Coffee And Losing Weight Abc News

Queensland biomedical scientists have published world-first findings that show used coffee grounds could be a fat-fighting food, but dietitians have urged caution on the research as human trials are yet to be held.

Researchers at the University of Southern Queensland (USQ) have been investigating the properties of leftover coffee grounds for almost seven years to uncover their potential as a functional food, or a food that can prevent or reverse disease.

Professor Brown said the research focused on male rats fed a high-carb, high-fat diet over four months, supplemented with 5 per cent of spent coffee grounds during the last eight weeks of the study.

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They [the rats] got lots of fructose, lots of condensed milk, lots of saturated fat, and the result was they got obese, impaired glucose tolerance, and cardiovascular and liver damage — all of those things happen the same in humans, he said.

When we feed the coffee grinds to them, after eight weeks we see blood pressure coming back to normal, we see blood glucose concentration coming back to normal, we see the fatty liver being improved.

We also looked at the bacteria in the gut and how that correlated with the reduction in obesity and improvement in glucose tolerance and systolic blood pressure.

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If you make your own coffee each morning then collect the grounds, dry it in the oven at 60 degrees [Celsius] for an hour or two and simply add a spoonful to your muffin mix or bread mix, he said.

I've actually put it [coffee grounds] in my bread maker — you can put it into muffins, into cakes — into all the things that coffee may be used in.

Clare Collins, a professor of Nutrition and Dietetics at the University of Newcastle, said the research was interesting but it's early days.

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It makes sense, but you can't tell from the rat study what human dosage [of ground coffee] is required, Professor Collins said.

In Sydney alone, more than 3, 000 tonnes of coffee waste is produced every year, so it's exciting to think about the impact diverting that waste away from landfill could have while also assisting with healthier lifestyle choices, he said.

We think that this is the first study in the world to show this connection [between coffee waste and waistlines], he said.

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Human trials are costly but if someone is willing to finance us, then we'll do it because I think this is really exciting stuff, Professor Brown said.And also ponder important questions like whether you can get more 'bang for your cup' if you drink your coffee later in the morning, and what happens if you eat a piece of chocolate with it?

Not only can the chemical paralyse and kill insects that chomp on caffeine-containing leaves and berries, but in smaller doses, caffeine in the nectar of flowers has been found to help bees remember where to come back to.

It's in those smaller doses that caffeine appears to be incredibly useful to humans – not just in giving us a pleasurable daily boost, but as a medical treatment.

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For example, she says, a caffeine mixture can help with asthma and is used in neonatal nurseries as a bronchodilator, which help widen air passages in the lungs.

Caffeine quickly enters the central nervous system and binds to receptors involved in the release of the feel-good hormone, dopamine, in the brain. 

Caffeine is also a stimulant that makes us more alert and focused. As well as opening up our airways, it increases our metabolism, heart rate and blood pressure.

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For all these reasons, caffeine – even in the form of a single cup of coffee — is also used as a performance-enhancing drug in sport.

It enables athletes to train harder and cope better during performance, says Evangeline Mantzioris, a nutritionist and sports dietitian at the University of South Australia.

It's widely believed that delaying your morning coffee until around 90 to 120 minutes after you wake up is a good idea.

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The reasoning is that cortisol, a hormone that helps stimulate you in the early morning, rises in the early morning but falls off as the morning goes on.

Adenosine can trigger a process that makes us drowsy when it binds to cells in our bodies – and this may be more likely to happen later in the morning.

Caffeine can stop this binding process, so it may be best to delay your coffee until you start to get that sleepy feeling.

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But Dr McGuire says there are many factors that can determine whether drinking at a particular time of day makes a difference.

And apart from fitting in with body clocks, the best time for coffee may well be determined by the benefit you feel you get by drinking it.

Beyond staying awake, we might prefer to drink coffee to focus on work, as a social ritual with others, or as a pick-me-up after lunch.

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If you can only handle one cup of coffee in the day, having it when you get the most benefit makes sense.(GettyImages: Boy_Anupong )

Dr Musgrave is not overly convinced by data suggesting there is a best time of the day to drink coffee, although drinking it too close to bedtime could be a problem.

How much coffee you can drink without it affecting your sleep will depend on many things, including how fast you metabolise caffeine.(Getty Images: vitpho )

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Another thing that will determine how much coffee you can drink and how late in the day is how much practice you've had drinking it.

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If you have too much caffeine for your body to handle, you can get symptoms such as dizziness, palpitations, anxiety, irritability, tremors, sleeplessness – and worse, including seizures, if you overdose.

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But exactly how much is too much for you personally, will depend on how well you metabolise caffeine and how tolerant your body is to it.

For an adult, this might be two or three espressos but the exact amount of caffeine in the cup is hard to work out given it varies with blend, brewing methods and of course, what size cup you use.

FSANZ advises pregnant women and children consume less caffeine and reports evidence that children consuming around two cans of cola a day can have increased levels of anxiety.

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Tea contains a large amount of tannins that slow the absorption of caffeine but still contributes to your total caffeine intake.(Getty Images: Karl Tapales )

It's hard to kill yourself from normal consumption of coffee, but if you vape and take energy drinks and a caffeine tablet you may very well get into the toxic regions and get really sick and possibly die, Dr Musgrave says.

They both contain caffeine so having them both together can add to the buzz – not to mention the effect of the added sugar.

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For example, research has found drinking French press or Turkish coffee with dark chocolate leads to greater absorption of antioxidants in both, than when both are consumed separately.

But as to whether this really translates to better health will depend on someone's whole dietary pattern, Dr Mantzioris says. The same goes for any link between coffee and weight loss.