10 Trends Shifting The Way Products Are Being Made

New Hope 360 sat down with market watchers Liz Sloane, Steve French and Doug Kalman, and toured the show floor at SupplySide West in Las Vegas in October, and came away with new insights into consumer demands that savvy companies can use to help direct their new product development efforts.

The "Free-From" Movement Marches On

The “free-from” movement has legs. What was once fat-free or sugar-free has grown to a movement of exclusion diets against unhealthy food ingredients. Lactose. Nuts. Soy. Meat. Market watcher Liz Sloane, at the SupplySide West trade show in Las Vegas Oct. 7, said free-from sales are pegged at $2.6 billion in the U.S. alone (gluten-free comprises 62 percent of that, with the millennials market making up the largest demographic segment), growing at 14 percent a year. What’s more, almost one-third of all consumers have tried some specialized diet or eating approach in the last year, she said.

How Big is Gluten-Free Really?

On gluten-free, Sloane said market estimates regarding the size of the market are all over the map, from Euromonitor pegging it at $486 million in 2013, and Nielsen saying it’s a $23 billion market. Regardless of the raw numbers, both Nielsen and Mintel (which says it’s a middle-ground $10.6 billion market) peg growth at about 16 percent a year. “But half of consumers who bought a gluten-free food or beverage did not know it was gluten-free,” said Sloane. “How do we really assess how big it is and how many people really intend on buying these products? It’s one of the most frustrating markets I’ve ever seen.” That frustration has birthed bearishness, and Sloane said the market is due for a flattening.

Will GMO Labeling Win at the Ballot Box?

In the last year, Gallup and other survey firms have inquired about the GMO issue. They found that about half of all consumers are aware of it. “And they want it labeled,” said Sloane. “Moms are instrumental in driving this.” The number of consumers indicating they would be less likely to purchase a food product if it was labeled that it contained GMOs rose from 63 percent in 2012 to 69 percent in 2013, said French, and almost one-third of consumers say they would stop buying a brand if they learned it has GMOs. That translates to significant volume declines for manufacturers – which is the big reason most mainstream brands oppose labeling. Voters will have the opportunity to weigh in on GMO labeling in the states of Colorado and Oregon come Nov. 4. It remains to be seen whether the alleged consumer desire to label it will change to don’t label it after all after consumers face the barrage of biotech-supported ads telling them their food prices will go up and their local farmers will suffer. We’ll get back to you on that after election day.

Organic = Best of the Best

The flip side of GMOs is organic. Look at it this way: GMOs represent the worst ingredient out there. Organics represent the best. So companies that label that they are GMO-free are essentially saying we don’t have the worst. But organics by definition contain no GMOs, and there is also a passel of other regulations around it vouchsafing the integrity of the entire production process around organic beyond just avoid the worst. According to 2014 unpublished data from the Hartman Group, about three-quarters of all consumers use organic, a number that is unchanged from the year prior. “Millennials and their parents have really upped their interest,” said Sloane. “Every organic category is up – dairy, breads, meats, snacks, condiments – with the exception of beverages, which is only stable at 7 percent growth.”

Transparency & Traceability

The four previous slides represent ethics that are all based on amped consumer sensitivity toward all things that are in the products they consume. In a word, transparency. “It used to be consumers accepted what was in a product. Now they want to know about what’s inside,” said Steve French, managing partner and owner of market watcher Natural Marketing Institute. “They want to know what’s inside, whether your particular product is safe and effective, and where it’s from. You get into the issue of GMOs.” Across generations, nearly seven in 10 consumers are reading labels. “This notion of transparency lends itself to the clean-label trend, which is a macro shift across many industries. Marketing loves this. R&D hates it.”

At the core of this transparency of ingredients trend is clean, minimally processed, with the finished ingredient name one that are easily read and more or less understood. What are consumers checking most? French broke it down to negative and positive items. Atop the negative list are calories, sugar, sodium and total fat. The second tier bad guys are trans fat, saturated fat, high fructose corn syrup. Only after eliminating the negative to consumers then look to the positive: fiber, protein, whole grains, vitamins, omega-3s, protein, probiotics, superfruits. The fastest-growing concerns are the big eight allergens: wheat, soy, shellfish, fish, tree nuts, peanuts, eggs, milk.

