Is coffee good for you? Can you get addicted? Common coffee questions answered

Every body reacts differently to coffee - while some need it to wake up, others will have to rush to the toilet right away. Photo: Zacharie Scheurer/dpa

Some people can't get going in the morning until they've had a cup - or two or three - of coffee. Others swear they feel much better since they stopped drinking it. What's clear is that coffee has a strong effect on our body - or more precisely, caffeine does, its most active component.

"Caffeine has a pharmacological effect," says Dr Georg Wechsler, president of the Association of German Physicians for Nutritional Medicine (BDEM). In other words, it's similar to a drug.