Healthy reason to drink coffee

Many studies have looked at coffee use in the past years. Scientists have found that coffee helps in burning our body fat, improves physical performance, lowers risk of type II diabetes, protects from Alzheimer’s disease etc. Apart from those benefits, recently the scientists from Monash University in collaboration with Italian coffee roasting company Illycaffe have found that coffee has good antioxidant that kills damaging free radicals in our body. The findings were published in PLOS ONE.

They have conducted a comprehensive study on how free radicals and antioxidants behave during every stage of the coffee-brewing process, from intact bean to coffee brew. The team observed the behaviour of free radicals, unstable molecules that seek electrons for stability and are known to cause cellular and DNA damage in the human body in the coffee brewing process.

"The most important aim of this research was to better understand the development of stable free radicals during the roasting process. We also wanted to evidence possible coffee constituents as a source of antioxidant activity," said chief chemist of Illycaffè, Luciano Navarini.

"Our research studied both the Arabica coffee bean itself and what happens to its stable free radical and antioxidant properties during the brewing process," said lead researcher Gordon Troup from Monash University. "The findings provide a better understanding of the potential health benefits of coffee, as well as a deeper knowledge of the roasting process -- ultimately leading to the highest quality cup of coffee," he added.

By Lizitha