I recently read this article from New York Presbyterian on whether caffeine is good for heart health, citing recent scientific research findings that coffee can reduce the risk of heart failure, atrial fibrillation, and type 2 diabetes.

Of course, I have to weigh in… first by thanking NYP for the impetus and content material—even if we come from different paradigms of thought, science, in my opinion, is entitled to nothing if not thoughtful, yet vulnerable debate.

As everyone who adds one, two, or more teaspoons of sugar to their daily coffee knows, coffee is a bitter agent, and in Chinese medicine the directional chemistry of bitter medicines and/or foods is downward—down and out to be specific—evidenced in the bowel movements that are so common after one, two, or more cups of coffee in the morning. Is bitter medicine healthy? Sure, about half the population will gain more physiological benefit than harm from bitter herbs. The other half might experience the short-term benefit of bitters’ ability to reduce local inflammation, but in the long run it may harm their microbiome and ability to absorb nutrients, which in the longer run will create more inflammation.

“Give her more bitters!” the foolish clinician will shout. “Reduce her inflammation!”

But that second time around she is older and weaker—those initially experienced benefits seem inaccessible, and conventional medicine might increase dosages or attempt to potentiate the first medicine’s effect with another anti-inflammatory, and before we know it all gastrointestinal functionality is gone.

According to the FDA about 4 cups of coffee per day is considered safe for most healthy adults. I don’t know about you, but I can say with full confidence if I drank 4 cups of coffee a day for a month, I would develop some kind of health crisis by the end of it.

My opinion is the reason conventional medical research seems to waffle back and forth so much—during one generation coffee’s the villain—next generation it is alcohol—is because of its greatest flaw: Its insistence on attempting to objectify things as healthy or not, good or bad.

Bitter diuretics have a drying effect on the body, so if you are someone who has more pathological biofilms than deficiency of blood and vital enzymes, you may benefit from coffee in moderation. If you are the inverse, it can have the opposite effect. You might mitigate this by having coffee with food, which can provide enough metabolic moisture to offset its bitter diuresis.

A good way to know whether coffee is good for you is to observe how your body responds to it. If it gives you heart palpitations or makes you feel racy, then 2-4 cups per day will likely not benefit your long-term heart health. The same goes for if it causes you soft stool. If coffee is your key to regular, formed bowel movements then its bitter biochemistry likely agrees with you. If it gives you diarrhea it tells us your gut is a bit too lacking in enzymes to properly metabolize it—not to mention the fact that diarrhea further depletes such enzymes, which will inevitably impact the heart over time, ironically.

Many doctors and scientists are brilliant but in my opinion their brilliance is often handicapped by a reductionist lens. If you want to know if coffee is good for your heart one of the best people to ask is yourself. Or a (real) herbalist.