5 Health Reasons To Drink Your Coffee
We love our coffee! That goes without saying, it tastes great, perks us up and makes everyone else bearable on a Monday morning. But the immediate benefits of coffee are not the only reasons to love it.
Kerri-Ann Jennings, M.S., R.D., Associate Nutrition Editor at EatingWell Magazine has given us five health reasons that we should not stop drinking coffee. Here they are:
1. It protects your heart:Moderate coffee drinkers (1 to 3 cups/day) have lower rates of stroke than noncoffee drinkers, an effect linked to coffee’s antioxidants. Coffee has more antioxidants per serving than blueberries, making it the biggest source of antioxidants in American diets. All those antioxidants may help suppress the damaging effect of inflammation on arteries. Immediately after drinking it, coffee raises your blood pressure and heart rate, but over the long term, it actually may lower blood pressure as coffee’s antioxidants activate nitric acid, widening blood vessels.
2. It diverts diabetes: Those antioxidants (chlorogenic acid and quinides, specifically) play another role: boosting your cells’ sensitivity to insulin, which helps regulate blood sugar. In fact, people who drink 4 or more cups of coffee each day may have a lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes, according to some studies. Other studies have shown that caffeine can blunt the insulin-sensitivity boost, so if you do drink several cups a day, try mixing in decaf occasionally.
3. Your liver loves it: OK, so the research here is limited, but it looks like the more coffee people drink, the lower their incidence of cirrhosis and other liver diseases. One analysis of nine studies found that every 2-cup increase in daily coffee intake reduced liver cancer risk by 43 percent. Again, it’s those antioxidants—chlorogenic and caffeic acids—and caffeine that might prevent liver inflammation and inhibit cancer cells.
4. It boosts your brain power: Drinking between 1 and 5 cups a day (admittedly a big range) may help reduce risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, as well as Parkinson’s disease, studies suggest. Those antioxidants may ward off brain cell damage and help the neurotransmitters involved in cognitive function to work better.
5. It helps your headaches: And not just the withdrawal headaches caused by skipping your daily dose of caffeine! Studies show that 200 milligrams of caffeine—about the amount in 16 ounces of brewed coffee—provides relief from headaches, including migraines. Exactly how caffeine relieves headaches isn’t clear. But scientists do know that caffeine boosts the activity of brain cells, causing surrounding blood vessels to constrict. One theory is that this constriction helps to relieve the pressure that causes the pain, says Robert Shapiro, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor of neurology and director of the Headache Clinic at the University of Vermont Medical School.
So go ahead, drink up and live long!
Studies Show Coffee Use Can Help Reduce Disease Risk
The Harvard School of Public Health has released an observational study showing that moderate coffee consumption can help reduce the risk of developing certain diseases including diabetes, heart disease, Parkinson’s disease, gallstones, liver cancer and cirrhosis.
The study was based on researchers drawing conclusion based on differences between the number of disease cases in coffee drinkers versus non-drinkers.
The Harvard University School of Health has an
infographic which includes Health Benefits, Health Risks, Caffeine Comparisons, and a Facts & Statistics a page addressing each disease the study indicated was affected by coffee consumption.
Coffee May Decrease Risk of Neck and Head Cancers
A new study in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention has shown that coffee drinkers have another reason to celebrate! Coffee may decrease the risk of neck and head cancers.
In this study, scientists looked at the results of nine previous cancer/caffeine studies (using coffee and tea) to come up with their findings. Results show that those who drink a lot of joe have a lower rate of head and neck cancer. In each of the pooled studies the participants with cancer were compared to healthy persons in the general populations and hospitalized persons who did not have cancer. Overall the rate of cancer was 12% lower in people who drank coffee as compared to their no-joe counterparts. This number comes after taking into account certain other factors such as cigarette smoking.
The more you drink, the better! The study found that those who consumed more than four cups a day had their risk of cancer reduced by more than a third.
For cancer of the voice box, or larynx, coffee didn’t seem to play a role; nor did tea or decaffeinated coffee for any type of head and neck cancer.
The data does not conclusively prove that coffee itself protects against cancer. There could be other factors associated with coffee drinking that explain the lower cancer risk, or cancer sufferers might have decreased their coffee intake for some reason. “Besides caffeine, coffee contains more than a thousand chemicals,” the researchers reported in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, adding that the compounds cafestol and kahweol may be protective against carcinogens that would normally damage our genes.
The odds of getting this type of cancer are slim. In the U.S., only about 1 in 10,000 develops the disease every year.
SOURCE: http://cebp.aacrjournals.org/ Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, June 22, 2010
Study Says Coffee NOT Linked To Colon Cancer
The Journal of the National Cancer Institute published the findings of a study on coffee and colon cancer online on May 7, 2010. The result was good news. Coffee is NOT linked to colon cancer so go ahead and drink up.
“Cutting down or removing sugar-sweetened beverages from the diet was viewed as a major target for preventing major cancers,” noted Dr. Barry Popkin of the University of North Carolina, who was not involved in the study.
