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That little cup of coffee could combat drowsiness, temporarily boost athletic performance, ease congestion due to colds and flu, even prevent asthma attacks and enhance the pain-relieving effects of aspirin. Of course, coffee can also cause problems too much of it may cause insomnia.
Coffee has been around for a long time. Our word coffee comes from Caffa, the region of Ethiopia where the fabled coffee beans were first discovered. The beverage we know as coffee emerged when Arabians began roasting and grinding coffee beans, and drinking the hot beverage as we do today. Until the 17th century, Arabia was the sole supplier of coffee through the port of Mocha, which became one of coffee's names. Then the Dutch introduced the plant into Java, and the Java Island quickly became synonymous with a name of coffee.
The medically important constituent of coffee is, of course, caffeine. But the coffee's caffeine content depends on how it is prepared. A cup of instant contains about 60 milligrams of caffeine. Drip or percolated coffee has about 100. A cup of espresso contains about 100 milligrams, too, but this is in a 2 1/2-ounce cup the traditional serving size for espresso.
Boosting performance
Coffee is best known as the powerful stimulant that helps people stay awake during night drives and cramming before the examinations. It does not, however, help anyone sober up after overindulging in alcohol.
If you normally take aspirin for pain relief, perhaps you should take it with a cup of coffee. Several studies show that, compared with plain aspirin, the combination of aspirin and caffeine relieves pain significantly better than popping just an aspirin.
How much is too much?
Caffeine is such an integral part of our culture, we seldom realise that in fact, it is a drug. The fact is caffeine is classically addictive. Regular users develop a tolerance and require more to obtain the expected effect. Deprived of caffeine, regular users usually develop withdrawal symptoms, primarily a headache, which can last several days. But just remember that coffee, like all other things, if taken in moderation should help and not harm.
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