A latte to think about.
Calling all black coffee lovers! Recent research suggests that drinking unsweetened coffee—sans cream—could reduce your risk of dementia, Alzheimer’s and Parkinsons disease.
The study was big, it included over 200,000 participants in the UK Biobank who were between 40 and 69 years old (45% were male). 1-in-4 people in the study weren’t coffee drinkers at all, so that’s who the coffee crowd was compared against. This is where it gets interesting: over a nine-year follow-up period the unsweetened black java lovers had a roughly 30% lower risk of developing one of these diseases and a 43% lower likelihood of dying from one of them.
Where it gets more interesting is the absence of caffeine or the addition of cream or sweeteners (natural or artificial) saw these positive health associations tossed aside like this morning’s coffee grounds—sorry whipped creamers & caramel drizzlers. If you’re already a black coffee drinker, this is good news! But if you like need to take the bitter edge off of your morning ritual with a little sweetener or cream, you’ll still get the benefits when it comes to heart, colon, and liver health, you just won’t get the added cognitive health boost benefitting your brave, black coffee loving brothers & sisters.
