COFFEE NEWS

A team of Danish and Swedish researchers concluded in a recent study that middle-aged coffee drinkers could have a significantly less risk of developing dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease, later on in life.

The team tracked the coffee habits of 1,409 middle-aged men and women for 21 years. During that time, 61 participants developed dementia, 48 of whom developed Alzheimer’s.

The researchers controlled for socioeconomic factors and health risks like high blood pressure and high cholesterol, and found that people who drank three to five cups of coffee a day were 65 percent less likely to develop dementia than subjects who drank two cups or less per day.

“Given the large amount of coffee consumption globally, the results might have important implications for the prevention of, or delaying the onset of dementia/[Alzheimer's disease],” the researchers said in a statement.

People who drank more than five cups were also at a reduced risk, but there were not enough people in this group to draw significantly solid conclusions, the New York Times reported.

Source: http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7013949999

Ethiopians were the first to cultivate coffee trees. They were also the first nation to notice the bracing effect of the coffee beans. But the idea of “a cup of coffee” was unfamiliar to them. They did not drink, but ate coffee at those times. They fried coffee beans in boiling fat and served them as an appetizer.

	Decaffeinated coffee may cause cancer (ko-fe.com)

Thanks to Arabs we now have coffee in Europe – it was them who began to export coffee there. Europeans liked the beverage. However, coffee as a drink has been drawing criticism since then. There were times when the church ranked coffee drinking as a mortal sin. Nevertheless, contemporary scientists do not consider coffee to be quite safe. But now the majority of scientists agree that the main thing for every fan of this hot drink is to stay within limits, and then coffee will be of no harm healthwise.

Coffee beans contain such micro- and macro elements as iron, iodine, magnesium and phosphorus, which provide harmonious body functioning.

Long ago people knew that caffeine stimulates the activity of the central nervous system, increases the capacity for work and improves cerebration. One or two cups of coffee are enough to concentrate and get ready for work. But coffee has a downside if you drink it on an empty stomach, American scientists say.

Coffee is also a good euphoriant. Thanks to serotonin (mood enhancer) coffee acts as antidepressant. One cup of coffee a day is enough to halve the risk of depression. Probably, it is connected with the fact that coffee boosts sexual activity. Historians claim that in the 16^th century coffee helped elderly Constantinopolitan sultan Suleiman restore the lost interest in his harem. Happy sultan ordered to import coffee in plenty. Contemporary scientists agree that caffeine improves sexual potency of men and extends sexual activity of women over 50.

Scientists consider that two or three cups of coffee a day would be of no harm to your health. Approximately four cups of coffee a day are quite appropriate, dietitians say. But the excess of the stated dose can have negative consequences.

Caffeine increases heart rhythm and enhances pressure. Therefore, hypertensive people shouldn’t abuse the bracing beverage. In addition, people drinking more than six cups of coffee a day increase the risk of cardiovascular diseases by 70 percent.

Coffee can be dangerous to bones, it makes them more fragile. Caffeine washes calcium out of the body and blocks its digestion. About 40g of calcium can recompense one cup of coffee. So, coffee drinkers should eat more dairy products, fish and leafy vegetables.
Pregnant women should avoid coffee to decrease a possibility of miscarriage and growth impairment of the fetus. But that does not mean that caffeine should be completely excluded – one cup a day is not injurious at all.

Of course, insomniacs should not fall on the coffee. Do not drink coffee at least six hours before going to bed if you want to sleep sound.

Many people believe that coffee beans contain much more caffeine than instant coffee granules. In truth the difference is not so big. One average cup of non-instant coffee contains about 80mg of caffeine, whereas a cup of instant coffee – 60mg. To reduce the content of caffeine you should pour some ground coffee with boiling water, bring to the boil and fill the cups with it at once. This method keeps the flavor, and, at the same time, the beverage contains less caffeine.

However, one should not necessarily resort to such tricks. It is quite easy today to find decaffeinated coffee. But some people are prejudiced against this drink. They think that such coffee contains harmful substances. Earlier, methylene chloride, used in the 1980s to retrieve caffeine from coffee, caused concern. Some experts thought that it partially causes cancer, that is why it is not used nowadays.

At present the majority of coffee producers retrieve caffeine with the help of liquid carbon dioxide or steam. This technology entails no harmful substances. So, decaffeinated coffee drinkers can enjoy their favorite beverage without any apprehensions.