It’s also broken down by age bracket, with boomers and matures looking at the content of sugar, high fructose corn syrup, sweetener type, carbohydrates, trans fats and saturated fats, while the millennials tend to look for organic ingredients, vitamins and protein. “The closer you can get to Mother Nature, the better,” concluded French.

ADHD - Can Supplements Help?

Mothers are also driving the continued concern about their children’s mental and intellectual development and concentration in schools. We’re talking ADHD here - can supplements help? So they’re looking at both the negative and positive in ingredients. “Moms are making a strong effort to have no artificial flavors or colors (in what they buy for their children),” said Sloane. “They’re also looking for supplements like DHA to help with symptoms.”

For years, mothers (and others) have been looking for supplemental solutions to their children’s ADHD issues. While no silver bullet currently exists, research carries on. It has succeeded in identifying various lipids as well as botanicals that can help with a range of cognitive issues – not solving them but potentially ameliorating certain symptoms.

Millennials (Finally) Dig Healthy Ingredients

The big news in healthy ingredients is millennials. That age group, born between roughly 1980 and 2000, seems to be finally coming around to the natural products industry. “Five years ago I would have said millennials have not adopted health and wellness. We’ve just started to see this,” said French.

• Protein: Two of every five consumers are increasing the amount of protein in their diet, whether it’s to help increase energy, maintain muscle mass and strength or to help them manage their weight. “Consumers understand the benefits,” said French. “Consumers don’t buy the ingredient – protein – but the benefit, which is three-fold: energy, muscle, weight.”
• Omega-3s: Sure, an estimated 12 million consumers left the category in the last two years – the misguided concern about prostate health and questions about cardio veracity wiped out large swaths of the over-50 male, and young women stopped hearing the drumbeat about omega-3 benefits. But is it a stall, or are we primed for a rebuild? The national rollout of a PR campaign extolling the “always a good idea” benefits of omega-3s begins in 2015, and we expect to see momentum moving back toward consumers re-embracing the many different forms of omega-3 DHA and EPA.
• Probiotics: The market continues to grow. It was an estimated $28 billion global market in 2011, said French, and estimated to grow at 6.8% CAGR to an estimated $45 billion by 2018. While regulatory bodies to date have strived to keep claims only to digestive health, the tsunami of research on other areas of health and wellness will work to expand official approvals – contingent on science (read: dosage) related to specific strains aligning with marketing on finished products.

#GotCaffeine?

Not so very long ago, the only people looking for a boost in sports performance were serious athletes and bodybuilders. But that’s all changed now as performance has turned on office slobs and energy has become mainstream. “The whole notion of energy has transformed over the last decade,” said French. “Just one huge example is the energy shot in the convenience store. Now when you ask consumers what they’re most concerned about as they age, it’s energy. Energy to do the things I want to do.”

Fitness & The Female Market

Sports nutrition is a $5 billion annual consumer spend. Which sounds like a rich opportunity, until you consider the “fitness nutrition” world. This comprises such non-Olympic sports as using weight machines, stretching, fishing, biking, running, walking, treadmill. Heck, it even includes bowling and billiards. In fact, a person engaged in so-called fitness nutrition even has an official definition – if you are “active” for at least 151 days a year. These people – pretty much everyone this side of couch potatoes – represents a $70 billion/year market. Yeah, baby! Fitness aficionados want protein. They eat nutrition bars – and women consume more than 15 million nutrition bars every year, compared to 12.4 million men. Talk about a major opportunity to start developing nutrition products geared especially for women! Doug Kalman, Ph.D., research director at Miami Research Associates, likes a branded ingredient called KoAct – a unique combination of calcium and collagen that, research shows, increases bone mineral density in a way that is superior to either alone. “To me this makes KoAct an unbelievable ingredient that is not known enough in the market,” said Kalman. “Fifty-five percent of the bar market is females. I see a great opportunity there, not only using protein but with bone-building health.”

Custom Supplement Formats

The biggest increase in supplements intake between 2009 and 2013 is among younger consumers, said French, who have discovered that they have to take care of themselves. “They have actually increased their pill intake by one full type of product. It went from half of millennials who had taken a supplement in the last 30 days. Now it’s almost seven in 10. That’s a huge increase.”

