TIRET October 2012 Issue - MIDROC Ethiopia

HEALTH
Coffee and health
By: Yilma Yemane-Berhan
It seems necessary to clarify
certain misconceptions
prevalent in the world of coffee
consumption. There has been a
time when coffee consumption
was discouraged especially by
religious leaders (both Christians
and Muslims alike) considering it as
harmful to human health. Even today
many physicians still consider coffee
to be detrimental to health. This is
because the latest scientific research
findings about the positive sides of
coffee have not properly reached all
the medical teaching schools. Even
in Ethiopia, many people linked
the traditional coffee drinking with
superstitions like fortune telling
and others. However, the truth is
that coffee in addition to its health
benefits is also a social drink.
The purpose of this article is
therefore to provide the highlights
of the scientific research findings on
48 TireT October 2012
Coffee Plant
the effect of coffee on human health
and clear off the confusions about
coffee drinking.
Over the ages, many legends have
been told about the origins of
consumption and benefits of coffee.
Of these, the most well known is that
of Kaldi. According to the legend of
Kaldi, coffee drinking started in the
Sixth Century.
For curiosity, he too tried the fruits
and felt the same stimulating effect.
Then the news spread in the area
and with that its consumption also
started to spread. Gradually, the
method of coffee consumption
changed from chewing to boiling
the fruits to drinking the infusion.
Now for many, coffee has an
important contribution to start the
day. A cup of coffee makes one
awake, energetic, and alert.
a) In the olden days, man over
time used coffee as medicine. For
example, legend has it that a man
in Yemen used coffee to treat the
people in a community to cure them
from itching problems. He became
successful in his effort for which the
community highly respected him
to the extent of naming him as the
“god” of coffee.
However, the first written document
on the medical value of coffee was
that of an Arab physician named
Rhazes in the 10th century. Then
in about the same century another
Arab physician, Ibn Sina wrote more
in details on the subject.
b) Regardless of the biases against
coffee, its consumption and demand
has grown to the extent it has
reached today. Coffee has a great
economic value in the world being
the second to oil with an annual
retail value of over USD 70 billion.
The major coffee drinkers in the
world are USA, Europe, Japan, the
Middle East and Brazil. For example,
more than 50% of Americans drink
everyday three to four cups of
coffee, which is more than 330
million cups a day. Now coffee
drinking is also gradually entering
China, a traditionally tea drinking
country, with a population of over
1.3 billion.
Considering the millions of people
who are drinking coffee, researchers
and scientists in major universities
and medical centers mainly in USA,
European countries, Japan and
lately Brazil, have made and are
still making scientific studies on the
effect of coffee to human health.
According to some new researches
conducted at Harvard Medical
School and the University of
California at San Diago, revealed that
coffee reduces 40% of the diabetic