Study shows drinking coffee is good for you

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nivek

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http://www.haaretz.com/print-editio...good-for-you-1.346803?localLinksEnabled=false

Israeli researchers find that drinking coffee is good for you

Consuming three cups of coffee a day protects against heart attacks and is good for the circulatory system, according to researchers at Sheba Medical Center.

Consuming the equivalent amount of caffeine found in three cups of coffee is good for the circulatory system and protects against heart attacks, researchers at the Sheba Medical Center have found. The results of their study were published this week in the American Journal of Cardiology.

This would seem to negate the conventional wisdom, as cardiologists tend to advise their patients to reduce coffee consumption, on the grounds that caffeine increases the pulse rate and blood pressure, requiring more oxygen for the heart to function properly.

The research team, headed by Prof. Michael Shechter, the director of the clinical research unit at the Heart Institute at Sheba, examined the effect of caffeine consumption on the cardiovascular system. Eighty adults participated in the study, half of them healthy and half of them heart patients. The participants were asked to come to the institute two times, a week apart, and take a 200 mg. pill of caffeine, equivalent to the amount of caffeine found in three cups of coffee. Each participant received the caffeine pill on one visit and a placebo on the other, in a double-blind test where neither researcher nor subject knew which pill was taken when.

An hour after the pill was taken, blood samples were taken and ultrasounds were conducted of the hand artery to examine how the endothelium, the innermost layer of the artery, was functioning. "In the past, it was believed that this is only an isolated layer of the artery, but over the past decade, it was discovered that it secretes substances that maintain proper blood flow, enables the expansion of blood vessels and prevents an inflammatory process as well as the accumulation of fats along the blood vessel walls," explained Shechter. "When this layer is damaged, atherosclerosis [hardening of the artery walls] develops."

The study found that caffeine consumption improves the functioning of the endothelium by 30 percent, reduces by 40 percent the C-reactive (CRP ) protein in the body , a leading predictor of heart attacks and stroke, and increases by 25 percent the amount of adiponectin, a protein which prevents heart attacks and strokes.

The benefits of caffeine were detected in both the heart patients and the healthy patients. "Coffee sometimes also contains milk, sugar or artificial sweetener, and artificial flavors and coloring," Shechter noted, "but the study only looked at the impact of caffeine. We found this substance did have a benefit related to improving the vascular functioning of the body." He said it is still not clear what the effect of coffee consumption is over the long-term, but that over the course of several hours, its effect is positive. "I wouldn't prohibit heart patients from drinking a reasonable amount of coffee, say three cups a day," he said. The researchers plan to expand their study to the long-term effects of caffeine consumption on the cardiovascular system.

The findings of the Sheba team are surprising given recent warnings issued against increased caffeine consumption. In October 2010, the Health Ministry recommending banning the sale of energy drinks to adolescents over concerns regarding increased caffeine consumption. According to medical studies, excess caffeine consumption can cause side effects like anxiety, tension, headaches, agitation and insomnia.

But the findings of the Israeli researchers correspond with similar findings around the world in recent years. In a study published in January in the journal Heart, American researchers reported that based on research conducted among 59,490 people in Finland, aged 25 to 74, drinking coffee did not increase the risk of heart failure. Researchers from Germany reported in April 2010 that the daily consumption of four to eight cups of coffee increased good cholesterol (HDL ) levels. British researchers reported in January 2010, based on an analysis of brain tumors among cancer patients in Europe, that consumption of coffee and tea reduces the risk of developing a type of cancerous tumor known as glioma.
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Some good news :)
 
The elixir of life? I knew it! Maybe I'll live forever...
 
Take that, health Nazis! They always say something's bad, then it's good, then it's bad again, then oh no, wait this time we're sure its good..

Just shows you, as I've always said, just eat & drink anything you want in moderation, and you'll be fine. Unless you've got actual medical issues of course.

Coffee FTW!
 
Fail epidemiology. Come one guys, no link to the actual article? You can prove anything nowadays as long as confounding factors are ignored.
 
And here's one showing that it reduces the risk of certain types of cancers:
Coffee may help prevent cancer

June 22, 2010
Special to World Science

Several new studies suggest coffee helps prevent breast, prostate, head and neck cancers.

While too much coffee can cause health problems, such as ulcers, the new research suggests generous amounts of it are most strongly linked to lower cancer rates—between two and five cups daily, or even more, depending on the study and cancer type.

In one analysis, researchers pooled data on regular coffee drinkers and non-drinkers from nine studies collected by the International Head and Neck Cancer Epidemiology consortium.

People who drank about four or more cups a day had a 39 percent decreased risk of oral cavity and pharynx cancers combined, the investigators found. Data on decaffeinated coffee was too sparse for detailed analysis, they added, but indicated no increased risk. Tea intake wasn’t associated with head and neck cancer risk.

“What makes our results so unique is that we had a very large sample size… we had more statistical power to detect associations between cancer and coffee,” said said lead researcher Mia Hashibe of the University of Utah.

The research is published in the advance online issue of the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, published by the American Association for Cancer Research.

In another study, presented at the association’s Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research Conference last December, Harvard University researchers presented data showing that men who drank the most coffee had an up to 60 percent decreased risk of lethal and advanced prostate cancers.

Results of a third study published in the January issue of the same journal showed a decreased risk of gliomas, or brain tumors, associated with coffee. This link was found among those who drank five or more cups of coffee or tea a day, according the researchers from Imperial College, London.

And yet a fourth study, in the April 2008 issue of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, found that at least two or three cups of coffee a day can either reduce the risk of breast cancer or delay its onset.

This effect is related to estrogens, female sex hormones, said the scientists, from Lund and Malmö universities in Sweden. Certain metabolic products of these hor*mones are known to be carcinogen, and various components of coffee can alter the metabolism so that a woman acquires a better configuration of various estrogens, investigators said. Caffeine also hampers cancer cell growth.

In the study, researcher Helena Jernström and colleagues studied the coffee-drinking habits of women including nearly 460 breast cancer patients at Lund. Coffee’s effect, the scientists said, varied depending on which version women have of a gene called CYP1A2, which produces an enzyme that breaks down estrogen and coffee. Half of the women had a variant called A/A, while the others had either A/C or C/C.

“Those women who had one of the C variants, and who had drunk at least three cups of coffee a day, developed breast cancer considerably more seldom than women with the A/A variant with the same coffee consumption. Their cancer risk was only two thirds of that of the other women,” Jernström said.
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http://www.world-science.net/othernews/100622_cancer.htm
 
I LOVEEEE coffee, but since I found out that I am pregnant, I stopped drinking it alltogether (except for maybe 3 times, when I just gave in to the craving and had a cup!).

Seems the jury is still out on coffee's effects on the unborn baby.
 
Bunch of druggies :)

200mg all in one go? My head would explode.
 
blunomore said:
I LOVEEEE coffee, but since I found out that I am pregnant, I stopped drinking it alltogether (except for maybe 3 times, when I just gave in to the craving and had a cup!).

Seems the jury is still out on coffee's effects on the unborn baby.
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Yes, I too recall reading that pregnant women should not drink coffee.
 
Don't know about that, I have not touch coffee in 4 weeks now, and have never felt better?
 
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