Coffee and Your Health – Can Coffee Help Prevent a Stroke?
While attending college my English professor actually allowed us to pick a subject, and write a 2,000 to 3,000 word essay that would extoll the virtue of our chosen subject. I gave it some consideration, and at the campus coffee shop, decided that since i had a near addiction to coffee, it was the ideal subject.
I was astounded by the rather large amount of significant study that had been done on medical benefits derived from drinking a single serving of coffee each morning. Having narrowed my search parameters, I selected those benefits in stroke reduction for a study group ranging in age from age 35 to age 65. It appears that this group receives marginally more benefit than other age groups. The benefits outlined as most significant were that stroke reduction can be accomplished by reducing blood pressure, stress, and plaque buildup in the arteries.
Coffee serves these needs in a most unique way. Coffee reduces stress by acting as a very mild depressant. Coffee is also beneficial in reducing blood pressure, by contributing to blood thinning. It is known that if you exercise, and keep your blood circulation rate high through strenuous exercise, your body heats, sweats, and you generally feel warm. Coffee when absorbed provides the same effect on a very temporary basis. After exercise, you remain overheated for approximately 45 min to 1 hour.
Drinking a single cup of coffee will provide that same warm feeling for 20 to 30 minutes, just with less exertion. The part of this that you do not see it the part that actually does the work. The caffeine will be absorbed by the body, enter the bloodstream in microscopic amounts, and act as a very mild blood thinner. This in effect makes it easier for the blood to flow, around plaque buildups that naturally occur in every human being, beginning from the time we are born.
Making the blood thinner reduces pressure on the heart, arteries and veins. Reducing the pressure, reduces chance of stroke. This rather simple deduction, although startling in itself, is the best solution for the majority, because we all just naturally dread the thought of being hospitalized, having a qualified physician telling us that to avoid stroke (in the future), we must basically rearrange our lives to reduce stress, control our blood pressure, eat a more healthy diet, avoid salty and fatty foods, and the list of change seems endless. Drinking coffee one or two times a day seems like such a simple thing to do to avoid all that, and possibly some life changing experience, I wonder why it has never been widely published before.
James E. Shappie