Coffee is loved nationwide. However, some people have problems enjoying it because of it gives them heartburn. I too have had this problem. was able to find a stomach friendly coffee at www.honeybean.comthat helped me. Its called Cophee and is a reduced acid coffee. A lot of people suffer from this, enough that a study has been done.
European scientists have discovered a chemical in coffee that actually inhibits acid production in the stomach. They found this while doing research on the stomach-irritating chemicals in coffee.
“The major import of our work is that it provides scientific evidence that you can produce a more stomach-friendly coffee by varying the processing technology,” said study author Veronika Somoza, professor and chair of the Research Platform of Molecular Food Science at the University of Vienna, Austria.
The results of this study were presented yesterday at the American Chemical’s Society annual meeting in San Francisco.
The scientists looked at coffee’s effect on human stomach cells using a variety of preparations, including dark-roast, regular roast, decaffeinated and stomach-friendly. Instead of one single element, they identified a mixture of compounds — caffeine, catechols and N-alkanoly-5-hydroxytriptamides — as the chemicals in coffee that promote the production of stomach acid.
But a fourth chemical, N-methylpyridinium, which is more common in dark roasts, such as espresso and French roast blends, was found to inhibit acid.
N-methylpyridinium is a product of the roasting process itself, resulting in dark roasts that are less likely than lighter ones to cause stomach irritation, according to the research.
In furthering this research, the scientist plan on experimenting on human coffee drinkers to see if these findings translatete into real life coffee drnkers.
Dr. Joseph Vinson, a professor of chemistry at the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania who has studied the antioxidant properties of coffee, said the study suggests the possibility of a less troublesome brew.
“Cell studies can be legitimate. They can lead to human studies that will say the same thing,” said Vinson. “She [Somoza] has figured out a research approach that is one way to do it, and it’s a question of whether it is relevant to the human realm.”
Vinson predicted it will be.
“There’s more than enough data [in the study] to make it interesting,” said Vinson. “There can be this special coffee that doesn’t bother you.”