 Of note, these younger consumers want their supplements available in forms other than pills. Polls showed that in 2009, about 30 percent of millennials wanted supplements available in a form other than pills. By 2013, that had risen to fully 50 percent. Related, when asked if they would like it available in “liquid capsules,” what was 26 percent in 2009 grew to 46 percent by 2013. That spells opportunity for marketers and manufacturers looking to target this large demographic group. One lesson here is that one size doesn’t fit all. “Don’t think you can develop a product relevant for the entire population,” said French.

[via new hope 360]

Top 4 Unhealthy Drinks

It’s important to understand dangerous habits we have, especially those we do on a consistent and daily basis.  As long as we refuse to let go, or find healthier alternatives, we continue to leave the toxic tap running into our body while we do very little to get those toxins out. In that vein, let’s look at unhealthy drinks and the top 4 that are causing damage, and in ways we may not have even expected.

Soda

Soda is bad news…period.  There is not one thing that soda is good for, besides unclogging drains and fun experiments with rusty nails.

Soda’s are primarily made of 5 ingredients: carbonated water, sugar (sucrose or high fructose corn syrup), caffeine, phosphoric acid, and ‘natural’ colors and flavorings. Each one of these ingredients on their own causes blood sugar spikes and imbalances, adrenal damage, and destroys the delicate pH balance of the body.  Combine them altogether and you have one of the most deadly beverages on the planet, and certainly one of the most consumed on top of that.

Then, the ‘impossible’ came true and they made it worse by adding artificial sweeteners like aspartame. This ingredient is a neurological, and ironically, obesity nightmare.

Coke has apparently started introducing stevia, a natural sweetener, to their beverage line, although I’m not certain to what extent.  Either way, it doesn’t negate the fact that soda is still something you don’t want to consume on a regular basis.  Need a boost of energy? Try these tactics and ditch that soda.

Coffee

Try standing in front of someone at the coffee perk or in line at the coffee shop and see if you can come out unscathed.  Probably not.

Next to soda, regular coffee is the next unhealthy drink that is being consumed in mass across the world.  With so much popularity, and so many side effects, people are searching feverishly for good reasons to drink it. Fortunately for them, researchers obliged and noted coffee can help with things like mental clarity and mood (for the first 30 minutes anyway), and even help offset such health challenges like Alzheimer’s and Diabetes.

The hard truth is that regular coffee is NOT a healthy drink and it’s overall report card is not good.  Sure it offers some antioxidants, but so does green tea. The fact is, coffee is acidic, dehydrating, adrenal depleting, and disturbs the nervous system to the point of jitters and anxiety.

Here’s the good news…there are coffee products that have reduced acidity, lessens dehydration, limits adrenal fatigue, and doesn’t greatly disturb the nervous system! So now you can have your coffee, and have your body feel as good about it as your mind does!

Alcohol

We all know alcohol is not good for us and is an unhealthy drink.  But what else can we go to do lower our inhibitions, increase our confidence, and just forget about ‘life’?  It would appear there is no place like an alcohol induced stupor, and many of us have been there (I call it “college or university”).

But it’s not just the alcohol that is the issue. Beer typically contains 4 primary ingredients (aside from water): grains, sugar, yeast, and alcohol. The digestive nightmare that these 4 together create is fully illustrated by the ‘beer gut’, or what others call affectionately the ‘gluten bomb’.

You see, most of us suffer from an issue called Candida.  This insidious health challenge lies in our intestinal tract and causes a bacterial imbalance that can cause a whole host of health issues. It’s made worse by sugar, yeast, grains, alcohol, vinegar, and more.

This makes beer an unhealthy drink that is causing all kinds of health problems, and there are few alternatives to turn to, other than making it organic and gluten free.

Milk

Milk is found on breakfast tables across the world every day.  If it’s not in our cereal, coffee, tea, or just a glass, it’s found in many foods we eat on a daily basis.

We’ve been ‘told’ that milk is good for you, and it contains things like calcium that proponents swear you just can’t get anywhere else, but when you start to think about cow’s milk and what’s in it you may wonder why you were drinking it all this time.

Fundamentally speaking, cow’s milk is made for calves, just like mother’s milk is made for human babies.  Makes sense so far, right? Then, the mass majority of milk out there is pasteurized (which destroys any beneficial bacteria and makes it indigestible by the human physiology), and is laced with hormones and antibiotics.

This takes a seemingly wholesome beverage, and turns it into a dead, processed, and chemically ridden beverage that causes allergies, hormone issues, and potential bone density loss.

