Go ahead and pour another cup.
While some may find extra padding more attractive, too much body fat can be harmful to health, increasing the risk of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, stroke and more.
However, a leaner physique could be one drink away, according to research out of Finland, and it’s one of the most widely consumed beverages worldwide.
Probably already part of your daily or morning routine, a morning cup of joe does a lot of heavy lifting for health.
From reshaping gut bacteria to keeping you young, the benefits of coffee are far and wide.
And now there’s more good news for java junkies, according to a study from the University of Oulu.
Those who regularly drink coffee were found to have a leaner body composition, with less body fat and increased muscle mass, than those who didn’t have a cup.
Researchers asked more than 2,200 participants to answer questionnaires regarding their health, diet, physical activity, medications, diagnosed conditions and lifestyle habits — including daily coffee intake.
The amount of coffee consumed ranged from none to at least five cups per day.
The study didn’t include details of cup size, brewing methods or the addition of flavoring, milk or sugar, though.
After fasting overnight and avoiding coffee, the team estimated body fat and muscle, collected blood and gave participants a glucose drink to see how their bodies handled sugar over two hours.
Those who drank more coffee had greater skeletal muscle mass, lower total body fat and less visceral fat, or abdominal fat around internal organs that’s closely linked to several health issues like cardiovascular disease and even inflammatory skin conditions.
But while a link was found between greater coffee consumption, less body fat and more muscle, the research doesn’t prove that the beverage directly reduces fat or builds muscle.
What the researchers did find was that higher coffee intake was linked to lower levels of three branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs) — leucine, isoleucine and valine — or protein building blocks.
Chronically high levels of these three amino acids are strongly associated with insulin resistance and a higher risk of diabetes.
However, while lower levels of these BCAAs may be present in a healthy metabolic pattern, the findings of the study didn’t show that coffee specifically lowered these amino acids.
And sometimes, drinking more coffee led to less favorable health outcomes, such as in men who had higher levels of some cholesterol-carrying lipoprotein particles and lower measures of omega-3 fats.
Men and women also had different glucose responses to more coffee.
Men tended to have lower fasting insulin and lower insulin levels, while women showed fewer and weaker links between coffee and glucose control.
“Coffee is consumed by millions of people every day, yet we still know surprisingly little about how it relates to our metabolism and hormones,” lead study author Luca Verroest said in a press release.
“What stood out in our findings was a distinct hormonal signature that didn’t disappear even after we took into account BMI and lifestyle factors, with several of these associations differing between men and women,” she added.
