The Best Time to Drink Coffee Daily: What is the Impact of Drinking Coffee Before or After Breakfast on Blood Sugar

From Gaming to Coffee: The Morning Dilemma

From playing one more game to playing billions, and from watching one more episode to billions, the already precious sleep time becomes even more insignificant in the face of these damn temptations.

The result is all too clear - from the moment the alarm rings, contemplating taking leave or resigning, to stepping into the company on time and starting to gulp down coffee to refresh and sustain oneself.

In fact, regardless of whether one slept well the previous night, more and more people choose to drink a cup of coffee upon waking to start their day. This behavior has gradually become a morning routine.

But before engaging in this routine, have you had breakfast?

Research on Coffee and Health

Many studies involving coffee and health mention the benefits that caffeine intake brings to our bodies. However, everyone tends to only focus on partial information rather than the complete picture.

According to a report by CNN, a study funded by the University of Bath aimed to understand how sleep, blood sugar, and coffee interact within the body.

In this study, researchers from the University of Bath had 29 healthy men and women participate in three different overnight experiments.

In the first assessment, participants had normal sleep hours, approximately from 11 PM to 7 AM the next morning, and were asked to consume a sugary drink upon waking.

Next, in the second assessment, participants' sleep was interrupted every hour by a message. To ensure the sleep was truly disrupted, participants needed to respond to the message, which took about 5 minutes. They were asked to consume the same sugary drink at the end of their disrupted sleep cycle.

In the third assessment, participants experienced the same nighttime sleep interruptions as in the second assessment. The difference was that participants were asked to drink a cup of black coffee 30 minutes before consuming the sugary drink.

Research Findings

After comparing the results from these three assessments, researchers found that although one night of disrupted sleep did not affect participants' blood sugar and insulin responses compared to normal sleep, drinking coffee before eating significantly increased the negative blood sugar response by about 50%.

Researchers noted that if your breakfast is lower in carbohydrates, the blood sugar peak after drinking coffee and eating breakfast would be reduced. Based on their findings, researchers recommend people wait at least one hour after drinking coffee before consuming a carbohydrate-rich breakfast.

The Coffee Debate

Although this conclusion comes from authoritative experimental data, I personally have been starting my day with coffee before breakfast for several years and haven't experienced any discomfort.

There will always be some studies saying coffee is bad for the heart, while others say it's beneficial. Whether coffee is good for health has always been a major debate in the medical community. A scientific literature review on coffee published in the British Medical Journal in 2017 found that drinking three to four cups of black coffee daily is generally most beneficial to health.

Then someone asks how many milliliters three to four cups represent. I always patiently bring up the FDA's recommendation that healthy adults should not consume more than 400 milligrams of caffeine per day. How to calculate caffeine? Simple! Two basic formulas should suffice:

Extraction rate = Coffee extract weight × Extract concentration (TDS) ÷ Coffee grounds weight

Caffeine content = Coffee grounds weight × Extraction rate × 1.2%

Using these two formulas, you can roughly estimate how much caffeine is in your cup of black coffee.

Final Thoughts

Finally, I must ask the routine question: Do you prefer to drink coffee before or after breakfast?

Image source: Internet

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