Source: http://english.pravda.ru/science/health/27-11-2007/101720-coffee-0

Two new medical studies suggest coffee is the latest substance which can help to prevent cancer

Two new medical studies suggest that coffee is the latest substance which can help to prevent cancer.

Scientists in Japan found that women who drink three or more cups a day can halve their risk of colon cancer; and researchers in the US concluded that combining drinking coffee with regular exercise can help to guard against skin cancer.

We are bombarded almost daily with new claims about what we should and should not eat and drink to keep us healthy, so who should we believe, and what is the right advice?

Video Link ->

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1-PJgwkfB4

Source:

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/294996E3-0FD5-4CC4-863C-B80439356DEE.htm?FRAMELESS=true&NRNODEGUID=%7b294996E3-0FD5-4CC4-863C-B80439356DEE%7d

Could smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee protect you from Parkinson’s disease?

That’s the startling suggestion of a new U.S. study of families that also found NSAID use has no impact on the disease risk.

Previous studies have reported that consuming caffeine, smoking and taking nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) such as aspirin, ibuprofen and naproxen may help prevent Parkinson’s disease, according to background information in the study. But there’s been little family-based research done to examine these links.

The new study, led by researcher Dana B. Hancock of Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C., included 356 Parkinson’s patients (averaging about 66 years of age) and 317 of their family members (averaging almost 64 years of age).

The people with Parkinson’s disease were 44 percent less likely to report ever smoking and 70 percent less likely to report current smoking compared with unaffected relatives, the study authors found.

“Increasing intensity of coffee drinking was inversely associated with Parkinson’s disease,” they added. “Increasing dosage and intensity of total caffeine consumption were also inversely associated, with high dosage presenting a significant inverse association with Parkinson’s disease.”

The study found no link between NSAID use and Parkinson’s disease.

The findings are published in the April issue of the journal Archives of Neurology.

It’s not known how smoking or caffeine consumption may help reduce the risk of developing Parkinson’s disease.

“Given the complexity of Parkinson’s disease, these environmental factors likely do not exert their effects in isolation, thus highlighting the importance of gene-environment interactions in determining Parkinson’s disease susceptibility,” the study authors wrote. “Smoking and caffeine possibly modify genetic effects in families with Parkinson’s disease and should be considered as effect modifiers in candidate gene studies for Parkinson’s disease.”

Source:

http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=80349

Drinking coffee might help prevent liver cirrhosis among heavy drinkers, according to a study published Monday by Kaiser Permanente Oakland.

“For heavy drinkers, the more coffee they drank, they less likely they were to get the diagnosis of cirrhosis,” said Dr. Arthur Klatsky, an investigator with Kaiser’s Division of Research and lead author of the study.

Researchers followed more than 125,000 Northern California Kaiser members between 1978 and 1985. Participants, none of whom had liver disease at the outset, filled out a questionnaire that included their alcohol, coffee and tea-drinking habits.

By the end of 2001, 330 participants had been diagnosed with liver disease, and of those, 199 had alcohol-related cirrhosis.

Those who drank one cup of coffee per day were on average 20 percent less likely to have cirrhosis, despite heavy drinking. Drinking two to four cups of coffee reduced risk by 40 percent.

The Kaiser members who drank four or more cups of coffee per day cut their risk of developing liver cirrhosis by an astonishing 80 percent, according to the study, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

Tea drinking did not reduce risk of developing the liver disease, and those whodeveloped cirrhosis for reasons other than heavy alcohol consumption saw no protective benefits from drinking coffee, researchers found.

It is unclear whether it is the caffeine or something else in coffee that protects the liver from alcohol-induced damage. The researchers did not ask participants whether they drank caffeinated or decaffeinated coffee.

Cirrhosis results in progressive damage and impaired function of the liver. Causes include heavy and chronic alcohol drinking — typically three or more drinks per day over a period of years — and viruses, such as hepatitis.

More than 5 million people nationwide have cirrhosis, and nearly 28,000 die of chronic liver disease each year, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.

About a quarter of all heavy, chronic drinkers develop cirrhosis of the liver, and it is not known why some escape the disease, Klatsky said.

“The first message is this may be some clue as to why some people who drink a lot of alcohol get cirrhosis and some don’t,” Klatsky said.

Liver cells leak certain enzymes when they are damaged. A high level of these enzymes indicate cirrhosis.

Kaiser researchers first reported the protective qualities of coffee and cirrhosis in 1993 in a much smaller study. The two Kaiser studies and others suggest that coffee somehow protects the liver so it does not secrete these enzymes.

