Want
to know why coffee can heal your thyroid? Read on.
In
the not so distant past, coffee has been put through the ringer. It’s been
called every bad name in the book. Many so-called “health experts” have even
gone as far as to label coffee as a highly addictive drug that is equivalent to
a number of illegal narcotics.
But
now, the “coffee” tables have turned because more and more research is being
published supporting the vast protective benefits that coffee has to offer. The
truth is that coffee is a nutrient, not a drug like many would have you
believe.
To
be completely honest, I was never a fan of coffee. I couldn’t stand the taste
of it. But when I started to learn the science behind coffee and how it can be
used to correct hypothyroidism and restore healthy metabolism, my taste buds
quickly changed.
Now,
thanks to more recent research, it’s becoming easier to understand the
connections between coffee and how it can help heal your thyroid and protect
you from a number of thyroid related health problems.
Coffee, Longevity,
and Thyroid Function
The
health of your thyroid is one of the most important factors when it comes to
overall health and longevity.
In
simplistic terms, your thyroid controls your cells’ ability to produce energy.
When you become hypothyroid, your metabolism slows and your ability to produce
energy decreases. When your cells cannot produce enough energy to stay happy,
healthy, and sustain life… You develop disease and eventually die.
It’s
as simple as that.
This
is why anti-aging scientists are discovering that the key to extending life and
living longer is to improve thyroid function so that your body can continue to
produce the energy it needs to sustain life.
So,
what does this have to do with coffee?
The
results of the largest coffee study to date were recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine
involving more than 400,000 U.S. men and women ages 50 to 71, over a 14 year
span of time.
Association of Coffee Drinking with Total and
Cause-Specific Mortality
Conclusions: In this large prospective study, coffee consumption
was inversely associated with total and cause-specific mortality.
Not
only does this study show that those who drank coffee lived longer, it also
shows that the more coffee they drank, the longer they lived.
·
Men’s
Results: two to three cups of coffee per day decreased risk of death by 10% in
men. And each addition cup provided an additional 6% decreased risk.
·
Women’s
Results: two to three cups of coffee per day decreased risk of death by 13% in
women. And each additional cup provided an additional 5% decreased risk.
Based
on our understanding of human physiology and longevity, coffee reduces your
risk of death by helping your cells produce energy, increasing your metabolism,
and therefore improving thyroid function.
However,
because of the nature of this study, they were not able to identify the exact
mechanisms through which coffee reduces the risk of death and extends life.
Below,
we’re going to explore just a few of these exact mechanisms through which
coffee can provide amazing benefits for overcoming hypothyroidism and heal your
thyroid as well as many of its associated health problems.
1. Coffee Can Heal
Your Thyroid and Protect You from Thyroid Disease
When
it comes to coffee and the health of your thyroid, it doesn’t get any more
obvious than this. Coffee has been shown to have a direct effect on the health
of your thyroid gland.
Research
has shown that coffee drinkers have a significantly lower incidence of both
benign and malignant thyroid disease, including thyroid cancer.
Does coffee consumption protect against thyroid
disease?
“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.”
It
is well known that various thyroid diseases including Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis
and thyroid cancer are common causes of hypothyroidism today. Using coffee
properly to help prevent these diseases is a big step in the right direction.
2. Coffee Protects
You from Cancer and Estrogen
Coffee
doesn’t just only heal your thyroid and protect you from thyroid cancer. It
also protects against a number of other cancers, including breast cancer, which
is especially a concern for menopausal women.
Coffee consumption modifies risk of estrogen-receptor
negative breast cancer.
“CONCLUSIONS: A high daily
intake of coffee was found to be associated with a statistically significant
decrease in ER-negative breast cancer among postmenopausal women.”
Many
people don’t know this, but there is a link between hypothyroidism and breast
cancer. This is because of the role that estrogen plays in suppressing the
thyroid gland, disrupting healthy metabolism, and promoting cancer metabolism
and growth.
Coffee
has been shown to help support your body’s ability to produce progesterone, the
hormone that plays the important role of offsetting the negative effects of
estrogen and is essential in signaling your thyroid gland to release healthy
amounts of thyroid hormone when needed.
So,
it should be no surprise that coffee not only helps to protect you from breast
cancer but that it also helps to promote healthy function of the thyroid gland.
3. Coffee Protects
You from Liver Dysfunction
Coffee
has also been shown to be highly protective of your liver. Below is just one of
many studies that show the positive effects that coffee can have on the health
of your liver.
Effects of coffee consumption
against the development of liver dysfunction
“These results
suggest that coffee may be protectively against the liver dysfunction in
middle-aged Japanese men.”
The
health of your liver is very well understood when it comes to proper thyroid
function. Your liver plays a major role in regulating your thyroid and
converting your inactive T4 thyroid hormone to the active T3 thyroid hormone
that your cells need to thrive. Liver dysfunction is a major cause of
hypothyroidism today that deserves a lot more attention than it currently gets.
Because
coffee can help improve liver function, it can also play an important role in
improving your liver’s ability to properly regulate thyroid hormone and improve
your overall thyroid function.
When
it comes to your thyroid, the health benefits of coffee go much further than
what I’ve described above. This is really just scratching the surface of the
health benefits associated with coffee.
In
a world where stress and disease are lurking around every corner, it’s
important to take advantage of every thyroid protective nutrient that you have
at your disposal, and coffee is one of the most important ones.
Author Bio:
Tom Brimeyer – The
author of Hypothyroidism Revolution – is a practitioner of functional medicine,
health researcher and author on nutrition, hormones and hypothyroidism.
His personal
mission is to inspire and educate people to take control and achieve true
health by correcting their hypothyroidism and underlying causes of their health
problems instead of being stuck relying on doctors and drugs that merely cover
up their symptoms while their health continues to suffer.
