Here’s something that our editors and researchers have been talking about often lately at the Web Health Wire breakroom coffee pot on our morning trips when we settle in for work, and something you’ll probably think about too when you go back for cup number 2, 3, or 4…
Are you responsible for one (or more) of the 2 billion cups of coffee drank every morning on Earth?
You probably are. Scientists have been studying the potential health benefits of coffee for years, and some studies have found that coffee can even prevent, or lower the chances of relapse for, colon cancer. That’s a lot of benefit for just starting your morning! But what if your coffee habit could protect you from brain damage during a stroke? That’s a heck of an insurance policy for something you were going to do every morning anyway…
But that’s just what some scientists have been working on. In a study published just recently on August 15th, 2015, earlier this year, scientists experimented with chlorogenic and glutamic acids on the brain cells of lab mice.
What does that mean in normal English? Glutamic acid is a chemical that works with neuroreceptors to communicate with your brain, and it’s normally a perfectly natural and safe chemical, like many others floating around inside your body. Unfortunately, during Ischemia- That’s a stroke, glutamic acid is neurotoxic to oxygen-deprived neurons… Meaning it kills brain cells that are vulnerable and starving for oxygen during the stroke. But when scientists protected these mouse brain cells with chlorogenic acid, or CGA, the glutamic acid behaved itself. The CGA regulated it, preventing it from acting on the vulnerable brain cells in a way that triggered their death. Sounds great, right? But what’s full of CGA?
The answer is coffee! So what’s the significance? Well, to quote directly from the study, “CGA in coffee may have clinical benefits for neurodegenerative diseases such as ischemic stroke.”So is it a long shot? Well, mice aren’t exactly human, but they’re pretty close. And nobody here is planning on having a stroke, and I’m sure you aren’t either… But strokes aren’t exactly something that you plan.
But if coffee can protect you from a stroke? Hey, not bad! We’ll be honest, we were going to drink it anyway…
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