Do you drink coffee?

Ever wonder if it’s actually good or bad for you and your thyroid health?

Some love coffee and say that they can’t live without it (more on this a second).

Others claim that coffee is nothing more than an addictive stimulant that is ruining the lives of millions of people who consume it daily.

Well, one thing is certain… coffee is one of the most widely consumed beverages in the world.

It’s also one of the largest sources of antioxidants in the human diet.

Yet, there are a lot of anti-coffee claims out there… such as:

Coffee increases stress hormones and should be avoided due to adrenal-fatigue because our lives today are inundated with stress…
Coffee worsens thyroid function and should never be used in cases of hormonal issues.
Caffeine over-stimulates the body and depletes the body of nutrients.

The good news is that all of these common anti-coffee claims have one thing in common… …they’re all FALSE. And we’re here to set the record straight. Unfortunately, coffee is one of the most misunderstood foods with respect to its health benefits. In this article you’re going to learn:

How coffee and caffeine both boost and protect your thyroid health on numerous levels.
How coffee and caffeine reduce your risk of almost every disease from heart disease, to cancer, to diabetes, and even neurodegenerative brain diseases.
How coffee and caffeine help you to be healthier and live a higher quality of life.
Now, that’s not to say that some people don’t have trouble tolerating coffee.

Some experience blood sugar instability, insomnia, anxiety, etc.

However, these types of issues typically stem from other underlying dysfunctions, such as poor liver function, poor diet, and nutritional deficiencies, and not from the coffee itself.

We’ve worked with many clients to overcome these issues so they could use coffee to the benefit of their thyroid health.

Believe it or not, scientifically speaking, coffee has many similarities to thyroid hormone in how it affects your body.

For example, like thyroid hormone, coffee helps to stimulate healthy oxidative metabolism, which is necessary for high-energy production.

Dysfunctional metabolism is one reason why fatigue is such a common symptom of hypothyroidism.

Keep in mind that for coffee to have beneficial effects on your thyroid health, it does NOT have to work by augmenting thyroid hormone levels.

This is a common mistake made by many so-called experts who claim that coffee has no positive effects on thyroid health.

While some see reaching for a morning cup a coffee to help get your day started as a sign of addiction or weakness…

…the fact that some feel like they can’t live without coffee is simply a sign that coffee is helping them to produce energy more efficiently (and in a healthier way too).

Now, let’s get a couple of things straight.

I’m in no way saying that simply drinking coffee will cure anyone of their thyroid dysfunction (or any disease), or that coffee can be used as a replacement for your thyroid medication.
While the health benefits of coffee are quite clear, using coffee cannot completely protect you from thyroid-suppressive dietary (i.e. low-carb), lifestyle and supplement choices. For example, if coffee decreases your risk of heart disease by 15 percent, yet your diet increases your risk by 30 percent, you will still be at a greater risk of heart disease, even though the coffee is still helping.
However, when used properly, coffee can certainly play a BIG role in helping to improve your thyroid health by improving the efficiency of your thyroid function.

Aside from its thyroid-boosting effects, coffee has far too many additional health benefits to ignore.

Simply put, it is one of the easiest and most effective ways to boost your thyroid and protect yourself from numerous deadly diseases, which you’re about to see.

If you currently drink coffee, then this will help reinforce why you should continue to make coffee a part of your daily life.

If not, then you may find yourself wondering why.

5 Ways Coffee Boosts Your Thyroid Hormone Pathway (and Your Thyroid Health)
To truly understand the full thyroid-boosting benefits that coffee has to offer, you have to first understand that your thyroid health depends on much more than just your thyroid gland. Instead, your thyroid health depends on an intricate Thyroid Hormone Pathway, which your thyroid hormones must travel before they ever gets to your cells, and before your body can ever use it.

(NOTE: Learn more about fixing your Thyroid Hormone Pathway in this article on “How We Overcome Hypothyroidism When All Else Fails”.)

With hypothyroidism (and Hashimoto’s thyroiditis), your pathway becomes blocked on multiple levels preventing your body, organs, tissue, and cells from using thyroid hormone properly.

That’s why we always say… “If you can’t get the right thyroid hormone to your cells or your cells can’t use that thyroid hormone efficiently, then you will always be hypothyroid.”

Now, let’s take a closer look at how coffee (and caffeine) helps to protect and boost your thyroid by making your Thyroid Hormone Pathway function better…

1. Coffee Helps Protect Your Thyroid Gland from Thyroid Cancer
Unfortunately, there’s not much research with respect to coffee’s direct effects on the thyroid gland.

The research that is available does suggest that coffee reduces your risk of thyroid cancer and also helps lower TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone), which provides additional protective effects.

Does coffee consumption protect against thyroid disease? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2816215 “Statistical analysis revealed a strikingly negative (p less than 0.05) association between benign and malignant thyroid disease and consumption of coffee. After adjustment for possible confounding variables, the association remained statistically significant.”

The protective effects of coffee against thyroid cancer are further supported by additional evidence.

