Can Regularly Drinking Coffee Unclog Your Arteries?

If there’s any truth in the latest South Korea coffee study, can we really unclog our arteries by just drinking 3 to 5 cups of coffee a day? 

By: Ringo Bones 

A recent South Korean study on the health benefits of drinking coffee suggests that drinking 3 to 5 cups of coffee a day can make one avoid having clogged arteries thus reducing risks of getting a heart attack. The findings published in Heart came from a study of 25,138 participants who have had their calcium levels of their coronary arteries measured to find out if there’s any correlation with increased coffee drinking habits.

In recent months, Medical News Today has reported on a number of studies finding potential health benefits in regular coffee consumption. In past study results, moderate coffee consumption has been shown to statistically reduce the risk of multiple sclerosis, endometrial cancer and melanoma skin cancer. 

Despite of this, the study’s authors state that the effect of coffee consumption on cardiovascular health has, so far, remained controversial. A recent meta-analysis of 36 studies demonstrated that moderate coffee consumption was linked to a decreased risk of heart disease and other research has made associations with a reduced risk of type 2 diabetes. 

In contrast, moderate coffee consumption has also been associated with increased cholesterol levels and hypertension. Due to these inconsistent results, the researchers decided to examine levels of coronary artery calcium – a predictor of coronary heart disease – in connection with coffee consumption.

Specifically, the presence of coronary artery calcium can indicate the early stages of coronary arteriosclerosis, a condition whereby the arteries become clogged up, hardened and narrow. When this occurs, arteries are more susceptible to blood clots that can lead heart attacks and strokes. 

Researchers led by the Kangbuk Samsung Hospital in Seoul, South Korea analyzed participants attending regular health screening, including food frequency questionnaires and CT scanning to determine coronary artery calcium. The participants had an average age of 41 with no signs of heart disease. 

Victoria Taylor, a senior dietician with the British Heart Foundation (BHF) agrees that the findings of the study will require further investigation. “We need to take care when generalizing these results because it is based on the South Korean population, who have a different diet and lifestyle and habits when compared to people in the UK.” she suggests. Last year, the Medical News Today reported on a study suggesting that different people’s coffee drinking habits could be driven by genetics. 

Should Illycafé Compete With Starbucks?

Even though this move makes them a late entrant in the single-serve coffee market, should Ilycafé be competing with Starbucks? 

By: Ringo Bones

To the coffee connoisseur, Illycafé is more known for producing high-end cappuccino and espresso drink capsules that with the currently Starbucks dominated single-serve coffee market. Illcafé now produces filter capsules specifically designed to deliver the famed – but somewhat esoteric to the rest of the world – Illycafé coffee to a wider market place. President and company CEO Andrea Illy was praised for the use of recyclable materials for its espresso filter capsules that sets them apart from their competitors. In the highly competitive single-serve coffee market, Illycafé offers something different and environmentally friendly indeed. 

In Trieste, Italy, the Adriatic port town famed for introducing Europe to coffee, Illycafé got its first start back in 1933 when company founder Francesco Illy developed the modern espresso machine. The company’s story is still being written today by President and CEO Andrea Illy representing a third generation of Illy family leadership. Hopefully, the rest of the world at large will now be enjoying the famed Illycafé coffee with the same convenience as going into a Starbucks shop. 

Will Indonesia’s Growing Demand for Luxury Coffee Affect the Global Coffee Market?

Will Indonesia’s recent spike in demand for its homegrown luxury coffee eventually affect the global supply of top-shelf coffee? 

By: Ringo Bones 

Putting two and two together, it’s not that hard to see why a growing local demand for its homegrown luxury coffee in Indonesia might mean less of the good stuff available for foreigners that had acquired a taste for Indonesian top-shelf coffee. But is this necessarily a bad thing? 

