What Every Coffee Drinker Should Know

As a driver, would you rather scratch up your car pulling into a tight parking space planning to do repairs later OR would you instead take another minute, find a wider spot and avoid any damage in the first place?

The answer is clear with your car, so why not with your body?

It is undisputed that when caffeine is in your diet, it keeps calcium from making its way to build and support your bones.

According to the National Institutes of Health, however, you can make up the difference by merely adding calcium to your daily diet. The real problem, say government researchers, is not caffeine consumption, but rather “substantially less than optimum calcium intakes.”

I disagree with this approach. It’s simply illogical to consume something good just so you can keep consuming something that’s bad for you. That’s like taking your car to the auto body shop so you can start fresh when denting it up tomorrow.

If you are postmenopausal, say researchers at Creighton University (Omaha), too much caffeine may increase bone loss. This is especially of concern for women with a tendency toward osteoporosis. Among 96 healthy women in their 60′s and 70′s, those getting more than 300 milligrams of caffeine daily (about three cups of coffee) lost more bone from their spines over three years than women consuming less.

We know that caffeine can lead to bone loss, so why consume it?

But even knowing this, if you can’t give up your daily cup of joe, there are two things you can do to lessen the impact on your bones:

1. Switch to decaf organic
2. Simply drink less coffee and tea

(By the way, the consumption of cola has also been shown to be associated with lower bone mineral density.)