Drinking coffee helps your liver health.

Every day, Americans drink over 400 million cups of coffee. While it’s clearly part of many Americans’ morning routines, it is actually healthy for you. Countless studies measuring various aspects of health have shown that coffee is good for your overall health.

Coffee is the primary source of antioxidants in the American diet.

Antioxidants protect your cells against free radicals — molecules that are produced during cell metabolism. Free radicals contribute to the damage of cells, beginning a process called oxidative stress, which then can lead to a variety of diseases and increase aging. As your body ages, it loses its ability to fight those free radicals, which causes more oxidative stress and damage to cells. 

Antioxidants are critical in that they neutralize these free radicals, lessening their effects on your cells. If you’re looking to add antioxidants to your diet, look no further than coffee. Coffee is a major source of antioxidants. In fact, numerous studies have cited coffee as having the highest source of antioxidants in the American diet. Unprocessed coffee beans contain approximately 1,000 antioxidants, then hundreds more arise as the roasting process occurs. 

This rich concentration of antioxidants is powerful in helping to fight inflammation, which is an underlying factor of a variety of chronic diseases. 

The surprising advantages that drinking coffee has on your liver.

Aside from coffee’s reduced risk of type 2 diabetes, Parkinson’s, and Alzheimers, evidence also shows its beneficial effects on your liver.

In a 2015 study reviewing all the literature on coffee's effects on liver health, it was shown that drinking coffee:

• Improved liver function tests
• Decreased the development of fatty liver disease
• Reduced liver stiffness and scarring 

Researchers found an inverse relationship between coffee consumption and liver enzymes. Elevated liver enzymes correlate to inflammation and liver damage. In these studies, they found that the more coffee participants drank (up to four cups a day), the lower their liver enzymes levels.

How to keep coffee intake healthy.

A few tips when it comes to drinking coffee to support your liver health. 

• Any type of bean will work
• It must be filtered coffee with no sugar. This part is important because it's been shown that if you add sugar to your coffee, it negates the beneficial liver effects that it has on your liver.
• You can add a little cream if you want!
• An espresso should also be fine as long as you don't add any sugar.

How many cups of coffee is the healthiest?

• You should try to get three cups. Even better — aim for 3 to 5 cups, but don’t exceed six cups. 
• Your goal is to stay a little less than 400 mg of caffeine every day

What are the cons of drinking coffee? 

While the health benefits of drinking coffee are hard to dispute, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you have a license to drink as much coffee as you want. Some have a sensitivity to caffeine in that it will make them feel jittery or agitated in small or large doses. It can also impact sleep quality. Caffeine affects everyone differently, so if you do experience side effects, decrease your consumption to fit your lifestyle. 

Fun fact: The effects from caffeine take around 6 hours to wear off, so aim to drink coffee earlier in the day. 

Enjoy that cup of joe not only taste good and gives you energy, but it's good for your liver health as well.