Tea or coffee – which is more useful according to research?

Tea and coffee are well studied and have many proven beneficial properties. At the same time, they affect the body in different ways and have a different list of contraindications.

Many people are interested in which is healthier to drink in the end: tea or coffee. In this article, after analyzing the available scientific research, we have identified the pros and cons of both drinks. Which of them is better for you to drink depends on many factors, as well as on your specific goals.

Advantages and disadvantages of coffee

Coffee is a common drink containing a large amount of caffeine, antioxidants and other useful substances.

Numerous research papers confirm that coffee is good for humans . Its effect on the body is multifaceted and is realized, to a greater extent, due to the effect of caffeine on the nervous and cardiovascular systems.

Advantages

The main advantages of coffee are discussed below:

1. Improvement of mental and physical performance. Numerous studies demonstrate that coffee improves the quality of any tasks performed, normalizes the emotional background and increases efficiency .
2. Weight loss. Coffee helps to lose weight , because it activates the destruction of adipose tissue cells, normalizes metabolism at the level of adipocytes. Scientists from the UK installed that coffee increases metabolism by 4%, and the rate of consumption of energy reserves (mainly due to adipose tissue) – by 10-11%.
3. Prevention of type II diabetes mellitus. Foreign specialists revealed that the systematic intake of 1 cup of coffee per day reduces the risk of developing this disease by 14%, 4 cups – by 30%. However, the specific mechanisms of influence on the development of diabetes mellitus have not been fully studied.
4. Prevention of degenerative brain diseases .   Coffee is good for the brain . With regular intake of an invigorating drink observed reduction in the incidence of severe atrophic brain lesions such as Alzheimer's disease, Pick's disease, and Parkinson's disease.
5. Improving liver health. Cirrhosis is an extremely dangerous complication, the consequence of which is liver damage (alcoholic and viral hepatitis, benign tumors, fatty hepatosis, cholelithiasis, etc.). How claim American scientists, coffee has a positive effect on the liver and is able to reduce the risk of developing a deviation by 20-80%.
6. Prevention of depression. Proven , what coffee reduces the severity of depression by 20%, the probability of suicide is 53%.
7. Anticancer effect. Several cups of invigorating drink, which are taken daily on a regular basis, warn malignant degeneration of liver cells, colon and rectum, as well as skin.
8. Prevention of diseases from the cardiovascular system. The effect of coffee on the heart and blood vessels , at the moment, is contradictory, but scientists have been able to prove that an invigorating drink is an effective means of preventing coronary heart disease, hemorrhagic stroke and myocardial infarction.
9. Reduction of gallstone formation in the gallbladder. Specialists from the USA discovered that caffeine inhibits the formation of concretions in the gallbladder by changing the activity of bile acid secretion, increasing the tone of the smooth muscles of the biliary tract.
10. Inhibition of uric acid synthesis.  According to scientists from China, coffee slows down the formation of uric acid in the human body and stimulates its excretion through the urinary system. This helps to prevent gout and hypertension.
11. Overall increase in life expectancy. The drink has a complex effect on all systems of the human body, preventing a wide range of deadly diseases. Coffee has been found to reduce the risk of death by 30% from endocrine pathologies and by 16% &8212; from malignant and cardiovascular abnormalities.
12. Improving colon health.  Proven that due to the abundance of antioxidants in the composition, coffee prevents the appearance of autoimmune (Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis), inflammatory and oncological diseases of the lower digestive tract.

Cons

However coffee is not without its drawbacks . Sometimes (usually with an overdose) adverse reactions develop. These include:

1. Anxiety, increased suspiciousness and anxiety.
2. Irritability, negative and aggressive attitude towards everything around.
3. Dizziness and photopsias (dots, stripes, flies in front of the eyes).
4. Dyspeptic disorders (nausea, heartburn, pain in the liver).
5. Feeling of palpitations and heart failure.
6. Painful sensations in the calf muscles.
7. Addiction. Scientists claim that the body gets used to the constant presence of caffeine in the blood, which leads to the development of Caffeine addiction , comparable to taking narcotic drugs (cocaine, morphine, etc.).
8. Abrupt refusal of coffee can lead to the development of withdrawal syndrome.
9. Violation of the structure of sleep. Sleep becomes shallow, and the time to fall asleep increases. In order to prevent this effect, coffee should be taken no earlier than 6 hours before bedtime.
10. Coffee is usually higher in calories, since milk or cream is more often added to it. Also, many people admit that it is much easier for them to drink tea without sugar than coffee.
11. Coffee can increase blood pressure for a short time. Tea has this effect much less often.

