Monday Morning Coffee News

Happy Monday! Some interesting coffee news stories: A recent study looked into the affects of regular caffeine consumption on using caffeine as a supplement for increased athletic performance, new research indicates increased coffee consumption may lead to a decreased risk of liver cancer, and farmers are looking to establish a coffee growing industry in Southern California. Also, Krispy Kreme is giving away free coffee to teachers through the months of June and July.

When taken about an hour before exercise, caffeine provides a little performance boost mentally, increasing alertness and reaction time, and physically, increasing muscle power and endurance. Since it’s a known fact that the more caffeine you intake, the less it affects you (as evidenced by the fact that I now need at least 2-3 cups of coffee to function in the morning), athletes will abstain from caffeinated beverages leading up to a major performance, so that when they do take caffeine right before a big competition they can get the maximum benefit. A recent study out of University of São Paulo in Brazil looked further into this practice to determine if abstaining really has any affect by looking at a group of 40 professional male cyclists. The cyclists were further divided into 3 groups – those who drank >1 -1 cup of coffee a day, those who drank ~2 cups a day, and those that drank 3+ cups of coffee a day. The cyclists were then instructed to peddle as hard as they could until they burned about 450 calories in 3 simulated cycling time-trials  – one as baseline with no supplements, one after given 400 mg caffeine tablet, and one after being given a placebo tablet. The study found that almost all the riders across all 3 groups showed a 3.3% performance increase when given the caffeine supplement, regardless of their regular caffeine consumption leading up to the trials, leading to the conclusion that there might not be a correlation between the performance effects of caffeine supplementation and the level of habitual caffeine consumption, as had been previously assumed.

In an effort to examine the correlation between coffee consumption (both caffeinated and decaffeinated) and a decreased rate of hepatocellular cancer (HCC), the most common type of liver cancer, researchers at the University of Southampton and University of Edinburgh in the UK performed a systematic review and meta-analysis of data from 26 observational studies, involving more than 2.25 million participants. What they found was evidence indicating an extra 2 cups of coffee can lead to a 35% decrease in the risk of HCC, with 5 cups cutting the risk by half. In the reviewed studies which differentiated between caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee, an increased caffeinated coffee consumption of 2 cups a day saw a 27% decrease in risk, while increase in decaf consumption of the same amount saw only a 14% decrease in risk. With these promising results, the researchers are next looking to randomized trials to investigate the effectiveness of increasing coffee consumption in those at risk of HCC

It seems some farmers in Southern California are looking to diversify their crops and some are looking towards coffee as the answer. Faced with the problems of the decreased output of California’s aging avocado trees and an increased competition from avocados grown in Mexico, a few enterprising farmers realized the shade from the overly-leafy aging avocado trees and the somewhat ideal California weather might just be a great combination for establishing a high-quality coffee growing industry – the first in the mainland US (Hawaii already has a booming Kona coffee industry). Before you get too excited, keep in mind it’s very very early days yet –  only hundreds of pounds of coffee are coming out of California, which is little more than a drop in the bucket when you consider the 9 million pounds coming out of Hawaii.

In celebration of summer, Krispy Kreme is giving teachers free coffee with the purchase of any regular priced item throughout the months of June and July at participating US locations (with proof of school ID).

It's time for teachers to celebrate a great year! Let's celebrate all summer with free coffee w/ purchase (show school ID – select US shops) pic.twitter.com/cY42QVxu8i

— Krispy Kreme (@krispykreme) June 7, 2017