There’s a reason natural health practitioners recommend coming off milk as one of their standard practices. Until you make the leap, definitely go the organic way.

[via Healing The Body]

Tea’s health benefits boost its popularity

Alex Treadway/National Geographic Image Collection via Alamy - India’s tea producers are benefiting from the growing popularity of the drink in the United States.

By Laura Ungar, Published: April 1, Washington Post

In the latte-obsessed United States, tea is gaining ground as scientists and the public learn more about its benefits.

A growing body of research suggests that the world’s second-most-consumed beverage — only water is more popular — helps prevent cardiovascular disease, burn calories and ward off some types of cancer.

“We don’t clearly understand why tea is so beneficial, but we know it is,” said Thomas G. Sherman, an associate professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Physiology at Georgetown University Medical Center. “There are lots of epidemiological studies, and so of course people see these studies and want to drink tea and gain these benefits.”

Nationally, tea purchases have risen for 20 consecutive years, annual supermarket sales have surpassed $2.2 billion, and away-from-home consumption of tea has grown by at least 10 percent each year for a decade, according to the Tea Association of the USA, a New York-based industry group. On any given day, the association says, 160 million Americans drink tea.

Although coffee is still king in the United States, change is brewing. Department of Agriculture statistics show tea drinking has increased as coffee drinking has declined: Per-person tea consumption was nine gallons in 2009, up from 7.3 gallons in 1980; per-person coffee consumption was 23.3 gallons in 2009, down from 26.7 gallons in 1980, about half what it was in the mid-1940s. And while studies also show that coffee is associated with many health benefits, including helping protect against diabetes and Parkinson’s disease, a typical cup has much more jitter-producing caffeine than tea does.

Manelle Martino, co-owner of Capital Teas in Washington, said she has seen the explosion of interest in tea firsthand. Her sales of loose-leaf tea have risen substantially each year since she opened the business in 2007. “We started the tea company with one shop. Now, there are six stores in the D.C. area,” she said. “People are becoming more health-conscious. You have baby boomers who are into preserving their youth. You see them wanting to take better care of themselves.”

Tea and cholesterol

Tea comes from the leaves of the warm-weather evergreen Camellia sinensis, and it is classified into five types: black, white, green, oolong and puerh.

Experts say all are healthful. Many scientists link health benefits to tea’s polyphenol antioxidants, which protect against oxidative stress, but others say they don’t know exactly which chemicals or combinations of chemicals in tea produce the benefits. Sherman, for example, said there’s no evidence connecting tea’s antioxidants to beneficial effects, and he pointed to a study showing that black tea reduces LDL, or “bad,” cholesterol without affecting antioxidant levels, suggesting something else in tea is causing this.

Numerous epidemiological studies — which establish correlation, not cause and effect — focus on tea’s role in reducing cardiovascular disease, the nation’s biggest killer.

A 2004 paper in the Archives of Internal Medicine, for instance, looked at hypertension rates among people who drank tea for at least a year. The study, conducted in Taiwan, found that those who drank about four ounces to 20 ounces of tea per day had a 46 percent lower risk of developing high blood pressure than people who didn’t drink tea regularly.

Another paper, published in 2002 in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, culled through the results of a large study concerning chronic disease and found that people drinking the greatest amount of tea — more than 12 ounces a day — had barely half the risk of heart attack as people who did not drink tea.

More recent cardiovascular research was presented in September at a symposium at the Department of Agriculture in Washington. One study found that black tea reduced blood pressure in all participants and counteracted the detrimental effects of high-fat meals in people with high blood pressure.

“The more tea you drink, the better,” Sherman said. “It’s astounding, really.”

Cancer prevention less clear

As for cancer prevention, the evidence is less compelling.

A review of studies published in the Journal of Cancer Research and Clinical Oncology last year suggested that consuming 10 Japanese-size cups of green tea a day helps prevent several cancers and protect against recurrence of colorectal cancer. And a 2006 review in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition of the beneficial effects of green tea noted studies linking tea to reduced risk of ovarian, prostate and breast cancers.

But that review also cited some conflicting research. For example, two studies revealed a breast cancer benefit, one showing a decreasing risk among Asian American women with rising tea intake and another showing a lower risk of recurrence among Japanese patients who drank three or more cups a day. But a larger Japanese study of more than 35,000 women concluded tea intake didn’t affect the risk of breast cancer.

