These are just a few highlighted compounds for this review—many more have been and are being studied by scientists actively.

Caffeine and Decaffeinated Coffee

Caffeine is a chemical produced in dozens of plant species, and, of course, coffee is the plant most often cited for having caffeine. At Purity, we find it unfortunate that many people ONLY look at coffee as a caffeine delivery system designed to stimulate us and keep us awake. Coffee also has hundreds of other compounds, besides caffeine, that are beneficial. We created Purity CALM for those who want to enjoy coffee and its health benefits but do not want caffeine.

Although caffeine has positive properties related to health other than wakefulness, it is NOT for everyone. We each have our own caffeine metabolism rate, as mediated by our genetics (Yang et al. 2010; Nehlig 2018). That means caffeine affects everyone differently, which explains why some people get overly stimulated with one cup while others are able to drink it all afternoon.  

Decaf coffee can be a wonderful option for individuals who know that they have a sensitivity to caffeine. However, if you are unsure, it is possible that there are contaminants or toxins in coffee that are causing your body’s reaction to coffee rather than caffeine. To investigate this yourself, start with a clean, organic, high-quality decaf like Purity CALM. Drink it for a while, taking note of your body’s response to see how you feel. Then, if you are interested in trying caffeinated coffee again, you could try gradually swapping in small amounts of one of Purity’s regular coffees, building up your portion of caffeinated coffee over time.

In any case, repeatedly, scientific studies have demonstrated the health benefits of coffee. Moderate coffee consumption is associated with a range of desirable effects on the body and can fit within a healthy, balanced lifestyle. In many cases, there is no difference between caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee. New research even suggests that other components of coffee play an important role in the mood- and alertness-boosting effects of the brew (Haskell-Ramsay et al. 2018). So, there is ample evidence that drinking decaf coffee can be a pleasurable and healthy way to improve your lifestyle.

WHAT EXACTLY IS DECAF (DECAFFEINATED) COFFEE?

Technically, in order to legally be labelled decaffeinated, coffee must have had at least 97% of its caffeine removed in the U.S. and 99.9% in Europe (from The Coffee Guide and the National Coffee Association website, although I have never found the official FDA-CFR on this).

Caffeine is removed before the coffee seeds (or “beans”… but they are actually seeds) are roasted. The history of decaffeination methods spans the past 100 years. Decaf processes were developed utilizing various solvents of questionable safety, such as benzene, chloroform, alcohol, acetone, sulfuric acid, ether, and ammonium hydroxide. Most of these resulted in coffee with a compromised flavor… and no doubt, health as well.

Luckily, we have come a long way since then, and safe decaf processes are available. The three processes that are used today to remove caffeine from coffee are based on solvent (ethyl acetate or methylene chloride), “supercritical carbon dioxide,” or water. The latest two methods are more efficient in preserving flavor and leaving no toxic residue in the seeds.

Purity Coffee chooses organic Swiss Water® decaffeinated coffee. The water process relies entirely on two concepts, solubility and osmosis, to decaffeinate coffee beans. Caffeine is water-soluble, but many other compounds are as well, some of which might contribute to coffee flavor. Therefore, a special process uses green coffee extract to soak coffee beans in hot water in order to extract only the caffeine. The water solution is then filtered to remove the caffeine, and the coffee can soak again until it is fully decaffeinated. We appreciate how this method does not use any chemical solvents and prioritizes coffee quality. And to safeguard our organic chain, the Swiss Water® Company’s decaffeination facility is certified organic by the Organic Crop Improvement Association (OCIA).

Coffee is rich in biologically active compounds that contribute to its aroma and flavor, and the SWP seeks to preserve these as much as possible. Some of these have been identified as playing potential roles in coffee’s health benefits, such as polyphenols (like CGA), trigonelline, and melanoidins, among others. These compounds are often hypothesized to play a strong mechanistic role in the health benefits of coffee. An example of this is that both decaf and regular drinkers have a reduced risk of developing type 2 diabetes (Hu et al. 2011). There is also good evidence that coffee, regardless of caffeine, can benefit liver health (Federico et al. 2017).

The most prevalent form of diabetes is type 2, which results from both insufficient insulin production and a body's inability to fully respond to insulin. The majority of scientific studies that have investigated the impact of drinking coffee on Type 2 diabetes point to coffee drinkers having a lower risk of developing the disease. In fact, epidemiological studies suggest that drinking more coffee (3–4 cups per day) is associated with an approximate 25% lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes compared to consuming none or less than 2 cups per day (Huxley et al. 2009; van Dam & Feskens 2002). A large-scale systematic review of this literature led by the Harvard School of Public Health concluded that habitual coffee consumption is associated with a substantially lower risk of type 2 diabetes (van Dam & Hu 2005)

There is also good evidence of similar preventive effects with decaffeinated coffee (Greenberg et al. 2006; Salazar-Martinez et al. 2004; Wu 2005). This effect may be partially explained by CGA, trigonelline, or even magnesium (the exact mechanism has yet to be confirmed) Tajik et al. 2017). CGA has been demonstrated to inhibit glucose absorption (Clifford 2000; Higdon & Frei 2006). A randomized crossover trial study conducted in 2009 found that chlorogenic acid and trigonelline ingestion significantly reduced glucose and insulin after 15 minutes (van Dijk et al. 2009). A meta-analysis conducted in 2014 found a dose-dependent relationship, where the risk for Type 2 diabetes decreased by 11% for every 2 cups of coffee per day consumed (Jiang et al. 2014). One study with strong results reported that for those who drank 3–4 cups of decaffeinated coffee containing high contents of CGA, the risk of Type 2 diabetes was reduced by 30%7.

