4 Ways to Improve Brain Health with Organic Coffee

Mark Tacorda
May 3, 2015
4 min read

Introduction

We all know that person who argues that coffee is bad for you. ‘Don’t drink that stuff!’ they say, insisting that it will cause you major health issues further down the road.

If you need some ammunition for the next time your friends harass you about your coffee addiction, give them these 4 Ways to Improve Brain Health with Organic Coffee.

1. Improve Your Memory and Brain Health With Coffee

If you’re anything like me, you forget things all the time. But recent research reports that you might be in luck – coffee can help your memory!

Michael Yassa, an assistant professor of psychological and brain sciences at Johns Hopkins comments on a recent study, “We’ve always known that caffeine has cognitive-enhancing effects, but its particular effects on strengthening memories and making them resistant to forgetting has never been examined in detail . . . We report for the first time a specific effect of caffeine on reducing forgetting over 24 hours.”1

So how did the John Hopkins researchers come to this conclusion? First, they asked their participants to study a series of images. Then they gave some of the participants caffeine and others a placebo then waited 24 hours. After the 24 hours they tested the participants memory recall of the images and found the participants who took caffeine the day before had a better memory recall of the images than the participants who took the placebo.2

To make the test more rigorous the researchers used a variety of images — some were the same as from the day before, some were new additions, and some were similar but not the same.

Dr. Yassa explains further, “If we used a standard recognition memory task without these tricky similar items, we would have found no effect of caffeine. However, using these items requires the brain to make a more difficult discrimination—what we call pattern separation, which seems to be the process that is enhanced by caffeine in our case.”3

Of course, while these studies do promote the benefit of caffeine, you always want to be careful that you don’t consume too much of it. To prevent that, we recommend always drinking Shade-Grown coffee. When beans are grown in the shade they grow slower. This results in lower caffeine content and a smoother, less bitter cup of coffee. Shade-Grown coffee is the best way to enjoy a safe & healthy dose of caffeine while still finding a way to improve your brain health with coffee.

2. Prevent Parkinson’s Disease and Improve Brain Health With Coffee.

Parkinson’s Disease is a debilitating neurodegenerative disorder that affects 1.2 million people in Europe alone with an estimated 75,000 new cases diagnosed each year.4 But there is hope. In addition to new drug therapies, caffeine has been shown to have a noticeable effect on treatment and prevention of Parkinson’s.

Research from as far back as 1968 points to caffeine in coffee having a positive impact on preventing and reversing some of the symptoms of Parkinson’s.5 In fact, a study conducted in 2000 found that men who drink 4 or more cups of coffee per day have a five-fold reduced risk for developing Parkinson’s Disease.6 Another study found the risk reduced from 24% – 32% for every 3 extra cups of coffee drank per day.7

There’s a lot of research out there that gives us hope, but how exactly does coffee help prevent or reverse Parkinson’s disease? The caffeine in coffee can prevent or reverse Parkinson’s disease by inhibiting the damaged receptors in the brain. These are the same receptors that control motor function. When damaged they create the tremors most associated with the disease. So basically the caffeine in coffee works to increase motor activity while at the same time reducing motor deficits like tremors caused by Parkinson’s Disease.8

In short, you’re doing your future self a favor by drinking that cuppa joe every morning! But one more thing to keep in mind is organic coffee. Coffee is one of the most absorbent crops on the planet. It’s also sprayed with more pesticides than any other crop on the planet outside of Tobacco. That’s why we only roast USDA Certified Organic Coffee. Choose organic and after one sip you’ll see why.

3. Avoid Stroke and Improve Brain Health With Coffee

There are many good practices and lifestyle choices you can make that keep you at a minimal risk for stroke, and coffee is one of them! There haven’t yet been many in depth studies done on the connection between coffee and stroke prevention, but the research & statistics currently available on the matter are quite impressive, particularly among women:

“A research study out of Sweden revealed that women who consumed more than a cup of caffeinated coffee daily reduced their risk of stroke by 22 to 25 percent.”9

Scientists have yet to pinpoint what exactly it is about coffee that has such a strong effect, but I suspect we’ll see more studies on that in the coming years. I don’t know about you, but until then, I’m content drinking my organic coffee knowing that something about it is reducing my risk of a stroke.

4. Thwart Alzheimers and Improve Brain Health With Coffee

Last but not least, caffeine in coffee seems to be helping to prevent Alzheimer’s disease too. A study conducted over a 21 year period showed a 65% decrease in onset of Alzheimer’s Disease for people who started drinking 3 – 5 cups of coffee per day.10

Some reports are even showing that caffeine in coffee can delay the onset of Alzheimer’s Disease in patients who already have some form of mild dementia.11

Conclusion

So next time that friend looks at your steaming mug of coffee and says ‘You’re going to regret that!’, tell them about what coffee is doing for your brain and how they’re missing out on an easy (and tasty!) way to improve brain health with coffee.

I mean, really, If preventing memory loss, Parkinson’s, strokes, and Alzheimer’s is as simple as a few cups a day – why wouldn’t you want to drink delicious organic coffee?!