And scientists at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center announced last week that black and green teas (and coffee) were among the foods and flavorings that affected a gene linked to cancer. But they said this doesn’t mean people should stop drinking tea and coffee, only that more research is needed.

Studies have also examined whether tea affects weight loss. One, from 2004, found that caffeine, theanine and perhaps other components in green tea powder suppressed weight gain and fat accumulation in laboratory mice.

There is also some evidence that drinking tea promotes digestive health generally. Gerry Mullin, an associate professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and author of “The Inside Tract: Your Good Gut Guide to Great Digestive Health,” said tea appears to help control glucose and insulin and keep the gastrointestinal system running well.

“At the end of the day, these teas are anti-inflammatory in nature. They have anti-bacterial properties,” Mullin said. “They [boost] the immune system and provide a lot of different benefits.”
 
That soothing cup

Sherman’s wife, Guinevere Eden, loves to start her day with a soothing cup of tea. For the working mother of two preschoolers, the healthy brew conjures a quiet moment and a sense of well-being while stirring memories of her childhood in England.

“First thing in the morning, it feels so good,” said Eden, 45, of Potomac.

Over the course of a day, she said, she drinks five or six cups of tea. “That’s actually all I drink. I don’t drink coffee.”

Tea experts disagree on how much tea to recommend for better health. Some say two eight-ounce cups a day, while others say five or more cups.

Experts said tea’s relatively low caffeine levels make it possible to drink large amounts without the jitters, fast heartbeat and stomach upset that the same amount of coffee would probably induce. Black tea, which has more caffeine than green, oolong or white teas, has about half the caffeine of coffee.

Still, experts advise against overdoing it, noting that tea, unlike coffee, contains trace amounts of aluminum. But according to the National Cancer Institute, while aluminum can accumulate in the body and cause neurodegenerative disorders, there’s no evidence of aluminum toxicity associated with drinking tea.

Sherman said iced tea should provide the same benefits as hot tea, as long as it starts out as hot and is then cooled, not just brewed in the sun or made from store-bought powdered mixtures.

He said adding milk to tea may not be as beneficial as drinking it straight, since there’s some evidence that protein in milk binds to the healthful chemicals in tea and prevents them from being absorbed. Sugar doesn’t seem to reduce tea’s benefits, he and others said, although it comes with problems of its own, such as empty calories that can lead to weight gain.

Martino, of Capital Teas, said customers at her shops often ask about health benefits, especially after pronouncements by celebrity physicians such as Mehmet Oz. Whenever Oz mentions a certain tea, Martino said, “people come flooding in looking for that tea.”

Erika Sanchez, a manager at the Dupont Circle Teaism shop in Washington, said customers do much the same at her shop — and then discover how many different types of teas are out there: “If you’re new to the tea world, it can be surprising.”

America’s rising interest in tea has been attracting international attention.

Sundeep Mukherjee, principal adviser to the Darjeeling Tea Association, said three-quarters of the tea from that region of India is exported, with up to 10 percent going to the United States, a portion that’s been rising over the last decade as health benefits become more widely known.

“The tea industry is doing well,” Mukherjee said. “This is a product everyone drinks.”



Ungar is the medical writer at the Courier-Journal in Louisville.

[via: Washington Post]

The Health Benefits and Drawbacks of Coffee

One of the reasons we love Care2 so much is their consistency in producing informative, balanced content that focuses just as much on the benefits as it does the drawbacks. That being said, we were very interested to learn about the health benefits and drawbacks of something that millions of us enjoy and at times depend on to get us through our day.

Coffee is the cattle prod of beverages. The very aroma is enough to coax most people out of bed in the morning, and millions of Americans rely on java’s jolt to ramp up their energy and propel them through the workday. Collectively, we drink an astounding 350 million cups of coffee a day in this country.

Coffee presents a conundrum for the body, however.

On one hand, the brew brims with free-radical-fighting antioxidants, which helps explain its protective, anti-inflammatory effect against everything from type 2 diabetes to heart disease. Caffeine itself, which is a nervous-system stimulant, leads to sharper focus and enhanced concentration, and it can brighten a bad mood.

