There is an opinion that milk weakens the harmful and enhances the beneficial effects of caffeine on the body, so drinking coffee with milk is not only tasty, but also healthy. Let's figure out if this is so.
Coffee is rich in vitamins and antioxidants. But it also contains acids that irritate the gastric mucosa. Coffee increases the secretion of gastric juice. If this happens in the morning, before breakfast, when the stomach is still empty, hydrochloric acid can seriously injure the mucous membrane. Therefore, drinking coffee on an empty stomach is undesirable even for healthy people. In case of high acidity, stomach ulcers, or a removed gallbladder, doctors strongly recommend limiting the consumption of the drink.
Milk is alkaline. The fat it contains softens the effect of acids. So coffee with milk is not as harmful for people with gastrointestinal diseases as regular espresso. In addition, milk weakens the effect of caffeine on blood vessels, so coffee with milk does not cause such sudden surges in blood pressure as black coffee. It’s not for nothing that Italians in the morning drink not the universal alarm clock espresso, but a softer cappuccino.
It would seem that from the above it follows that coffee with milk is useful for hypertensive patients. But the problem is that milk contains casein. Casein glue is one of the strongest. To verify this, just try to wash a pan with milk that has dried to the walls without using detergents.
Coffee with milk pollutes the body
The same thing happens on the inner surface of the walls of blood vessels. The adult human body simply does not have enzymes capable of breaking down casein. Protein often causes constipation, which causes fecal stones to form in the intestines and toxins to enter the bloodstream. Due to slagging in the body, the skin becomes covered with rashes, including purulent ones. If you drink milk from time to time, the body has difficulty, but copes with the “complex” product. But if coffee with milk becomes a regular habit, the likelihood of vascular disease increases.
Many lovers of coffee milkshakes are sincerely convinced that milk compensates for the lack of calcium, which is washed out of the bones under the influence of coffee. But this is a dangerous misconception: the body is not a children’s construction kit; the processes of saturating it with calcium are very complex. For example, calcium is poorly absorbed if there is a lack of silicon. For those who eat few vegetables, which is why they do not receive enough silicon, calcium does not strengthen bone tissue, but only promotes the deposition of salts, and no amount of milk can help here. The older a person is, the faster his body loses calcium and the more difficult it is to restore calcium balance.
The conclusion follows: milk slightly softens the immediate effect of coffee on the gastric mucosa and the cardiovascular system. But it does not slow down the process of leaching calcium from bone tissue. You can pay for the abuse of coffee and milkshakes by blocking blood vessels, digestive disorders and constant constipation.
Contraindications to drinking coffee with milk are almost the same as for black coffee:
- gastrointestinal diseases;
- tendency to constipation;
- hypertension and other diseases of the cardiovascular system;
- removed gallbladder;
- pancreatitis;
- sensitive skin, prone to rashes;
- osteoporosis;
- individual intolerance to coffee or milk.
Of course, for all of the above categories, coffee with milk is not fatal. If you really want to, you can drink a coffee and milkshake several times a month. But if your health worsens, it is better to give up coffee in all forms.
A completely healthy person under the age of 30 should not drink coffee with milk more than 2-3 times a week. After 30 years - no more than 1 - 2 times a week.
Coffee with milk for diets and weight correction
Any diet is a necessary measure. People adhere to a special diet either for any illness or to lose weight.
There are a great many diets in which the consumption of fermented milk products is recommended. But with fresh milk everything is more complicated.
The purpose of the diet is to “unload” the body, allowing it not to waste energy on digesting heavy food, but to use it to normalize metabolic processes and get rid of toxins. Fresh milk contributes to constipation, that is, it aggravates the very slagging that the diet was invented to eliminate.
A separate type of diet is for weight loss. There are a great many of them, and there are also those in which it is allowed and even recommended to drink coffee. The drink really promotes weight loss: caffeine speeds up metabolism, promotes the “burning” of fat reserves, the substance is effective in the fight against cellulite, and the chlorogenic acid contained in coffee is a powerful antioxidant.
But if your diet requires you to drink coffee, you always mean black coffee. Fresh milk weakens the effect of caffeine and neutralizes chlorogenic acid. That is, because of one coffee and milkshake, all efforts to lose weight can go down the drain. There is no point in experiencing the inconvenience of restricting yourself in food, and at the same time negating all the benefits of the diet by drinking milk.
Milk itself is not that high in calories: depending on the fat content, 40–70 kcal. For those who are healthy, but are watching their weight by counting the daily number of calories, because of the difference of 10–20 kcal, you should not give up coffee with delicious whole milk and give preference to low-fat milk. In any case, after a coffee-milkshake you will have to reduce your diet or do without dinner altogether.
When is the best time to drink coffee?