Harvard researchers used data from several previous studies and followed some 700,000 people for up to 20 years after they had reported their dietary habits. Fewer than one in a hundred developed colon cancer, and neither coffee nor soft drinks influenced that rate appreciably.
“Drinking coffee, even more than six cups a day, was not associated with risk of colon cancer,” said Dr. Xuehong Zhang of the Harvard School of Public Health, who worked on the study. The findings, published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, square with earlier research for coffee.
For the heaviest tea drinkers, who drank at least four cups a day, the risk of developing colon cancer rose by 28 percent, on average. However, that link could be due to chance, or factors that the researchers didn’t measure –whether or not people put sugar and milk in their tea, or had pastries with it, for example.
“The relationship between tea and colon cancer is unclear for the time being,” said Zhang.
Coffee May Lower the Risk of Prostate Cancer
Bloomburg reports that according to a recent study presented at the American Association of Cancer Research conference, coffee may lower the risk of aggressive prostate cancer. The more coffee you drink, the better the effect according to Harvard researchers.
A new study followed 50,000 men over 20 years; those who drank six cups or more a day reduced their risk of developing aggressive cancerby 60 percent, according to Bloomberg. Men who drank one to three cups a day had a 20 percent lower risk than men who did not drink coffee. The research is the first to find a link between coffee and prostate cancer prevention, though the relationship was not seen in cases where the cancer was less aggressive, Bloomberg reports. More studies are needed to confirm the research.
Coffee May Lower the Risk of Endometrial Cancer
According to Reuters Health News , the Swedish researchers who are releasing the results of their study in the November International Journal of Cancer, drinking coffee may significantly lower the risk of endometrial cancer. The benefits of coffee are strongest for obese women.
Below is the article with a link at the end for you to go straight to the page:
What is endometrial cancer?
Forming in the tissue that lines the uterus, endometrial cancer is one of the most common types of cancer affecting women in America. Also known as uterine cancer, this form of cancer can be very deadly. According to the National Cancer Institute, there are 42,160 predicted new cases this year, and 7,780 expected deaths. If discovered early on, a complete removal of the uterus can take care of endometrial cancer altogether.
How does coffee help prevent endometrial cancer?
How exactly coffee helps is unknown, although, in 2008, and possibly earlier, it was proposed that coffee’s impact on insulin and estrogen levels, decreasing the circulation of both, may reduce the risk of uterine cancer. The Swedish researchers believe that the three factors of blood sugar levels, estrogen, and fat cells have something to do with the benefits of coffee, with all three being impacted by coffee consumption and as well being factors in contracting endometrial cancer.
In the Swedish study, 60,634 women were monitored for 17 years. Their coffee habits were recorded, as well as their health. One percent of the women ended up with uterine cancer. The study concluded that for women of an average weight, two cups of coffee a day reduced the chances of getting cancer by 10%, for overweight women, 12%, and obese women, 20%.
Coffee and Tea Keep You Alert and Healthy
Many of us feel sluggish in the morning, be it in a boardroom or in a classroom, we find ourselves tuning out, nodding off and generally not paying attention to what’s going on around us. There is a solution. Drinking tea and coffee with your breakfast will help to keep you alert, active, and healthy.
Coffee has also been found to help prevent Type 2 Diabetes. Tea has not been found to have the same effect. The Iowa Women’s Health Study showed that women who drink four or more cups of coffee a day are 20% less likely to develop diabetes than non-coffee drinkers.
Coffee also has an effect on Parkinson’s Disease. Coffee drinkers are 80% less chance of being diagnosed with the disease than non-drinkers. They also have a 25% less chance of developing colon cancer, and 80% less chance of developing cirrhosis of the liver and a 50% less chance of developing gallstones.
Drink up and live well!
To read more about coffee and its benefits, please see http://www.retrieverweekly.com/?module=displaystory&story_id=4701&format=html
Coffee May Prevent Skin Cancer?
We all know about the benefits of coffee. Perhaps the best known one is to keep up awake. Recently studies have shown coffees effect on internal organs, even helping to prevent certain kinds of cancers. Skin caner is now being added to the list of ailments that a cup a day might prevent or, in the unfortunate case that you do have it, help to fight the disease.
Coffee may be helpful as a drink or a rub in an effort to help protect you against skin caner according to a report made by WBAL-TV.
To read the article, check out
http://www.clickondetroit.com/health/19501372/detail.html
Coffee Can’t Hurt, Might Help
There is always ongoing research as to how coffee effects the body. Coffee used to get a bad wrap, but not anymore. Studies show that it couldprotect against diabetes, heart disease and stroke, liver cancer, cirrhosis and Parkinson’s disease. Coffee is also helpful for athletes to help them achieve the optimum in performance.
Why did earlier studies not show this? Perhaps it is because many coffee drinkers also smoke which skewed the previous tests on coffee. It is important to account for all factors when doing medical research so that you can truly evaluate the specific thing that you are testing, in this case, coffee.
For more information and to read the full story, check out the following link.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/health/la-he-coffee18-2009may18,0,2647860.column?track=rss
This article was written by Judy Forman. You can check out her site at www.myhealthsense.com
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