“For some individuals, caffeine is something of a miracle drug,” says Daniel Evatt, PhD, a researcher in the department of psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore. “These individuals report several benefits with minimal negative effects. However, other caffeine users can develop a bad relationship with it, consisting of unpleasant withdrawal symptoms and other problems, such as sleep difficulties and anxiety.”

That’s the catch. Coffee came by the nickname “jitter juice” honestly. Ingest too much caffeine and a pleasant buzz can nosedive into restlessness, nervousness, insomnia and even muscle twitching. The effect is so reliable, says Laura Juliano, PhD, a caffeine researcher at American University in Washington, D.C., that researchers who study anxiety use caffeinated coffee to incite feelings of anxiousness in study participants.

But not everyone responds the same. A small cup of coffee leaves some people feeling twitchy while others can down a pot without batting an eye. Body weight, age, gender and even genetics may factor in to how the body metabolizes caffeine, says Evatt. Which is why coffee’s vice-and-virtue story is comparable with red wine and chocolate — satisfying substances that are healthy and that attract enthusiasts, but require sensible consumption.

Here’s what the experts say about squeezing the health benefits from the bean without getting burned:

Antioxidant Elixir

Coffee is the single greatest source of antioxidants in the American diet. Ounce-for-ounce, other foods, such as blueberries, pecans and even cinnamon, pack more antioxidants than coffee, but they aren’t nearly as popular.

On average, coffee drinkers down 3.4 cups a day, gleaning 40 percent of their daily antioxidants from the brew. (In comparison, fruits and vegetables account for just 23 percent.) The number is high partly because people drink so much coffee, but it’s also because the beverage is brimming with polyphenols, a type of antioxidant found in many vegetables and berries.

Polyphenols confer some serious health benefits. In particular, they destroy free radicals, which are rogue molecules that create inflammation. Unchecked inflammation underlies many chronic illnesses, such as heart disease and type 2 diabetes.

The more antioxidants in the diet, the less inflammation in the body, says John Hibbs, ND, a senior clinician at Bastyr University in Kenmore, Wash. “A cell that can control intracellular inflammatory processes is going to survive better under the duress of daily living.” (For people who prefer “unleaded” java, the good news is that decaf coffee has just as many antioxidants as the “leaded” version.)

Deter Diabetes

New data reveals that one of coffee’s unexpected benefits may be helping to prevent type 2 diabetes, a disease predicted to affect one in three Americans by 2050, according to estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Rob van Dam, PhD, a nutritionist at the Harvard School of Public Health, led one of the largest research projects to date — a meta-analysis of nine cohort studies with nearly 200,000 participants — and found that subjects who drank six or more cups of coffee a day lowered their risk of developing type 2 diabetes by 35 percent. Granted, that’s a lot of coffee, potentially enough to trigger negative side effects in some. But those who drank between four and six cups daily still had a 28 percent risk reduction, and other studies have shown a significant benefit with just one cup a day. “The important point is that when all the evidence is weighed, the benefit isn’t restricted to those who drink the most,” van Dam says.

It’s worth noting that caffeine is not the magic ingredient here, since decaf drinkers enjoy the same diabetes-thwarting benefit. At this point, the mechanism of that benefit isn’t clear. Some think a substance in coffee called chlorogenic acid slows the release of glucose into the bloodstream. Others hypothesize that it’s the beverage’s antioxidants that help regulate the body’s sensitivity to insulin. “It’s all a bit speculative at this point,” says van Dam.

Keep in mind, too, that studies showing health benefits for type 2 diabetes and beyond are based on coffee that’s black or with only a little milk or sugar — a far cry from the frothy, milky, super-sweet concoctions sold in many cafés today. “People may not realize that having a beverage like that could lead to weight gain,” says van Dam, “which could in turn increase the risk of type 2 diabetes, and that’s a major concern.”

Rustproof Your Heart

Like wine, coffee confers heart benefits. When researchers looked at more than 27,000 women in the Iowa Women’s Health Study, they found that coffee drinkers (one to three cups a day) lowered their risk of heart disease by 24 percent compared with their non-coffee-drinking peers. Women who drank four to five cups a day were 33 percent less likely to die from any inflammatory disease.

Again, the beneficial ingredient is most likely the antioxidants. The foundation of heart disease is inflammation of the blood vessels, which is instigated and propagated by free radicals. And nothing combats free radicals better than antioxidants.