So, should you drink coffee or not to be healthy? In the morning you can treat yourself to a pleasant drink, but after breakfast, no earlier than 30 minutes later. According to doctors, from 9.30 to 11.30 the level of cortisol in the blood decreases - this is the right moment. At this time, it will become a source of energy, vigor, increased performance, without causing harm.
If you break down your day into a coffee schedule, it will look like this:
- between 10 – 11 o’clock;
- from 12 to 13 hours;
- from 17.00 to 18.30.
There will be no harm to the body during this period, especially if the grains are of high quality. It’s beneficial if you drink a cup of the drink slowly and eat it with a cookie.
Coffee with milk during pregnancy
Women expecting a baby are sometimes unable to cope with their addiction to coffee and drink it with milk. Coffee with milk for pregnant women is indeed healthier than black coffee, but under one condition: if you drink coffee and milkshakes no more than 1-2 times a month.
The effect of coffee on the body during pregnancy:
- coffee changes hormonal levels. As a result, a woman, whose nervous system is already unstable, experiences anxiety and mood swings;
- coffee impairs the absorption of iron, which leads to anemia and is extremely harmful for the child;
- coffee constricts blood vessels, which impairs the supply of nutrients to the fetus;
- Coffee with milk, just like black coffee, contributes to the leaching of calcium from bone tissue and damage to teeth. Milk does not compensate for calcium deficiency. Coffee is especially dangerous for pregnant women over the age of 30;
- Sometimes coffee provokes nausea and increases toxicosis.
Coffee with milk during breastfeeding (lactation)
The network is full of assurances that you don’t need to give up coffee with milk when breastfeeding. Moreover, the same would-be advisers claim that children under 7 years old should not have coffee under any circumstances. They also do not recommend that nursing mothers eat chocolate, strawberries, cucumbers and oranges, which are a hundred times poorer in allergens than coffee.
The body of a child under 4 months of age does not break down caffeine, but accumulates it. Together with mother's milk, 1–1.5% of caffeine enters the baby's stomach. That is, after every cup of coffee the mother drinks, even with milk, the child receives 0.5–1 mg of caffeine. And this substance stays in the baby’s body for a long time. Is it any wonder that the child does not sleep and is capricious?
Caffeine affects not only the nervous system, but also the composition of the blood: it interferes with the absorption of iron. Let us add that coffee constricts blood vessels, which impairs lactation.
When breastfeeding, drinking coffee is strictly prohibited during the first 4 months of the child's life. If the child is older than 6 months, then the mother can afford 1-2 cups of coffee per month (at least 3 hours before feeding), but you need to be prepared for the baby to be capricious.
Scientists warn about the dangers of drinking coffee before breakfast
Drinking coffee in the morning on an empty stomach worsens glucose metabolism, which could potentially lead to diabetes, warn physiologists from the University of Bath in the UK. The study was published in the British Journal of Nutrition
.
The participants in the experiment were 29 healthy men and women, whom scientists divided into three groups. The first one slept as usual and in the morning drank a sweet drink that was equivalent in calories to breakfast. The researchers woke up the second group every hour, treating them the next morning to the same drink as the first group. The same thing happened to the third group as to the second, but half an hour before the sweet drink, the participants received a portion of strong black coffee.
After drinking the sweet drink, the researchers took blood samples from all participants.
One night of sleep disturbance was found to have no effect on glucose uptake compared with normal sleep, although past work has shown a link between sleep and glucose metabolism. However, coffee consumption led to a 50% increase in blood glucose levels compared to groups that did not receive it. This may indicate that caffeine has the potential to lead to insulin resistance. In addition, it is known that caffeine stimulates a greater release of fats into the blood, which also prevents the body from receiving glucose from the blood.
By solving one problem with caffeine, you can create a new one for yourself, and, by fighting drowsiness, worsen glucose metabolism.
Changes in glucose metabolism indicate decreased insulin sensitivity and an increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes in the future, but other factors such as physical activity need to be taken into account when predicting long-term outcomes, the researchers noted. Single changes will not cause serious harm, but regular, systematic intervention in metabolic processes can really affect health.
“We know that almost half of us wake up in the morning and drink coffee before doing anything - intuitively, the more tired we are, the stronger the coffee,” said Professor James Betts, lead author of the study. “Our work is important and the results have far-reaching implications for health, as until now we had limited knowledge of what caffeine does to our bodies, particularly how it affects metabolism and blood sugar control.”
Simply put, blood sugar control is compromised when the body first gets a dose of caffeine, especially after a sleepless night, Betts explains. You can reduce the risks by drinking coffee not before breakfast, but after, if you still want it.
“This data could be important for the health of all of us,” he notes.
