 So many foods are always in the news because some new piece of research is saying it's good and then it's bad. Now one of those commonly consumed items is coffee. For a lot of people they drink a cup of coffee or two or three cups of coffee every single day. So it's a bit alarming if a piece of research comes out that says coffee is not good for this condition. In this video I want to talk about from a Chinese medicine point of view is coffee good for you or bad for you. Hey guys Dr. Alex Hain author of the health book master today doctor of Chinese medicine and acupuncturist. So before we jump into this video two very important links. Right below this video there are two links and the first is if you want to become a patient of mine in my private practice in Los Angeles you can contact the link below which has a link to my private practice to contact me or to reach out to someone at my office. The second is for a free guide which is four daily rituals that potentially help you out years to your life with Chinese medicine. So before we jump into talking about coffee specifically the definition of health in Chinese medicine is a little bit different than traditional medicine. You know if you ask your doctor what is healthy they will probably say something like a healthy BMI your blood work your labs look good but I have a lot of patients I see probably 30% of my patients have normal labs they don't feel well and they're not well they're sick from a Chinese medicine point of view on top of the fact that they feel sick so how could that be true on its own. Well I think Chinese medicine is a bit more of a nuanced description and I want to quote a chapter from our most ancient medical book the Yellow Emperors Inner Classic and the very first chapter talks about longevity and health so some of these terms are a bit archaic but I want to explain this after reading it. So the first chapter says in comparison to why people in ancient times they talked about people who follow the Tao live a long life versus modern people who are old by the time they're 50 he says now when the sages of high antiquity taught those below they always spoke to them about the following they talked about quiet peacefulness absolute emptiness that the true chi follows these states when essence and spirit are guarded internally where could a disease come from hence the mind is relaxed and one has few desires the heart is at peace and one is not in fear the physical appearance is taxed but it's not tired now there are more chapters in this book that talk about the free flow of chi I like to use the word circulation function in these organs as being the definition of health so let's talk about the idea of coffee because everything we put into our body has an effect on what's called the chi dynamic in chinese medicine now the chi dynamic may be on a very material level as a synonym for physiology right healthy functioning chi dynamic is healthy physiology the opposite is pathology when we talk about the chi dynamic healthy physiological flow is for example eating food you digest the food without much discomfort and you pass it in a bowel movement also without much discomfort obviously there are many places that can go wrong because I see so many patients for gi problems and I've struggled with them lifelong myself but let's give an example so a study may say that there's a direct correlation between how much coffee you drink and your longevity that it's good for circulation or that it has antioxidants but let's say you as an individual you drink coffee and you get a lot of indigestion or you get full-on acid reflux or you get heart palpitations or insomnia or light sleep or anxiety do you trust the study that says drinking more coffee is better for you or do you trust your body which says coffee sure as hell is not a health food for me this is definitely increasing pathology because if I don't have coffee I don't have acid reflux when I do have it I get a lot of indigestion and acid reflux so what do you trust in my opinion if you're having gastrointestinal upset if you're having nervous system issues palpitations anxiety and insomnia from coffee coffee is not a health food for you regardless of what a study says or 500,000 sample size population says for this study on coffee if coffee is causing now much upset to your physiology to us in chinese medicine the chi dynamic it is not something that's going to help you live a long healthy life clearly but I'm often surprised by the fact that sometimes people will trust the study over their own body so they will say the study says this my doctor says this when they are full of pathology and illness so from a physiological perspective and a pathological perspective is coffee good for you or bad for you if you're more of a sensitive type that coffee gives you indigestion it gives you reflux probably shouldn't drink it or should be careful of the dosage because I think as apocrates said apocrates are paracelsus the dose makes the poison so maybe like me you can only have coffee every couple days or a couple times a week maybe you're someone who tolerates coffee really well and you can even drink it before bed and you're out like a light and you sleep well and you have good energy if that's the case maybe coffee is fine maybe you're someone that gets constipated easily even though you eat a decent diet maybe you eat a crap diet but coffee helps you stay regular with no other ill effects then maybe coffee is a very therapeutic agent for you because the lack of constipation right having a healthy bowel movement will be better than missing a day or two or three and if the coffee has no other ill effects on your body maybe it is a medicine so thinking about is this more medicine or more poison based on the effect it has on my body it's really high level medicine and I think we need to get back to the spot where we are trusting ourselves and not just relying on a study even though we do that and we don't feel that well so keep in mind common sense is coffee good or bad for you the answer is always it depends and bad for who who is drinking coffee it's not about the substance coffee necessarily it's not straight poison it's not arsenic or it's not mercury it's a food substance but can be quite strong and can have side effects so who is it for is it more medicine more poison and at what dose I think that's something really important to think about because I don't think a lot of people do so my two cents on coffee and the effect it has on the body the physiology in Chinese medicine before you guys go don't forget those two links right below this video to reach out to contact my private practice or to download that free guide and otherwise I have two related videos for you right there