Coffee And You
Coffee may not be as bad for you as you think! Of course too much of anything isn't good, and certainly if you drink coffee late at night it can keep you awake, but in general it seems that a daily cup or two of coffee can actually be good for you.
Stroke Research
Recent Spanish research published in Circulation, the Journal of the American Heart Association, shows that it is the antioxidants in coffee, rather than the caffeine, which helps to reduce the likelihood of strokes in healthy women. It appears that 3 cups of coffee a day reduced the risk of strokes by around 20%. Other research published in the Annals of Internal Medicine shows that women who drank coffee had a significantly lower risk of heart disease than either women who didn't drink coffee or men who did. However, it is important not to suddenly up your coffee intake. According to research published in Neurology, light coffee drinkers are twice as likely to have a stroke, even after an extra cup of coffee or two, than women who drink coffee more regularly.
So if you normally have no more than one coffee a day, or less, be careful to increase your coffee intake gradually.
Diabetes Research
Research into type 2 diabetes shows that a moderate amount of coffee can help reduce the risk of developing this disease. According to the Archives of Internal Medicine even three or four cups of decaffeinated coffee can lower your risk of developing type 2 diabetes, so again it seems that it's not the caffeine itself that is doing the trick.
Cancer Research
About 4 cups a day of boiled coffee, rather than filtered coffee, seems to help reduce breast cancer in certain women. This type of coffee, popular in Sweden, is similar to French press and Greek or Turkish coffee. According to the Cancer Causes and Control Journal, this coffee has about 80 times as much fatty acids as regular filtered coffee, and it seems that it is these fatty acids that give the protection. However, other Swedish research, published in Cancer, Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, shows that the protection offered by coffee depends on the specific cancer gene variant that a woman has. Different research published in the same journal shows that coffee can protect against various types of head and neck cancers. Researchers in Italy, looking at studies from southern Europe and Japan, have also discovered that coffee can also help protect against liver cancer and other liver disease.
Memory Research
As well as protecting you from various diseases, coffee can actually help your memory. Older French women who drank 3 or more cups of coffee a day appeared to have better memory recollection than women or men who didn't. Swedish research has also shown that drinking a moderate amount of coffee appears to protect against developing Alzheimer's disease in later life.
Check With Your Doctor
Before increasing your coffee intake check with your family doctor to make sure that drinking coffee won't affect any health condition you may have or conflict with any medications you are taking.
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