Experts are recommending that people line their stomach with food before consuming coffee on a morning to avoid health complications such as diabetes and heart disease.
While the energising breakfast staple is packed with antioxidants, it can also be detrimental to one's health when drank upon waking when not accompanied with a snack or meal.
According to findings published in the British Journal of Nutrition in 2020, skipping a bowl of cereal, two slices of toast or other early morning meals and opting for the caffeine-filled drink instead can heavily impact glucose control.
The Liverpool Echo reports that the research - which was conducted by the University of Bath - highlights that both disrupted sleep and coffee intake independently impair glucose intolerance and insulin sensitivity in adults. These are both imperative for the prevention of a number of medical conditions such as heart disease and diabetes.
The study involved 29 healthy adults - split into three groups - who underwent three contrasting overnight experiments. The first were given a sugary drink after waking up from a normal and uninterrupted night of sleep as reported in the Express. The second group were given the same drink after waking up from a poor night's sleep, in which they were woke up for five minutes each hour.
The final group also suffered disrupted sleep, but were handed a strong black coffee after waking up, with a sugary drink provided 30 minutes after. Blood samples were then sourced, with results suggesting that disrupted sleep had no significant effect on glucose levels when compared to a normal night's sleep.
However, having a strong black coffee without first consuming food increased blood glucose responses to sugar-filled drinks by about 50%.
The study summarises that consuming black coffee when waking could in-turn have an effect on a person's blood sugar and metabolic control, with blood sugar being impaired when a person ingests coffee first thing after disrupted sleep. And while additional research is vital to understand long-term risks, impaired metabolism is a known risk factor for conditions such as diabetes.
The culprit suspected in this case, is cortisol, which is understood to raise glucose in the blood by releasing stored glucose.
Medicover Hospitals states: “Experts warn that coffee should never be consumed in the morning when you wake up. The reason is that coffee will increase the levels of cortisol very quickly and the body will take a long time to return to its normal state. This hormone controls our biological clock and the ability to stay awake.
“[…] The consumption of coffee on an empty stomach will increase the level of acid in the stomach, which can lead to bloating and vomiting."
Olivia Hedlund, a functional nutritional therapist behind Livingwell, recently echoed this advice on TikTok. She explained: “Coffee is not only acidic […] but it literally causes our bodies to go into a stress response to shoot out cortisol and put us in a kind of fight or flight state.”
This effect could be softened by drinking coffee after the stomach has been lined with food, according to the expert.
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