Scandinavians: 1. Italians: 0. That would be the current scoreboard for coffeeโ€™s healthfulness by roast level, according to new research in the Journal of Food Medicine. They’ve just published a study that claimsย lighter roasted coffee has more beneficial health properties than dark roast.

As reported by UPI, a group of scientists in Korea examined โ€œthe nutritional effects of roasting times on beans from Coffea Arabica.โ€ To do this, the scientists used a Hottop to roast 200g of Brazil Ipanema Euro Natural coffee to four different roast levels: light, medium, city, and French. Roast times ranged from 8:00 to 11:33, with loss percentages between 11.5% and 23.2%. The roasted coffee was then pulled as espresso (through a Faema E98) and analyzed for caffeine and total phenolic compound content.

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The researchers found that the levels of caffeineโ€”whose health benefits have been extensively reported upon here on Sprudge Wireโ€”remained mostly unchanged across roast levels, there was a drastic decrease in chlorogenic acid compounds and antioxidant activity in darker roasts. Chlorogenic acid is the cause for coffeeโ€™s anti-inflammatory properties, thus dark roasted coffee is less beneficial in this regard than light roasts.

So is light roasted coffee better? Science thinks so. Who am I to disagree with Science?

Zac Cadwaladerย is the news editor at Sprudge Media Network.

*top image via coffeebytheroast.com

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