I know I can find a cup of coffee on Sunday morning at church. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

It’s good! A Dutch study found that people who drink two to four cups of coffee a day have a 20% lower risk of developing heart disease than those who drink no coffee.

It’s bad! The caffeine in coffee increases the activity of catecholamines, which are stress hormones.

It’s good! According to a Finnish study, people in their 40’s and 50’s who drink between three and five cups of coffee per day have a 65% lower chance of developing dementia and Alzheimer’s disease later in life. (Nor such connection was found with tea.)

It’s bad! Caffeine stimulates the production of cortisol, which leads to general inflammation.

It’s good! In a study of women by the Harvard School of Public Health, those who drank four or more cups of coffee a day were 25% less likely to develop endometrial cancer, compared to women who drank no coffee.

It’s bad! Caffeine addiction decreases insulin sensitivity. Insulin is the hormone that processes carbohydrates and turns them into energy. Coffee makes it slightly harder for your body to process carbs.

It’s good! More than 1000 different antioxidants have been isolated in unroasted coffee beans. A few hundred more develop during roasting.

It’s bad. Coffee is well known to cause stomachaches, and it can also lead to dysbiosis, or an imbalance in gut flora–the bacteria in your stomach that help digest food.

So as you are drinking that cup of coffee right now is it a good thing or a bad thing? It appears as though that answer has something to do with the number of cups of coffee you consume each day. Is it good or bad. Things change, don’t they? Wine is good today and a study will come out tomorrow telling us it is bad. Oats are bad for you then a study will come out and suddenly oats are good again. This has also happened with eggs a couple of times. I’m waiting for a study that shows a Big Mac won’t hurt your heart.

If you are waiting for the latest scientific evidence to determine what to eat, drink, or how to live you might be waiting for a long time for a scientifically definitive answer to any question. The scientific process leads the scientist to ask questions about every answer to the previous question.

Who can you trust for good information? How about a government study? I simply can’t go there, this article will go on forever!