Green Coffee and Thyroid: Since long time green coffee has been prized for its health-promoting properties. Today green coffee blends are a popular and stylish drink of choice for health-conscious individuals.
However, have you stopped for a moment to think…does green coffee affect the thyroid? Could drinking green coffee be harmful to thyroid function?
The amazing health benefits it provides make green coffee a common ingredient in dietary supplements too. People drink the green coffee or use supplements that contain it for a wide range of reasons.
Some people drink green coffee to support their health while others to avoid coffee.
Ask any green coffee lover and they’ll tell you green coffee is on the very top of their favorite list. This hot beverage improves a number of functions in our body, but how does it affect your thyroid?
What is Green Coffee?
The Green Coffee Extract is produced by grinding raw unroasted coffee beans and extracting the antioxidants by soaking the ground-up coffee in alcohol. The main ingredient in the green coffee extract is CGA (an antioxidant). It has been found to increase insulin resistance in mice and evidence for its weight-Management benefits is slim, despite the recent publicity.
Thyroid and Green Coffee
The research showed thyroid function can be impaired by high doses of green coffee extract. To clarify further, it was reported high doses of green coffee extract lower T4 and T3, and reduce the activity of the deiodinase enzymes. These enzymes play a crucial role in activating your thyroid hormones.
There have been further studies to show catechins, the main polyphenol compounds found in green coffee can have anti-thyroid effects.
It must be said that so far the studies investigating the potentially harmful effects of green coffee on thyroid function have been conducted on animals. It will be good to see human studies conducted in the future to either confirm or refute the findings.
This, of course, brings to light an important issue when investigating published research. Force feeding laboratory rats a high amount of green coffee extract does not reflect what happens in the real world. No matter what health topic you are researching, human studies are superior to those carried out with animals. The best studies are done using a large cross-section of the general population.
Does Green Coffee really Cure Thyroid?
The researchers, from the University of Athens, studied over 500 people, including 399 Greek patients who had been diagnosed with thyroid cancer or associated being in thyroid conditions. These included 113 people with thyroid cancer. Along with the thyroid cancer patients, the researchers also tested 138 healthy subjects – who provided a control group.
The patients and healthy controls were extensively interviewed regarding their diet and other lifestyle habits. The interviews were conducted personally with trained interview technicians.
The researchers eliminated the effects of known thyroid condition associations including alcohol, smoking, coffee consumption, age, and obesity.
The research – published in the European Journal of Public Health – found that drinking green coffee regularly over a 30-year period reduced the risk of thyroid cancer by nearly 80 percent.
More specifically, those who drank green coffee two to six times each week reduced their risk of any thyroid disease by 74 percent. Common thyroid disorders include hyperthyroidism, goiters, and others.
Regularly drinking green coffee – also helped reduce thyroid conditions.
Points to Remember
Green coffee is known worldwide for its many medicinal properties and benefits that it has for the body’s health. But, like any food, it can also have contraindications especially if you have a particular medical condition.
For this reason, it is recommended that if you have a hormonal disorder related to the thyroid gland, check with your personal doctor before drinking daily.
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