightliness and vigor”, ⁶ as described by the 15th century Sufi Dhabhani.

Coffee spread as a stimulant, benefiting from Islamic dietary laws that strictly forbade the use of alcohol and other intoxicants. Yemeni Sufis used coffee to stay awake during their prayers, particularly the dhikr (ritual remembrance of God), during which short phrases were repeated to glorify God. These Sufi conclaves gathered on Monday and Friday evenings, and drank coffee at the beginning of a night of ritual recitations. From these religious meetings, the use and health effects of coffee spread throughout the Islamic world from the Yemeni peninsula. These same Sufi conclaves also gave rise to what would become the forerunner to the modern coffeehouse, as first Sufi intellectuals and later every strata of Islamic society began to enjoy the marqaha, or euphoria produced by coffee. ²

This obsession with coffee and the effects of caffeine in Mecca led to the first ban on coffee in 1511, which was soon repealed. A cycle of bans and repeals followed coffee across the Middle East as it gained followers. So by the time that the German physician and botanist Leonhard Rauwolf became the first European to write about coffee after his travels through the Middle East in 1573, coffee served in the hundreds of coffeehouses in the region's cities seemed to have been enjoyed for centuries. ⁵

1.3 Coffee and Western Medicine in the 16th and 17th Centuries

Sidney Mintz described the role of “drug foods” (such as cacao, coffee, tea, and sugar) as driving the age of exploration and European expansion in the 16th and 17th centuries. Such foods served as “proletarian hunger killers” that could increase productivity while substituting for more substantive nourishment. These products are all native to the tropics, and their addictive qualities drive an expansion of their markets. ^7,8

Relying on travelers' accounts, such as that by Rauwolf, European scholars of the 16th century realized that the beverage was likely the same one mentioned by Rhazes and Avicenna centuries earlier. Avicenna's Canon of Medicine had been translated in the 12th century, becoming the principal basis of medieval European medical knowledge and practice. Avicenna had updated and integrated the earlier medical treatises of both the Greek physician Hippocrates (460 bc–370 bc) and the Romano Greek physician Aelius Galenus (ad 129–199). Hippocratic-Galenic medicine dominated physiology from the 4th century bc until the mid-19th century through the work of Avicenna. Avicenna notably included coffee within the humoral system as “hot and dry in the first degree” and a useful beverage to balance the body's humors. ⁵

Whereas the humoral system of Avicenna and his forebears was the theoretical basis for much of medical thought, the scientific revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries changed how coffee and its health effects were investigated. Some of the first controlled studies of the chemistry of coffee and its biological effects were being conducted as coffee became pervasive in Europe in the 17th century. These early studies were limited by the methodologies for quantification of chemical substances available at the time. ³ Thus, the analysis of the physiological aspects of coffee in general preceded chemical quantitative information.

In the 17th century, coffee was widely seen as an alternative to alcohol, and was viewed by many doctors as a viable treatment for a wide range of ailments. As an herbal panacea, coffee was prescribed in the form of infusions, capsules, potions, or injections against a vast spectrum of diseases, from hernia to rheumatism, from colds to bronchitis. This is distinct from coffee's prevalent use as a beverage as part of the normal diet. It was included as a treatment in both the Materia Medica and the Codex Medicus, the authoritative manuals of pharmacology used until the 20th century; and up until the 19th century plant extracts formed the bulk of the medical curative resources. Still, the pharmacological use of coffee proceeded from its use as a food or drink. ²

Starting with its first introduction to Europe, the psychoactive effects of coffee gave rise to medical and moral concerns. Much of this was focused on the quantity of coffee consumed by individuals. The expression “use and abuse” of coffee became frequent in the vernacular of the 17th century. ² Often, those who were friends and family members of coffee drinkers worried about the health effects of over-consumption. Later, Goethe's interest in the chemical exploration of coffee began with his recognition of and limitation of his own coffee consumption. ⁵

While coffee was viewed by many as a positive alternative to alcohol, there were also moral and scientific backlashes against this image. In 1674 women in London protested the rise in coffee consumption among men, calling it a “drying and enfeebling liquor” that weakened their men. ⁹ And in ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• HalfTitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Chapter 1 Coffee Consumption and Health Impacts: A Brief History of Changing Conceptions
• Chapter 2 Coffee Antioxidants in Chronic Diseases
• Chapter 3 Anti-inflammatory Activity of Coffee
• Chapter 4 DNA Protective Properties of Coffee: From Cells to Humans
• Chapter 5 Preventive Effect of Coffee Against Cardiovascular Diseases
• Chapter 6 Coffee in the Development, Progression and Management of Type 2 Diabetes
• Chapter 7 Caffeine and Parkinson’s Disease: From Molecular Targets to Epidemiology and Clinical Trials
• Chapter 8 Coffee and Alzheimer’s Disease
• Chapter 9 Hepatoprotective Effect of Coffee
• Chapter 10 Antimicrobial Activity of Coffee
• Chapter 11 Effect of Coffee on Oral Bacteria Involved in Dental Caries and Periodontal Disease
• Chapter 12 Effect of Coffee on Weight Management
• Chapter 13 Potential Prebiotic Effect of Coffee
• Chapter 14 Caffeine Consumption
• Chapter 15 Caffeine Metabolism and Health Effects
• Chapter 16 Chlorogenic Acids: Daily Consumption Through Coffee, Metabolism and Potential Health Effects
• Chapter 17 Potential Effects of Coffee Isoflavones and Lignans on Health
• Chapter 18 Potential Effects of Trigonelline and Derivatives on Health
• Chapter 19 Potential Anti-carcinogenic Effects of Coffee Diterpenes
• Chapter 20 Potential Effects of β-Carbolines on Human Health
• Chapter 21 Potential Effects of Coffee Melanoidins on Health
• Chapter 22 Potential Beneficial Effects of Bioactive Amines on Health
• Chapter 23 Potential Negative Effects of Caffeine Consumption on Health
• Chapter 24 Potential Detrimental Effects of Acrylamide on Health
• Chapter 25 Potential Effects of Furan and Related Compounds on Health
• Chapter 26 The Dyslipidemic Effect of Coffee Diterpenes
• Chapter 27 Potential Adverse Effects of Coffee Bioactive Amines to Human Health
• Chapter 28 Potential Mycotoxin Effects on Coffee Consumers’ Health
• Chapter 29 Carcinogenic Effects of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons and Modulation by Coffee Compounds
• Chapter 30 Potential Effects of Pesticides Residues on Health
• Subject Index