Sleep Deprived Rats Benefit from Coffee Aroma

Now I don’t know if this study was funded by the coffee industry, making this information essentially propaganda. But it doesn’t seem so. Actually this type of research is what I do for a living and it seems legitimate.

Researchers have found that even the smell of coffee produces positive effects in the brain. A scientific study was done on rats to see the effect of coffee aroma on their brains. 30 rats were divided into four groups:

(1) control rats – no stress, with no coffee aroma,

(2) stressed rats – with no coffee aroma,

(3) no stress rats – with coffee aroma,

(4) stressed rats – with coffee aroma.

Rats from group (3) – the no stress rats with coffee aroma, showed 17 genes that were more active (the technical term is expressed) compared to rats from group (1), the control rats (no stress – with no coffee aroma). So coffee aroma has a definite effect on the brains of rats.

When the rats from group (2) – stressed rats/no coffee aroma – were compared to rats from group (4) – stressed rats/with coffee aroma, coffee exposure made 11 genes more active, and 2 genes less active. Rats stressed with sleep deprivation were affected by coffee aroma.

When the proteins in the rat brains were studied and compared, 25 differences were seen among the four groups. The protein levels in the brains of the stressed rats who enjoyed the wonderful aroma of coffee had antioxidant and stress relieving activities.

So tell your friends that don’t like the taste of coffee. You don’t even need to drink it for its benefits. Even smelling the wonderful aroma will make your brain do things helpful to your body.

This study was done by three institutions: 1) the Department of Food and Nutrition, College of Human Ecology, at the Seoul National University, 2) Smell and Taste clinic, Department of Otorhinolaryngology, University of Dresden [Germany] Medical School, and 3) Human Stress Signal Research Center (HSS), National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Health Technology Research Center, Tsukuba Japan. The article was published in The Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry, 2008, 56, 4665-4673.

Is French Press Coffee Bad for Your Health?

A Rat Study
My neighbor mentioned that he heard about a negative effect of French Press made coffee rather than paper filtered coffee. I searched Google and found that coffee has a compound called Cafestol that increases blood cholesterol. Paper filters lowers the amount of this compound in your cup of coffee (I’ve linked to a guy’s blog that summarizes finding from legitimate science journals – take it from me a chemist). But realize that these studies were done on rats that were fed cafestol. While not discounting the study, the conclusions were not based on the regular drinking of coffee drinking by humans.

French Press or Not French Press?
Be aware of the facts. Don’t go overboard. If you have to drink 6-8 cups of coffee everyday, then maybe drink paper filtered coffee. If you just have a mug of coffee every morning, then it’s probably fine to drink French Press made coffee. Eat a bowl of oatmeal or Cheerios with your coffee to help with your cholesterol level.

How Bad is Coffe for Us?
Another study following 130,000 healthy volunteers (in their 40’s and 50’s at the start of the study) for 18-24 years. They drank 6 cups of coffee a day. No relationship between their coffee drinking and increased risk of death from cancer, cardiovascular, or any other cause was found.

Use Some Common Sense
So what should we conclude? Use some common sense. Drink coffee with a clear conscience, unless you find ill-effects in your health.