If you’re a coffee drinker – and 63 per cent of Britons are – chances are you’ll have pondered on occasion whether you should reduce your daily caffeine intake. But if new research, published in Nature Microbiology by Zoe, is anything to go by, you may not need to worry about doing so.
After analysing the gut microbiome data of 22,000 people, Zoe researchers found that those who regularly and consistently drank coffee could be identified by the presence of a specific microbe. Named lawsonibacter, the study found it was eight times more prevalent in those who drank coffee than in participants who didn’t.
“The lawsonibacter microbe hangs around in suspended animation, just waiting for a cup of coffee in order to flourish,” explains Professor Tim Spector, co-founder of Zoe, who describes this specific microbe as a “very fussy eater”. “This gives us novel insight into how we need great plant diversity in our diets to properly feed all our gut microbes and reap the health benefits.” It is the strongest link between an individual food or drink and a specific bacteria ever identified – and you don’t have to drink caffeinated coffee in order to reap the benefits, decaf works too.
Coffee is made from fermented coffee beans, which are full of healthy chemical compounds and phytochemicals – including polyphenols – that can improve our health. You also ingest around 1.5g of fibre with each cup of coffee you drink. Fibre helps to fuel our gut microbes, which then produce short-chain fatty acids that help to improve not only our overall microbial health, but additionally support all facets of our health – including that of our metabolic, digestive and immune systems.
So if you’re currently sipping on your morning coffee, know that it’s doing more for your body than merely giving you a little energy boost. Win-win!
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