08/14/2023 / By Evangelyn Rodriguez
Coffee can help boost alertness and focus. Studies show that drinking coffee can also do wonders for your mental health. In fact, multiple meta-analyses suggest that drinking coffee in moderate amounts could help reduce your risk of depression.
Many of the beneficial effects of coffee are directly linked to caffeine, the bitter-tasting chemical that’s naturally present in coffee beans. Because caffeine also occurs in more than 60 plants, such as tea leaves, guarana and cacao, and is added to a wide variety of food products, people often forget the fact that it is actually a psychoactive drug.
Caffeine is a natural stimulant that affects the central nervous system as well as your body’s metabolism. Aside from keeping you awake and boosting your energy levels, it also acts as a diuretic, which helps your body get rid of excess salt and water via urine. It can also increase the release of acid in your stomach, which helps improve digestion and encourages bowel movement.
But one of the most studied biological activities of caffeine is its influence on mood. Although often used interchangeably with the word ’emotion,’ mood in scientific studies refers to a “relatively long-lasting affective state,” while emotion has a shorter duration. The latter also typically includes components such as bodily reactions and motor expressions, which mood tends to lack.
According to a review published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, caffeine indirectly affects mood through its cognitive-enhancing properties. At low doses, caffeine has been found to improve a person’s ability to feel pleasure and reduce anxiety. However, at high doses, caffeine can increase tense arousal in consumers, including anxiety, nervousness and jitteriness.
The effect of caffeine on depression risk has been a topic of interest for many researchers. Because about 80 percent of caffeine consumption is in the form of coffee, most studies concerning depression risk involve this popular beverage. Here’s a brief summary of what multiple studies have found regarding coffee and caffeine’s influence on depression risk:
Despite hundreds of studies on depression, researchers are still unsure about the exact cause of depression. Of the many theories proposed over the years, the most commonly pinpointed are genetics, neurotransmitter imbalance, emotional trauma and brain inflammation. Although caffeine does not affect all of these likely causes, it is believed to help with depression by altering the activity of two important neurotransmitters, namely, serotonin and dopamine.
According to studies, caffeine can increase brain levels of serotonin, the neurotransmitter that helps regulate your mood. Often dubbed the “feel good” chemical, low levels of serotonin have been linked to depression. (Related: Study: 5-HTP can boost serotonin levels and promote healthy eating habits.)
Caffeine has also been found to increase the availability of dopamine receptors in the brain. Dopamine is a chemical that makes you feel pleasure, so having more available receptors for dopamine can help uplift your mood.
Recent studies suggest that brain inflammation may play a role in the development of depression. In fact, functional MRI studies have found that inflammatory markers can cause aberrant activation patterns and alter functional connectivity in neural circuits involved in emotional regulation in the brains of people with depression.
Drinking coffee can help with depression because it contains plenty of bioactive compounds with known anti-inflammatory properties. These include chlorogenic acid, ferulic acid, caffeic acid, trigonelline, quinolinic acid and pyrogallol, among many others. (Related: Coffee contains hundreds of medicinal compounds that may prevent cognitive decline.)
Coffee is a reliable mood booster that can help lower your depression risk when consumed in moderate amounts. Note that excessive caffeine intake can cause unpleasant side effects, so limit your daily intake to no more than 400 milligrams or about four cups of brewed coffee.
Find out about the other health benefits of coffee at Superfoods.news.
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