Revista de Ciências Farmacêuticas Básica e Aplicada (Sep 2014)
Café: uma bebida rica em substâncias com efeitos clínicos importantes, em especial a cafeína
Abstract
Coffee is one of the most popular beverages in the world, with an approximate consumption of 6.7 million tons per year. Some of the physiological effects of a variety of substances found in the beverage are being widely studied. Some research highlights caffeine as a substance crucial to coffee’s biological effects. The aim of this study was to discern and highlight some of the relevant clinical effects of caffeine. To this end, we made a search for studies related to the clinical properties of coffee, which highlighted some of its main substances, and studies specifically about caffeine, which followed a clinical approach. The authors defined some positive and negative features of the clinical effects provoked by caffeine. Thus, the prospects of using caffeine, in food, as a medicine or in clinical parameter studies of type 2 diabetes, arrhythmia, cardiac arrest, nonfatal acute myocardial infarction, Parkinson and Alzheimer’s disease, were well discussed. In this context, it is very important to give responsible consideration to the use of caffeine, keeping in mind the vulnerability of the individual and the clinical manifestations of this substance.