I'll Have Coffee

Finally! Some good news about a so-called "bad food". That would be coffee, the much maligned drink that so many Americans prefer but have been told by the media is the cause of a variety of behavioral disorders of sort, the "He's nervous and jittery because he drinks too much coffee" routine. Green tea has been the darling of reports for a number of years, but it has little taste and appeal for me. I almost always have one cup of coffee (chicory coffee is my favorite) each morning. It gives me a psychological, if not physical boost and I doubt the small amount of caffeine in a cup causes any problems.

The Annals of Internal Medicine has just published two new studies on the effects of coffee, saying that drinking coffee could be connected to a reduced risk of dying from a slew of disease including heart disease and stroke. I sure hope they published a similar health effect of my favorite coffee accompaniment, the donut. The health benefits and limitations of coffee have been long studied, and this isn't the first time we coffee drinkers have seen headlines claiming it may help lead to a longer life. One of the  two studies examined a little over 185,000 Americans, and found that whether people drank caffeinated or decaffeinated, coffee was associated with a lower risk of death due to heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes and kidney disease in African Americans, Japanese Americans, Asians, Latinos and Caucasians.

The study indicated that those who reported that they drank two or three cups of coffee a day had an 18% decrease chance of death compared to those who did not drink coffee over the 16 year test period, according to the study.  Four cups a day is the maximum recommended usage. After that amount short term negative effects can result. But studies in the past show different people have different comfort levels of amounts of coffee they can drink.
The  second of the two studies was conducted in Europe. It surveyed more than 520,000 people across 10 countries, and also found that those who drank several cups of coffee a day had a lower risk of death than those who did not drink coffee.  Both studies separated smokers from nonsmokers and other factors that could have played a part in the results.

It's great news and I can add another cogent point to this study of coffee. That is, try all you want but you can't dunk a donut in green tea. Bring on the coffee and donuts!