Recent figures show that about a quarter of the world’s supply of top-shelf coffee is grown and processed in Indonesia. Since the late 1990s, a new generation of Indonesian gourmet coffee aficionados and a steadily growing number of gourmet coffee shops in every major metropolitan area across Indonesia means that there could be less of this good stuff that will be available to foreigners even though foreigners visiting Indonesia’s major metropolitan areas can still find this top-shelf coffee with ease. 

Though Indonesian coffee growers are growing more and more coffee plants to meet both domestic and export demands, figures show that at the levels they are currently expanding their coffee crops, demand will outstrip supply in as little as two years time. Will a much needed capital investments to Indonesia’s coffee farmers avert a “disastrous” global luxury coffee shortage? 

Premium coffee in Indonesia are sourced and handpicked from tree ripened coffee beans. The high quality beans must be processed separately from the lower grade ones because mixing the two and processing both results in an inferior product. But these top-shelf coffee that used to destined for export abroad are now increasingly destined for the local Indonesian gourmet coffee market. 

 

Coffee Luwak, Unethically Produced?

Being sold at around 90 US dollars a cup in the coffee-shops of the world’s major metropolitan areas, would you ever consider boycotting coffee luwak if you find out that it was unethically produced? 

By: Ringo Bones 

Once considered a freebie by coffee plantation workers in the Malay Peninsula since the 18^th Century, that is before the world’s coffee connoisseurs discovered the distinctive mild tea-like taste of coffee luwak. To the uninitiated and however you spell it, coffee luwak / kopi luwak or "civet coffee" is made – or more accurately brewed from - coffee berries that had been eaten by the native wild civet cats that roam the region’s coffee plantations then passed though their digestive system. Despite “sanitation concerns” of brewing coffee form beans that had been literally picked from the droppings of wild civet cats were swiftly set aside once coffee aficionados around the world fell in love with the distinctive mild tea-like taste of coffee luwak - mainly due to the civet cat's proteolytic enzymes in its digestive system that seeps into the swallowed coffee beans resulting in shorter peptides and more free amino acids - which now often sells for around 90 US dollars a cup in posh coffee shops of the world’s major metropolitan areas. But how ethically produced are coffee lowak currently being marketed around the world today? 

Purists insists that for this product to pass muster as genuine coffee luwak – the plantation grown coffee beans must  and should be eaten by free (free range?) civet cats. But due to the ongoing deforestation of Malaysia’s tropical forests and those in the surrounding Malay Peninsula region, free / wild civet cats are fast becoming a rarity so what does an enterprising coffee lowak producer resorts to just to keep his or her bottom line fat – battery farming of civet cats? 

Unfortunately that is what they just did for over a decade now. The sad fact is that civet cats don’t adapt well in captivity and most die by having their respiratory system being infected by a SARS like virus due to being confined in close quarters whose symptoms often include a bloody stool once a typical infected civet cat passes out coffee beans with their excrement. Recent hidden camera investigation by various nature and environmental groups only confirm the mass scale of the civet cats being kept in deplorable battery farms. Dr. Neil D’Cruze of the World Society of the Protection of Animals had already called on authorities to stop the unethical production coffee luwak in the Malay Peninsula that violate existing global animal welfare laws. 

Some Few Oft Talked About Coffee Myths

They might seem believable but is there any truth to the most talked about coffee myths that we encounter on a daily basis?

By: Ringo Bones 

There may be more of them out there and some of them we might know of in the near future, but is there any truth of these so-called coffee myths? As of late, there are some that has been discussed by various medical doctors who appeared in popular TV talk shows and some of them are as follows: 

Coffee dehydrates the body – its diuretic effects are only mild but coffee can legitimately be counted as your “daily water intake quota” - at least according to a doctor who looks after US troops stationed in Iraq. But an extra cup of coffee does increases your chances of visiting the bathroom within the next half an hour.

Milk with coffee is a cure for sensitive stomachs - As of late, doctors recommend cool water as a better cure for sensitive stomachs than milk with coffee. Although milk with coffee can “relieve” the burning sensation of that extra hot chili dish way better than cool water. 