Normally, the hormone insulin produced in the pancreas helps move glucose from your blood to your cells to use for energy. Specialized gastrointestinal cells secrete hormones into the blood, and one of their most crucial functions is to control insulin secretion right after eating. Coffee consumption influences incretin hormones like peptide 1 (GLP-1, which is reduced in Type 2 diabetes)and glucose‐dependent insulinotropic peptide(GIP).

Research by Greenberg et. al. (2010) actually highlighted decaffeinated coffee specifically as being more beneficial than coffee with caffeine: They reported an increase in GLP-1 concentrations after ingestion of decaffeinated coffee—in other words, increasing GLP-1 secretion induced by decaffeinated coffee intake is possibly an important mechanism related to its protective effects.

In another study, Greenberg and Geliebter (2012) conducted a randomized trial to examine the effects of caffeine, caffeinated coffee and decaffeinated coffee on hunger and satiety hormone (PYY) responses in healthy adults. The trial showed that decaffeinated coffee resulted in higher plasma PYY concentrations than placebo and caffeine. Participants also said they were less hungry for about 3 hours, potentially contributing to the protective nature of decaf coffee consumption against the onset of type 2 diabetes. Consumption of regular, caffeinated coffee did not have these same results. These results indicate decaffeinated coffee consumption.

More recently, a review published in 2016 confirmed the mounting evidence that coffee drinkers who consume 3–4 cups per day exhibit a reduced risk of developing type 2 diabetes (Santos & Lima 2016). The authors of this study attributed the results to possibly both caffeine and CGA. Supporting this theory are various animal-based studies that have confirmed an anti-diabetic insulin function strengthening the impact of chlorogenic acids (Michels et al. 2005). The sheer number of studies and strength of reviews on this disease have led the link between coffee consumption and decreased risk of diabetes to be one of the strongest pieces of evidence to support coffee's effect on the body. In addition, it is clear that CGA is one of the primary drivers of this protective effect, so drinking coffee rich in those compounds is a smart choice.

There are a host of serious liver diseases that can be positively impacted by drinking coffee. Please see Purity PROTECT for more in-depth information on coffee and the liver.

The association between coffee consumption and a decreased risk of liver disease was established over 25 years ago (Klatsky & Armstrong 1992). Since then, a large body of scientific work has elucidated an inverse association between moderate coffee consumption and the risk of developing a range of liver diseases, including cancer, fibrosis and cirrhosis. The good news is that these effects have not been found to be exclusively linked to caffeine, which means decaf drinkers can enjoy these benefits as well.

For example, an animal study on decaffeinated espresso found that it was able to reduce liver steatosis, inflammation and fibrosis in rats fed a high-fat diet for 12 weeks. This was the first time that a study had shown caffeine was not essential for the anti-fibrotic effects of coffee and that components other than caffeine contribute to the hepatoprotective effect (Vitaglione 2010). Later, two studies independently reported the effects of regular vs. decaffeinated coffee in rats, showing that both types of coffee reduce liver fibrosis (Furtado et al. 2012; Arauz (2013). Research by Ma and others assessed both the preventive and therapeutic effects of chlorogenic acids on mice fed a high-fat diet and showed that these compounds blocked the development of fatty liver and that the chlorogenic acid treatment reversed the high-fat diet-induced hepatic steatosis (Ma et al. 2015). This supports the evidence that decaffeinated coffee would still give us the important liver-health-related benefits of drinking coffee.

DECAF AND COLORECTAL CANCER

There is solid evidence that drinking decaf coffee can also contribute to a protective effect against colorectal cancer (CRC). There are an estimated 3.5 million individuals living with CRC worldwide, and physicians have no specific dietary or lifestyle recommendations for patients with cancer owing to a lack of convincing evidence to support many of them (Cross & Gunter 2018; Vitaglione 2010). It is the third-most common incidence of cancer in the world and the fourth-leading cause of cancer-related death. CRC is a major public health challenge (Ferlay et al. 2015). Multiple studies have pointed to an important association between drinking decaf or regular coffee and a decreased risk of colorectal cancer (Rashmi et al. 2012; Galeone et al. 2010, Michels et al. 2005) .

An exceptionally large and important epidemiological study was published this year by the Harvard School of Public Health, which collected data from the Nurses’ Health Study (1984–2012) and Health Professionals Follow-up Study (1986–2012) and followed 1599 patients diagnosed with stage 1, 2, or 3 colorectal cancer. They found that intake of caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee (2+ cups a day) was associated with a lower risk of colorectal cancer-specific mortality and all-cause mortality (Hu et al. 2006). Specifically, they found that patients who consumed at least 4 cups of coffee per day had a 52% lower risk of CRC-specific death and a 30% reduced risk of all-cause death. Meaning, patients who maintained a high level of coffee consumption both before and after diagnosis had particularly favorable survival. This inverse association between coffee and CRC risk has been hypothesized to be due to a number of factors not including caffeine, such as the anticarcinogenic properties of chlorogenic acids (Arauz et al. 2013), coffee diterpenes (Michels et al. 2005; Cavin et al. 2002), and other physical and biological actions coffee is involved within the gut.