https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee
It’s national coffee day! And as the 44,000 students at Penn State rush to their favorite coffee shop to get their free coffee, I couldn’t help but question what coffee does to a female college student. I recently started drinking coffee because everyone always says that coffee and busy working college students go together, but is coffee actually doing to students?
An observational study done by Bae YJ, Kim MH, studied 353 female college students. Breaking them up into three groups; one non coffee, one light coffee and one moderate coffee group, they found out that the average intake of dietary fiber, vitamin A, vitamin B6 and the amount of vegetables were higher in the non coffee group than the light coffee group. The moderate coffee group drank more alcohol than any other group. The study concluded that females that drink more coffee have a greater intake of food and nutrients. Most of the time, they aren’t the healthy options. However, it can get difficult to determine if coffee is the only factor harming your body. Coffee drinkers also tend to smoke, drink alcohol and do little physical activity.
If we look at the nutrition facts about coffee, it seems like it shouldn’t be too bad for us. If you look at plain, black coffee or espressos, they have the least amount of calories at less than 5 per cup, and it has little to none nutrition value. However, not every college students drinks plain coffee. Starbuck’s Pumpkin Spice Latte has 310 calories per 16 fl oz. and it’s high in fats and carbs.
An observational study was done, that studied 1189 college students, both men and women that surprisingly found coffee consumption was higher in the males than females by almost 20%. This study was adequately randomized, having a slight difference in numbers and age, but had confounding variables with it. For one, not everyone likes coffee. Some people take it black, while others take it with extra sugar. If this study were to become an experiment, the scientist conducting the study would have to make sure test any kind of flavor that may go against his hypothesis.
There are some benefits to coffee. Han-Seok Seo of the Seol National University in South Korea did a study on stressed lab rats to see what the smell of coffee did to them. They found out that when the rats smelled the coffee, genes in their brains released antioxidants and reduced their stress. Other researchers found that drinking coffee could lower your risk of getting Type 2 diabetes. They found out that people who drank four or more cups of coffee a day decreased their chance 50% lower.
The science on coffee is very controversial. Some people have studies that are 100% for coffee and say that humans can benefit from it, while others are against it. If I were to do an experiment on coffee and college students, I would start my hypothesis by asking what coffee is doing to our health both mentally and physically. The control group is the group that doesn’t drink coffee and the experimental is the group that does. The experimental group would be broken up into categories; black coffee drinkers, lightly sugared coffee and highly sugar coffee. Each would drink four cups of coffee a day for a month to test how the person is feeling and if coffee benefited their health in anyway.