Coffee causes heart pains – if you only drink one or two cups of coffee daily and have no preexisting heart condition, then its okay. According to the latest medical research, sugars and artificially produced hydrogenated fats are more dangerous to your heart than the caffeine content of one or two cups of coffee a day. Two much sugar could even increase ones chances of getting Type-II diabetes. 

Pregnant women shouldn’t drink coffee – even though in laboratory test animals caffeine doesn’t transfer from the mother’s bloodstream to the unborn’s placenta thus minimizing any potential teratogenic side effects of coffee, we humans tend to err on the side of discretionary caution when it comes to this so called coffee myth. Not that there’s anything wrong with it though. 

Caffeine Content: How High Is Too Much?

Even though coffee – despite its newly-found health benefits – can cause more harm than good in certain people, does this mean that caffeine content awareness of our cup of joe is now of paramount importance?

By: Ringo Bones

Ever since boutique coffee and espresso shops gained mainstream popularity in the wave of the Seattle Grunge boom back in the early 1990s, most commercial coffee shops of varying degrees of craft-cred, had been mandatorily asking their customers if they have a preexisting heart condition before allowing them to consume another cup of their caffeinated brew. Given the clear and present danger posed by caffeine on certain people, should everyone be mindful – especially us patrons and consumers – on the exact levels of caffeine found in our daily cup of joe?

Recent studies have shown that a typical cup of coffee contains 50 mg worth of caffeine, while famous franchised coffee shops – like Starbucks – contain 51 mg worth of caffeine per cup. Surprisingly, some up-market “slow-food” boutique coffee shops have a caffeine content as much as 6 times that normally found in a typical daily cup of coffee. Given that caffeine for a number of years now had been deemed harmful to unborn babies and expectant mothers have since been advised by their physician not to drink coffee or any caffeinated beverage during their pregnancy, should there be more public awareness campaign on the health risks of consuming too much caffeine?

In a BBC interview back in December 2, 2011, Jeffrey Young of the London Coffee Guide says that on the result of an on-going study on the caffeine content of commercial coffee shops around London, it has been found out that some up-market specialist espresso shops serve coffee that contains up to 360 mg of caffeine per cup. That’s a little over 6 times the 50 mg caffeine content of a typical cup of coffee most of us consume. Should up-market specialist espresso shops be mandatorily required to carry health warnings?

Powdered Instant Starbucks Coffee: The End of Civilization?

As one of the biggest high-end Barista-prepared coffee franchise in the world, does the recent introduction of a powdered instant Starbucks coffee means the end of civilization as we know it?


By: Ringo Bones


As the designated “coffee-man” of my peer group, I and the rest of us had acquired a taste of genuinely brewed coffee that probably only an on-going post apocalyptic nuclear winter – or catastrophic climate change – would had us revert to drinking freeze-dried powdered instant coffee. But as Starbucks experimented its own version of the devil a few years ago – is this the surest sign that the end of civilization is nigh?

To seasoned coffee connoisseurs, there is really nothing like enjoying a properly prepared brewed coffee. And we probably reached a consensus long ago that that freeze-dried powdered instant coffee is an abominable form of coffee drinking. I had yet to try Starbucks’ version of freeze dried powdered instant coffee that some say is close enough in taste to their properly brewed cuppa that Starbucks Instant Coffee could relegate Barista’s to the dustbin of history.

If you ask for my opinion, I think there’s more to being a coffee connoisseur than convenience. A good tasting coffee is of prime importance though, but how that coffee is prepared is part of a revered Western ritual than some Japanese even compare it to a traditional Japanese tea ceremony. And with our increasing awareness of the injustices brought about by globalization, the corporate social responsibility compliance of the coffee that we consume has also become part of the equation. Remember folks, support your local Barista, it’s the socially responsible thing to do for us capitalist coffee consumers.