“The results show that a single night of restless sleep did not worsen participants' responses to blood glucose and insulin compared with a night of normal sleep, which is encouraging,” adds colleague Harry Smith. - However, you should not start the day after a bad sleep with strong coffee - this negatively affects glucose metabolism. Because of this, people should try to balance the potential benefits of caffeine as a stimulant in the morning against the risk of rising blood glucose levels, and it may be better to drink coffee after breakfast rather than before. We need to learn much more about the effects of sleep on our metabolism, such as how many nights of restless sleep it takes to disrupt our metabolism and what the long-term consequences of this are, as well as how to combat these problems.”
Drinking coffee in moderation has some health benefits, including a reduced risk of heart disease, some cancers and neurological diseases, so the research findings "do not mean coffee can't be part of a healthy lifestyle," Smith said.
In addition, one should not be too optimistic about the data that a sleepless night does not affect metabolism - if this happens rarely, then most likely there will be no serious harm to the body, but systematic lack of sleep significantly increases the risk of developing cardiovascular diseases and type 2 diabetes mellitus.
How does caffeine affect the body?
Thousands of scientific papers are devoted to caffeine. For many years, scientists and doctors have been trying to thoroughly study its effects on the body. It is well known that caffeine acts as a stimulant on the central nervous system. It also increases the heart rate, constricts blood vessels, and removes fluid from the body. Caffeine causes the stomach to secrete more digestive juices. The effect of caffeine on the body cannot be clearly called harmful or beneficial. For some it is contraindicated, but for others it is a medicine.
There's no reason to be afraid
Fans of espresso with lemon should not be afraid, as this combination will not harm a healthy person.
Doctors say that the combination of natural coffee and lemon, on the contrary, is good for health. Lemon juice contains vitamin C, which neutralizes the effects of caffeine. Therefore, coffee with lemon is good for those people for whom caffeine in large quantities is harmful.
Espresso with lemon can only be made with natural coffee. Instant drink has nothing in common with real espresso.
Benefits of coffee for the body
Considering a drink unhealthy is no longer relevant. In recent years, he has been seriously rehabilitated on “many counts.” In 2016, the World Health Organization removed it from the list of carcinogens, saying that there is no evidence that the drink causes cancer.
Coffee is good for you, scientists and doctors say (Photo: pexels.com)
Also in 2016, British scientists from the Center for Nutrition and Health conducted a large-scale study of the risks and benefits of coffee consumption []. This study found that regular consumption of the drink by healthy people is absolutely harmless and even moderately beneficial.
Among the beneficial qualities, a positive effect on the cardiovascular system and metabolic (metabolic) processes has been announced. And a year later, American scientists announced that people who drink coffee regularly live longer []. This is because it apparently reduces the risk of death from cancer, stroke, diabetes, heart disease and kidney disease.
“Coffee is extremely beneficial for the liver,” comments gastroenterologist-hepatologist Olga Arisheva. - It protects it and has a beneficial effect on the condition of the liver in diseases. Moreover, coffee can be anything: instant, natural, with caffeine or even without it. The effect will be the same."
Coffee composition
When it comes to coffee, the first thing that comes to mind is caffeine. Yes, the purine alkaloid caffeine is the main component of coffee beans. But, in addition to this, grains also contain other useful substances, such as:
- macroelements: potassium, calcium, magnesium, iron;
- trace elements: copper, manganese, zinc, aluminum, cobalt, sulfur, selenium, boron and some others;
- vitamins: PP, B2;
- fats, proteins and organic acids: chlorogenic, acetic.
Of course, this is far from the complete composition of the grain. Coffee contains more than a thousand chemical compounds. But there is no need to fear. Scientists have been studying the effect of coffee on the body for many years and have not yet discovered anything dangerous. Although, of course, there are diseases for which it is undesirable to drink coffee.
Who should abstain from the drink?
First of all, any coffee is prohibited for people suffering from ulcers and gastritis, as it increases the production of hydrochloric acid by the stomach. This drink is also not recommended for people suffering from hypertension, however, in the first stage of the disease it is allowed to drink it only in the first half of the day.
Matchamania: why everyone is switching to tea powder and why it is better than coffee
It's amazing what benefits seemingly the most ordinary things can bring. However, even if you do not have any health problems, do not forget that caffeine is addictive and in very large quantities can make you feel worse.
Is it possible to replace coffee with something?
Yes, it is possible and even necessary. There are alternative methods to feel energized in the morning. I like the taste of coffee - chicory is a worthy replacement, it contains insulin, which helps the digestive system.
Green tea and dark chocolate are a powerful boost of energy. The products contain antioxidants that give vitality.
Lemon water is an excellent replacement for morning coffee; it replenishes the supply of water that is lost overnight, strengthens the immune system, and improves the condition of the skin and gastrointestinal tract.
Freshly squeezed citrus juice gives a refreshing and invigorating effect. Contains iron, vitamin C, antioxidants. But it is important that the juice is always fresh.