“Coffee delivers a whole host of antioxidants that essentially prevent you from rusting from the inside out,” says James O’Keefe, MD, a cardiologist at Saint Luke’s Hospital in Kansas City, Mo.

For people with high cholesterol, however, there is a caveat. Coffee contains two oily substances — cafestol and kahweol — that can raise blood levels of low-density lipoprotein (LDL, the “bad” cholesterol). The oils are released when beans are brewed, and they easily pass through the metal filters used in French press and stovetop espresso pots. Paper filters, on the other hand, which are used in drip coffee machines, trap the substances before they hit the cup, virtually eliminating any risk of an uptick in cholesterol.

Buffer Your Brain

The caffeine in coffee could also safeguard your noggin. Consider coffee’s impact on depression — a scourge that affects millions of Americans. Data from the Nurses’ Health Study shows that rates of depression lower in lockstep with the amount of coffee consumed. Compared with those who drank no more than one cup of coffee a week, women who drank four or more daily cups experienced depression 20 percent less often.

Since drinkers of decaf suffered from the blues just as often as people who didn’t drink coffee at all, scientists suspect caffeine is the blues buster.

Exactly how the substance fights depression is not well understood, but it is known that when it enters the brain, caffeine changes levels of chemical messengers such as serotonin and dopamine, which are linked to feelings of joy and enthusiasm, says Michel Lucas, PhD, RD, a research fellow at Harvard School of Public Health. “Caffeine increases your energy levels and feelings of wellness, two things that can have an impact on depression.”

Studies also show a 30 percent reduced risk of developing Parkinson’s disease among coffee drinkers, for similar reasons. That’s because Parkinson’s is caused by the loss of brain cells that make dopamine, a chemical instrumental in movement and fine motor control.

Caffeine Overload

Regardless of the benefits, of course, you can drink too much of a good thing. Caffeine, like nicotine and amphetamines, can be highly addictive. Regularly drinking 100 milligrams (the amount in 6 ounces of drip coffee) is enough to create a physical dependence. “It acts on the motivational brain mechanisms that make you want to use more, regardless of how it makes you feel,” says Evatt.

If you’ve ever overindulged in caffeine, you know that it can make you feel pretty crummy. That’s because excess caffeine goads the adrenal glands into releasing stress hormones, like adrenaline and cortisol, that can put the brain and body into a panic-like state.

That’s not just unpleasant, it’s unhealthy. “The more caffeine you have onboard, the more often you trigger the body’s emergency response system,” says Jacob Teitelbaum, MD, a board-certified internist and author of Beat Sugar Addiction Now! (Fairwinds Press, 2010). “And, if I keep setting off the siren every 10 minutes, I’m going to burn out.”

Caffeine’s artificial energy boost can also distance people from their natural energy rhythms, says Elson Haas, MD, founder and director of the Preventive Medical Center Marin in San Rafael, Calif., and coauthor of The Detox Diet, Third Edition (Ten Speed Press, 2012). Caffeine’s false-energy effect can encourage people to overdo, and dissuade them from taking recovery breaks when they should. “Pretty soon you’re both wired and tired,” he says.

Over time, the adrenal glands may not make enough cortisol to maintain a baseline of energy, a condition referred to as adrenal fatigue. “You are pushing on an organ that doesn’t have the reserves to respond to the stimulant anymore,” Haas says. (For more on adrenal fatigue, see ELmag.com/adrenal2011.)

Decaf seems like an obvious way to deal with jitters, but the safety of the standard decaffeination process worries some health-conscious consumers. To strip the caffeine from the bean, most coffee companies use chemical solvents, such as methylene chloride or ethyl acetate. The solvents are rinsed away at the end of the process, but if you are concerned about chemical residue, look for companies selling coffee decaffeinated via the Swiss Water Process, which uses water instead of chemicals. (For more on decaf, see “Pass the Decaf,” below.)

The best way to avoid long-term complications is to experiment with how you can enjoy caffeine without overdoing it. People metabolize caffeine differently, notes Hibbs. “Constitutionally, we are all different,” he says, “and certain people are more susceptible to the negative effects than others.”

So, if you’re not a fan of the brew, don’t feel compelled to join the coffee club. Although their exact compounds vary, green and black teas also have high levels of antioxidants.