First, caffeine is known to increase cyclic AMP, which inhibits cancer cell growth.

Second, as we’ll cover in detail in just a bit, coffee is also well-known to reduce the risk of numerous other types of cancer.

Unfortunately, some also attempt to argue the thyroid protective effects of coffee based on unreliable studies.

For example, one meta-analysis study found no correlation between coffee and thyroid cancer, however, the author was unable to draw this conclusion due to the unreliability of the study data stating…

“Coffee contains a variety of biologically active compounds that might affect the risk of cancer. For instance, caffeine increases intracellular cyclic adenosine monophosphate, which has an inhibitory effect on cell (i.e., tumor) growth [13,27]. However, the effects of caffeinated versus decaffeinated coffee on thyroid cancer were not studied in this meta-analysis due to limited information. Only one study [22] reported separate association estimates for caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee with thyroid cancer, showing that drinking caffeinated coffee has a preventive effect on thyroid cancer, whereas decaffeinated coffee was associated with an increased risk [22]… These findings should be interpreted with caution because of potential biases and confounding variables.”

While there is still room for plenty of additional research, the research that is available has demonstrated a significantly lower risk of thyroid cancer among coffee drinkers.

2. Coffee Boosts Your Thyroid By Protecting Your Liver
We say it all the time…

Probably the most important, yet overlooked, piece of the thyroid puzzle is your liver.

Your thyroid gland may produce thyroid hormone, but it’s your liver that must convert that thyroid hormone into its usable form and regulate the amount of thyroid hormone your body needs all day every day.

And that’s just scratching the surface. Your liver is also responsible for detoxifying numerous thyroid-suppressive hormones and toxins as well as regulating your blood sugar.

All of these are essential for proper thyroid function.

Studies show that both coffee and caffeine protect your liver in numerous ways, including:

Lowering liver enzymes (a sign of stress/damage to the liver).
Protecting against fatty liver disease.
Protecting against fibrosis of the liver.
Effects of coffee consumption against the development of liver dysfunction: a 4-year follow-up study of middle-aged Japanese male office workers. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10680318 “These results suggest that coffee may be protective against the liver dysfunction…”

Protective role of coffee in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20165979 “CONCLUSIONS: A possible opposite, if not antagonistic, role of coffee with regard to overweightness and insulin resistance, similar to that reported in hepatocarcinoma and cirrhosis, is envisaged in the natural history of NAFLD.”

Association of coffee and caffeine consumption with fatty liver disease, nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, and degree of hepatic fibrosis. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21987293 “CONCLUSION: Coffee CC is associated with a significant reduction in risk of fibrosis among NASH patients.”

Liver dysfunction is a major cause of hypothyroidism today.

Anything that improves liver function, including coffee and caffeine, in turn helps to improve thyroid function.

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: Get the Most out of Your Cup of Coffee: Best Ways to Drink
: It
: Amber Yang
: Jojo Novaes

: Some people think coffee is refreshing and helps them lose
: weight, so they enjoy a cup or two daily. On the other
: hand, some believe coffee affects cardiovascular health and
: choose to avoid it. Dr. Chang Chin-chien, a 78-year-old
: honorary professor of surgery at National Taiwan University
: Hospital, still operates on patients every week. One of his
: health-preserving secrets is drinking three cups of coffee
: a day.

: Initially resistant to coffee, Dr. Chang began to study it
: after he finally did taste (and enjoyed) it. To uncover its
: benefits, he went as far as Vietnam, Laos, Ethiopia, and
: even coffee farms in Central and South America to learn how
: it is cultivated. Over the years, he authored several books
: on the topic, such as “Coffee and Health—Coffee Laboratory”
: and “A Cup of Coffee Fights All Diseases.” Instead of
: calling him a coffee connoisseur, it is more appropriate to
: call him a coffee addict, Dr. Chang said with a smile.
: Composition and Efficacy of Coffee

: In an interview with The Epoch Times health program “Health
: 1+1,” Dr. Chang said that in addition to caffeine, there
: are other even more important components in coffee, such as
: the antioxidant chlorogenic acid, cafestol, and caffeic
: acid, that remove free radicals from the body. Studies have
: also recognized that coffee positively affects Type 2
: diabetes, cardiovascular disease, gout, heart disease,
: dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, and even liver, colorectal,
: and breast cancers.

: Some people experience heart palpitations after drinking
: coffee and thus believe that coffee is unsuitable for the
: heart. In this regard, Dr. Chang cited a recent paper
: published in the New England Journal of Medicine that
: drinking caffeinated coffee does not significantly increase
: atrial contractions. He said drinking coffee can help
: dilate the bronchi to a certain extent, which is helpful
: for asthma, and it is also helpful for fighting body
: inflammation and metabolic issues. A 2019 study published
: in the European Journal of Epidemiology found that drinking
: two to four cups of coffee daily was associated with lower
: all-cause mortality.

: Continues - site has paywall w/ some free articles each
: month:

:
: https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/get-the-most-out-of-your-cup-of-coffee-best-ways-to-drink-it_5374685.html

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