Contraindications

It is also important to note that there is an impressive list of contraindications to taking a drink:

1. Pregnancy and breastfeeding. In these conditions, you should completely abandon coffee or reduce its consumption to 1-2 cups per day.
2. Sleep disorders.
3. Any disorders of the mental sphere.
4. Diseases of the digestive system (acute gastritis or exacerbation of chronic, peptic ulcer, GERD).
5. Refractory hypertension, renal arterial hypertension.
6. Glaucoma.
7. Smoking.
8. Taking antidepressants (fluvoxamine) and oral contraceptives.
9. Iron deficiency anemia. Other types of anemia are a relative contraindication.
10. Functional insufficiency of the liver and kidneys.
11. Age less than 16 years old.

Advantages and disadvantages of tea

Tea is an equally popular drink, widely used in folk medicine in China and Japan. Distinctive properties – an impressive set of useful properties, but a smaller list of side effects and contraindications than coffee.

Advantages

The main advantages of both black and green tea include:

1. Lowering blood pressure .   Proven , what tea relaxes the walls of the arteries , slows down the work of the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system, which provokes a decrease in total peripheral vascular resistance and a drop in systolic and diastolic blood pressure.
2. Normalization of the lipid profile.  According to research data , tea reduces the concentration of total cholesterol and atherogenic lipids (LDL, TAG) in the blood, which prevents the development of atherosclerosis and related complications (coronary heart disease, myocardial infarction). More detailed about the effect of tea on blood vessels see in a separate article.
3. Prevention of type II diabetes mellitus. Antioxidants contained in black and green tea help to increase the sensitivity of receptors of fat and muscle tissue cells to insulin, which leads to a decrease in the concentration of glucose in the blood and normalization of its metabolism.
4. Weight loss. Against the background of tea intake, an increase in the rate of fat oxidation and a change in microcirculation at the level of adipose tissue is observed.
5. Antibacterial effect. Tea extract inhibits the synthesis of DNA gyrase by bacterial agents.
6. Improvement of visual function.  Proven that tea prevents vision loss on the background of systematic overwork, prevents the development of glaucoma.
7. Nootropic effect. Tea increases the rate of glucose delivery to brain cells, which improves the cognitive sphere ( memory , attention , thinking).
8. Improving performance. The effect is less pronounced than that of coffee due to the lower concentration of caffeine. At the same time, tea, especially black, also has a noticeable stimulating effect.

Cons

Tea is an almost harmless product with few contraindications. Even a child can drink it. In case of overdose (taking 10 or more cups of drink per day), the following conditions may occur:

1. Diffuse headaches.
2. Dizziness.
3. Noise and ringing in the ears, feeling stuffy.
4. Photopsies (flashing of flies in front of the eyes, temporary decrease in visual acuity).
5. Sleep disturbance. It is rarely observed, for the purpose of prevention, tea should be taken no earlier than 1-2 hours before going to bed.

Contraindications

The list of contraindications for tea is much smaller (compared to coffee). These include:

1. Arterial hypotension or a tendency to it.
2. Age less than 12 years.
3. Any diseases accompanied by an increase in body temperature.
4. Diseases of the digestive system. The group includes: gastritis with high acidity, GERD, peptic ulcer.
5. Sleep disorders.
6. Gout.
7. Liver and kidney diseases with functional organ failure.

What is more useful in the end (Table)

Considering the list of contraindications, the probability and danger of side effects, tea (both green and black) is the undisputed leader. Also, tea does not cause dependence and has practically no negative effect on sleep.

However, coffee has a more pronounced effect on all systems of the human body, its systematic use is even associated with an increase in life expectancy.

Any organism is individual (sensitivity to various components of drinks, tolerance, presence of somatic and infectious pathologies, etc.), therefore, it is impossible to say exactly what is more useful.

Below is a comparative table of the benefits of tea and coffee in relation to specific goals.

It is also important to note that it is much more difficult to die when drinking tea. The lethal dose of tea is 150-200 cups per day, coffee is 40-60.

What is better invigorating in the morning

Invigorating effect directly depends on the amount of caffeine.

1 cup of tea, on average, contains from 30 to 50 mg of caffeine, and coffee – from 70 to 140 mg.

Therefore, coffee invigorates the body in the morning better than tea, and it is much more effective to use it in order to increase physical and mental performance.

Below is a table of different types of tea and coffee with an indication of the caffeine content.

Conclusion

Thus, both tea and coffee are extremely healthy drinks with a large array of accumulated scientific data. They have a comprehensive effect on the human body, preventing many pathologies (including fatal ones). They are also natural general ionizing agents that increase work efficiency and productivity.

Coffee has more proven medicinal properties and can even prolong life expectancy. But tea has much fewer contraindications and does not cause dependence.

It is extremely important to consider the list of possible complications and contraindications of both drinks in order to avoid negative effects.