If you really enjoy your java, though, don’t fret. In tandem with healthy sources of energy, such as nutritious food, regular exercise and restful sleep, you can enjoy that caffeine boost.

“Feed your body, use your body, rest your body and do things you love” is Teitelbaum’s mantra. “And, if you need a little boost,” he adds, “a cup of coffee is perfectly reasonable.”

One Hot Energy Drink

In athletes, caffeine is one of the few legal drugs scientifically proven to boost performance. It mobilizes fat stores, freeing up energy for hard-working muscles. It also draws more calcium into muscles, thereby strengthening their contraction. And it triggers the brain to release endorphins, which raises a person’s pain threshold. If you’re worried about dehydration, don’t be. The notion that caffeine causes the body to lose precious water stores has been widely refuted by studies showing caffeine has no negative impact on hydration.

Coffee Bean Primer

Coffee drinkers used to have one decision to make: regular or decaf. But the rise in gourmet and specialty coffees demands that we all become coffee connoisseurs. When faced with a choice of beans, here are a few basics to keep in mind:

• Bean: The two most commonly used coffee-plant varieties are arabica and robusta. Arabica beans are considered by many to be more flavorful; hence they are more expensive and often used in gourmet coffees. The less expensive robusta beans are used primarily to make instant coffee and have roughly twice the caffeine as arabica.
• Roast: Darker roasts, like French, contain less caffeine than lighter roasts because some of the caffeine burns off during the roasting process. Roasting also degrades the polyphenol antioxidants. So, if you are looking for a bigger kick, choose a lighter roast.
• Grind: Generally, the finer the grind, the more caffeine you will extract. Whether you want a fine or coarse grind, though, depends on how long the water will be in contact with the beans. If it’s just a few seconds, like espresso, a finer grind maximizes contact between water and the surface area of the beans. If it’s a few minutes, like a French press, a coarser grind ensures a smooth, mellow cup. Espresso packs less caffeine per serving than drip coffee, but espresso will give you a quicker buzz if you drink it in one or two gulps, like many do.
• Aroma: Coffee’s aroma is both distinctive and alluring. In one study, just the smell of coffee was enough to increase people’s typing speed. Roasted coffee beans contain roughly 800 aromatic compounds. As with wine, coffee’s aromatic compounds — and, therefore, its flavor — are heavily influenced by geography. Elevation, moisture and temperature are just three examples of what makes coffee grown in Central America taste different from coffee grown in East Africa.
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Pass the Decaf

Not everyone can tolerate caffeine. The jolt to the central nervous system can exacerbate stress, anxiety and insomnia. Caffeine also amps up the stomach’s production of gastric juices, so coffee can cause heartburn or worsen symptoms of irritable bowel disease. Babies lack an enzyme needed to metabolize caffeine, so lactating women are advised to nix the habit.

Some research even links caffeine to an increased risk of miscarriage, so pregnant women are also advised to take a pass. The good news is that decaf coffee contains most of the same health properties as regular. The bad news is that it’s not completely caffeine-free. In the United States, 97 percent of the caffeine must be eliminated for coffee beans to be labeled decaffeinated. Drink enough decaf, and you’ll still get a little buzz. If you do choose decaf, be sure to opt for one that has been decaffeinated without chemical solvents.

One Cup at a Time 

Health benefits notwithstanding, it’s important to remember that coffee can be addictive. Most coffee drinkers ingest an average of 300 to 400 mg. of caffeine a day. “For many people, the daily use of caffeine is fueled by a desire to avoid withdrawal,” says Laura Juliano, PhD, a caffeine expert at American University in Washington, D.C. “Once you are dependent on it, you may be in pretty bad shape without it.”

The most common complaint of caffeine withdrawal is headaches. Inside the brain, caffeine plugs into receptors meant for the neurotransmitter adenosine. When adenosine is unfettered, the body relaxes, as widening blood vessels up the flow of oxygen to cells. When caffeine elbows adenosine out of the way, blood vessels constrict and you feel wired. Worse, once you are addicted, if you deprive your brain of caffeine, the blood vessels in your head will dilate and the rush of blood to the brain causes a pounding headache. The misery can last anywhere from 24 hours to nine days.

Other signs of caffeine withdrawal include fatigue, irritability, trouble concentrating and flulike symptoms. To lower the likelihood and severity of withdrawal symptoms, cut back gradually by curbing your intake 10 to 25 percent every few days.