While researchers noted that people do not always tell the truth on questionnaires, “it seems unlikely that underreporting of alcohol intake is the entire explanation” for the findings, they wrote in the study.

The take-home message is not that people can Irish up their coffee with no ill effects, Klatsky warned.

But coffee by itself is not such a bad thing in this case.

“A person concerned about their liver certainly doesn’t have to cut out coffee,” Klatsky said. “In general, coffee gets a bad rap.”

Source:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4176/is_20060613/ai_n16478303

One to three cups of coffee a day may protect people from heart disease and strokes, according to research which contradicts numerous studies that have suggested that coffee is bad for you.

The good news for coffee drinkers comes from a report in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition and is based on a study of 27,000 older women, followed for 15 years.

It found a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease by about 30 per cent in women who had a moderate intake of coffee. The analysis, part of the Iowa Women’s Health Study, found that up to 60 per cent of antioxidants in the diet may come from coffee.

Antioxidants protect cells from damage and reduce the inflammation that encourages arteries to narrow.

Active parts of coffee include caffeine and polyphenols. Polyphenols are also found in red wine and they too have been linked to a reduction in the risk of cardiovascular diseases in people who drink one to three glasses of red wine a day. The researchers in the Iowa study also pointed out that a Scottish survey of 11,000 men and women found that coffee drinking was associated with a reduction in deaths from all causes.

Dr Sarah Jarvis, a fellow of the Royal College of General Practitioners said: “This is a message about moderation. Too much exercise, too much coffee or too much alcohol are bad. In moderation they are beneficial.”

Source:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=LDB344TJQA3FPQFIQMGSFF4AVCBQWIV0?xml=/news/2006/05/12/wcoffee12.xml

 A teenage waitress overdosed on caffeine after drinking 14 shots of espresso.

Jasmine Willis, 17, could hardly breathe and was taken to hospital with a high temperature and heart palpitations.

She had drunk almost three times the recommended daily amount of caffeine in just four hours.

Miss Willis, a student, was working part-time out in her father Gary’s recently-opened sandwich bar after sitting her GCSEs.

She began her coffee binge last Wednesday after getting only five hours’ sleep the previous night.

“I decided to have a double espresso to perk me up,” she said. “It did the trick so I had one after another and they seemed to be working. I felt great - as if I could take on the world.”

By noon she was feeling unwell and crying and laughing uncontrollably in front of bewildered customers.

Miss Willis said: “My nerves were jangling. Tears were streaming down my face. People kept asking me if I was all right.”

Her father sent her home but by the following morning she could not feel her lips and was struggling to breathe.

Miss Willis, from Stanley, County Durham, spent several hours under observation at the University Hospital of North Durham, where the caffeine overdose was diagnosed.

She said: “I was drenched and burning up and hyperventilating.

“I was having palpitations, my heart was beating so fast. I think I was going into shock”.

Miss Willis is due to start her Alevels at college next month, studying law, psychology, sociology and accountancy.

She said last night: “Coffee is fine in moderation and really does pick you up, but I just overdid it. I didn’t realise what could happen, so I hope other people learn from my mistake.”

“I felt exhausted for days afterwards and I can’t even bear the sight of coffee now”.

Her father said: “Jasmine was just helping out in her holidays and had started on the 8am shift.

“She doesn’t usually drink coffee at all, not even instant. But I’ve just had a beautiful new coffee machine installed so she thought she’d try an espresso.”

The Department of Health advises people not to drink more than five single espressos or four cups of instant coffee a day.

Earlier this year scientists questioned the validity of the traditional view that caffeine can reduce the effects of tiredness and increase alertness.

The Bristol University team found that the levels of alertness among those who drank coffee were almost the same as those who had drunk none.

Coffee has been found to have some health benefits, however, Studies have suggested it can protect against the onset of Parkinson’s disease and keep the mind sharp into old age.

Tea and coffee also contain a wealth of other health-boosting compounds.

A spokesman for the British Coffee Association said: “There are thousands of published studies which demonstrate clearly that moderate coffee drinking - four to five cups a day - is perfectly safe.

Source:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/health/dietfitness.html?in_article_id=475021&in_page_id=1774&ICO=HEALTH&ICL=TOPART

“Increasingly, there is evidence to suggest that there are health benefits from it. The key to any healthy, balanced diet is moderation in all things and this applies to coffee.”