Latte and Black Coffee (Photo Bex Walton, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons)

Dear Readers, today was another tiny milestone in the story of my fractured leg – I managed to walk to the bus stop, get onto a bus, travel to Muswell Hill, stop for a coffee in Sable D’Or   and then get back on the bus and go home. Yay! Apart from trips to the hospital, it’s the furthest away from home I’ve been since the end of June, and what a joy it was to see that Muswell Hill High Street was still there, getting on with selling stuff even though I wasn’t there. I think part of me thinks that if I’m not around to see things they no longer exist, even though the rest of me knows that that’s ridiculous. Is it just me, I wonder? I don’t know how Obergurgl is going to cope without me being able to go on holiday there this year, for example.

Anyhow, I had a very nice Flat White, and according to New Scientist this week, this should be considered a healthy option, at least as far as the coffee part was concerned. A recent raft of studies have shown that two to three cups of coffee per day show a whole range of health benefits. An Australian study that tracked 380,000 people for ten years showed that coffee drinkers had a lower risk of developing coronary heart disease, heart failure or arrhythmias, with decaf drinkers showing similar results for everything except arrhythmia. It’s thought that although caffeine is part of the answer to why coffee seems to be heart-protective, something more complicated is going on.

Tim Spector of Kings College London points out that there is a particular bacteria in the microbiome, known as Lawsonibacter, that feeds solely on coffee. When it feeds on the polyphenols and fibre in the coffee, the bacteria releases short-chain fatty acids which are anti-inflammatory, and calm the immune system. This could account not only for the better heart health of coffee drinkers, but also for lower rates of Parkinson’s disease, diabetes, obesity and allergies, all of which are thought to be aggravated by inflammation. There may even be a link between inflammation and depression, and the improved mood and increased mental acuity that follows a dose of caffeine has been well documented.

All in all, it’s good news for coffee drinkers, but caffeine alone, as ingested in energy drinks, has none of the health benefits of coffee itself, and, because they are often full of sugar and other legal stimulants (such as guarana and taurine) they are positively bad for you, especially for young people (in the UK there may soon be legislation to limit the sale of such drinks to young people). Overdosing on the caffeine in energy drinks can cause heart palpitations, anxiety attacks, and obesity and diabetes in the longer term. Better to stick to the espresso I think.

And for you tea drinkers out there, it appears that while coffee is healthier than the black tea that most of us drink, green tea, which is also rich in polyphenols (though doesn’t have the associated bacteria) is a great alternative, with similar health benefits, though in my experience not quite the same caffeine ‘kick’.