Is Coffee Good or Bad for Your Brain?

Is Coffee Good for Brain Function?

        Many studies have investigated how coffee affects the brain and its function. The main effects that related to caffeine, which is one of the main components of coffee. Research conclusions on caffeine and coffee are highlighted below, respectively, with specific additional facts available on the Coffee Research Center Health website.

How Coffee Works

Caffeine has been described as the world's most consumed psychostimulant.

Every 12 months approximately four hundred billion cups of coffee are consumed internationally, and it turns out that 90% of Americans start their day with a cup of coffee.

It is no wonder that coffee is the largest imported food and the 2nd most valuable commodity after oil in the United States.

Given your love of coffee, is there any benefit from enjoying caffeine? The fast answer is yes. There's even some suggestion that coffee works as a cognitive stimulant. Coffee can boost your brain power.

Coffee Effect For Brain Good

Studies have shown that caffeine can have both good and bad effects on health.

It can improve your mental performance—to a certain point.

In a 2012 study, caffeine was shown to improve performance on a variety of specific tasks including alertness, response time, information processing, and some—but not all—proofreading tasks.

Caffeine is the main reason why coffee can improve the function of your brain. This stimulant blocks adenosine, an inhibitory neurotransmitter in your brain that makes you sleepy. (healthline.com)

Caffeine can increase reaction time, but expectation plays a role too. According to a general overview posted in 2010, caffeine can increase your alertness. Another study in 2009 explored the intricacies of how caffeine works, and found that for some time, at least, it was a hopeful effect.

The expected outcome plays an important role in the tablet's outcome on people's perceptions and behavior. People's expectations about how caffeine will affect their performance—in particular, if they perceive it as interfering with their performance—seem to underlie some of these improvements.

But it's not a shortcut to increase your performance. When comparisons were made between humans who had a low daily caffeine intake (up to one hundred mg of caffeine per day), and those who consumed a lot of caffeine (more than 300 mg of caffeine per day), the increase was quite small and did not get better with more caffeine.

Caffeine has a transient stimulatory effect on the central nervous system, but its long-term effects on cognition are less clear.

Does Coffee Help Fatigue and Tiredness

The main reason why people drink coffee is to feel more energized and awake, so it's no surprise that research shows that caffeine can also suppress feelings of fatigue.

However, the power boost only lasts for a certain amount of time before it starts to fade. Then you feel the urge to have another cup.

Be sure not to consume large amounts of caffeine in the late afternoon or evening, as it can disrupt your sleep at night.

If consuming espresso reduces the quality of your sleep, then the effect may be the other way around — instead of reducing fatigue, it can cause you less sleep and interfere with your overall brain function.

It’s All About the Roasting Process in Coffee

In a modern study, researchers decided to look at the consequences of three different types of coffee: a caffeinated dark roast, a caffeinated light roast, and a decaffeinated dark roast.

Caffeinated and decaffeinated dark roasts each had equal potency in early experimental testing. So, from the very beginning it was observed that the defensive effects should not be caused by caffeine.

Gradually, all of those relationships came into place, as researchers began to focus on a group of compounds known as phenylindanes, which are formed by the roasting process of coffee beans, and give coffee its bitter taste.

These are phenylindanes, another coffee-related compound, which seem to inhibit the coupling of tau and beta-amyloid. It is a toxic protein, where excessive buildup in the brain is a key element in neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. So, phenylindanes are dual inhibitors.

It seems that the longer the roasting time the more espresso beans will produce. This suggests that dark roasted coffee - whether plain or decaf - has the strongest protective effect on the brain.

This is the first time anyone has investigated how phenylindanes interact with the proteins responsible for Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

In the future, the researchers aim to conduct extra specific investigations into the properties of phenylindanes, and their consequences on the human body after ingestion.

The next step would be to see how beneficial these compounds are, and whether they have the capacity to enter the bloodstream, or cross the blood-brain barrier.

Summary

Caffeine in moderation does not appear to be harmful, and moderate consumption of caffeine may bring health benefits.

The FDA recommends intake of no more than four hundred mg daily.

However, the effect will differ, according to the amount taken, individual size, gender, and sensitivity to the effects, and any medications or dietary supplements they may be taking.

Pure caffeine can be harmful, even life-threatening, and should be avoided.

Additionally, the current trend of adding caffeine to foods such as chewing gum and ice cream, items that typically target children, remains a concern, and investigations are ongoing.

Anyone looking to supply caffeine should cut back on it for a few days rather than all at once, to avoid uncomfortable symptoms.