Listen, here’s the deal. If you aren’t bathing yourself in coffee for health reasons at this point, then you just aren’t reading enough Sprudge. Because we are on a weekly basis reporting on new and different studies showing that coffee is good for you. And today’s news is for the asthmatics, with research finding that moderate coffee consumption can lower the frequency of symptoms associated with asthma.
Per Very Well Health, the study was the combined effort of medical professionals from Korea’s Hallym University, Hanyang University, and Kangdong Sacred Heart Hospital. For their work, researchers examined coffee consumption habits (as well as caffeinated counterparts green tea and soda) of over 160,000 participants from the Korean Genome and Epidemiology Study—3,146 with asthma and 158,902 with no history of asthma. When comparing consumption habits with instances of asthma, the researchers found that drinking one cup of coffee once or twice a day was associated with “protective effects against asthma in a Korean population.” The same results could not be found with green tea or soda.
One explanation proffered for the phenomena is the presence of Methylxanthines in coffee. Methylxanthines are a group of naturally occurring compounds that can be found in coffee, tea, and chocolate that act as weak bronchodilators, providing “protective effects against asthma.” Caffeine is a Methylxanthine, but is not the only one present in coffee. In essence, coffee acts as a very, very low dose asthma inhaler.
But unlike inhalers, the effects of coffee work more slowly and would not be useful in treating an asthma attack. (Nor should it be used in replacement of prescribed asthma treatment.) Coffee vis-à-vis asthma is more preventative than treatment, like drinking water to stay hydrated versus drinking water because you are thirsty.
Per Very Well Health, “caffeine has several therapeutic effects that also reduces respiratory muscle fatigue.”
And while coffee is healthy to consume for those with asthma, the article does note that because coffee has a temporary ameliorative effect on the lungs, drinking it before tests to find the severity of one’s asthma may alter the results to make it seem as though the condition is less severe than it actually is.
So there you have it. The general pain of existing made a little easier thanks to coffee. So says science.
Zac Cadwalader is the managing editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas. Read more Zac Cadwalader on Sprudge.
