Coffee Consumption Does Not Affect Insulin Sensitivity

In continuation of my updates on coffee

Consumption of four cups of coffee daily does not impact insulin sensitivity, according to a study published online Dec. 31 in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Derrick Johnston Alperet, from the National University of Singapore, and colleagues conducted a 24-week trial involving 126 overweight, non-insulin-sensitive adults aged 35 to 69 years. Participants were randomly assigned to receive either four cups of instant regular coffee or four cups of a placebo beverage per day (62 and 64 in each group, respectively). The amount of glucose metabolized per kilogram of body weight per minute (Mbw) was measured as the primary outcome.

The researchers observed no significant change in insulin sensitivity with coffee consumption versus placebo (percentage mean difference in Mbw, 4.0 percent; 95 percent confidence interval [CI], −8.3 to 18.0 percent; P = 0.53). In addition, there were no between-group differences during 24 weeks of the intervention in fasting plasma glucose or biological mediators of insulin resistance such as plasma adiponectin. Compared with participants in the placebo arm, those in the coffee arm experienced a loss of fat mass (−3.7 percent; 95 percent CI, −6.3 to −1.1 percent; P = 0.006) and a reduction in urinary creatinine concentrations (−21.2 percent; 95 percent CI, −31.4 to −9.5 percent; P = 0.001).

• "Coffee consumption was associated with a modest loss in body fat mass compared with the placebo beverage, and this potential impact on adiposity warrants confirmation in additional trials," the authors write.

https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/ajcn/nqz306/5686860?redirectedFrom=fulltext

Coffee Might Be Your Go-to Brew for Weight Loss

In continuation of my update on coffee

Could America's favorite morning drink also help fight one of its biggest health issues, obesity?

That's the suggestion from a British study that finds coffee stimulates the human body's "brown fat," a heat-generating form of fat that literally burns calories in a process called thermogenesis.

"This is the first study in humans to show that something like a cup ofcoffeecan have a direct effect on our brown fat functions," said study leader Michael Symonds, of the University of Nottingham.

"The potential implications of our results are pretty big, as obesity is a major health concern for society and we also have a growing diabetes epidemic and brown fat could potentially be part of the solution in tackling them," he said in a university news release.

But one U.S. obesity and nutrition expert said it's just too early to label coffee a dieter's best friend.

"Usually thermogenic properties are too minimal and insignificant" to help someone go from overweight to normal weight, explained registered dietitian Sharon Zarabi. She directs the bariatrics program at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City.

As Symonds' team explained, thermogenic brown fat was long thought to only exist in either human babies or hibernating animals, such as bears.

But in recent years it's been discovered in adult people. It's distinct from white fat cells, which is where the body stores excess calories.

"Brown fat works in a different way to other fat in your body and produces heat by burning sugar and fat, often in response to cold," Symonds explained. So, "increasing its activity improves blood sugar control as well as improving blood lipid [cholesterol] levels, and the extra calories burnt help with weight loss."

But can brown fat be stimulated into calorie-burning activity by something you eat or drink?

To find out, the British team used stem cell-based studies to first see if caffeine might do the trick. It did, at a certain dose.

The next step was to use high-tech imaging to track changes in brown fat stored in people's necks.

"We were able to image someone straight after they had a drink [of coffee] to see if the brown fat got hotter," said Symonds.

"The results were positive," he said, so the next step is to figure out which component of coffee -- perhaps the caffeine -- is activating brown fat.

His team is also "looking atcaffeinesupplements to test whether the effect is similar," Symonds said. "Once we have confirmed which component is responsible for this, it could potentially be used as part of a weight management regime or as part of [a] glucose regulation program to help prevent diabetes."

But Zarabi said dieters shouldn't view coffee as any magic potion for weight loss.

"I'd still recommend a cup o' joe at some point in the morning for a mental boost and pep in the day, but definitely not to help you lose weight -- unless you're using that caffeine for stimulation of a heart-pounding workout," she said.

That's because exercise remains the best and most efficient way to burn calories, Zarabi said.

But if you do choose to try coffee to lose weight, drink it black, she advised.

"This shouldn't give anyone the pass to drink unlimited amounts of coffee," Zarabi said. "And many drink coffee 'light and sweet,' which defeats the whole purpose of burning energy, because you're taking it all back in with the condiments."

Coffee May Have Another Perk for Kidney Patients

In continuation of my update on coffee

The benefit remained "even after considering other important factors such as age, gender, race, smoking, other diseases and diet," according to one of the study's lead authors, Miguel Bigotte Vieira, of North Lisbon Hospital Center in Portugal.

In the study, Vieira's team tracked data on 4,863 U.S. chronic kidney disease patients monitored from 1999 to 2010.

Although the study couldn't prove cause-and-effect, it found that greater caffeine intake was tied to greater life expectancy for people with chronic kidney disease.

Compared to those who consumed very little caffeine per day, people with caffeine intake in the high range had about a 25 percent lower risk of death over an average follow-up of five years.

People who consumed the most caffeine tended to be white and male, with more education and higher incomes. They were also more likely to be current or former smokers and heavier drinkers than those who drank only small amounts of caffeine.

The findings were published Sept. 12 in Nephrology Dialysis Transplantation.

According to the researchers, chronic kidney disease affects 14 percent of American adults, leading to higher health care costs and a greater risk of death.

So, simply drinking more coffee or other caffeine-laden beverages "would represent a simple, clinically beneficial and inexpensive option, though this benefit should ideally be confirmed in a randomized clinical trial," Vieira said in a journal news release.

One U.S. endocrinologist who wasn't connected to the study said there could be physiologic reasons behind the benefit.

"Coffee has had a bad reputation, but this study showed that people who drink coffee did better," said Dr. Robert Courgi, of Southside Hospital in Bay Shore, N.Y."Perhaps it is because coffee may help the blood vessels function better through nitric oxide," he said. Nitric oxide is a key player in healthy blood vessel function.

Ref: https://medlineplus.gov/caffeine.html

Coffee helps teams work together, study suggests

In continuation of my update on coffee

Good teamwork begins with a cup of coffee for everyone, a new study suggests.

Researchers found that people gave more positive reviews for their group's performance on a task—and their own contribution—if they drank caffeinated coffee beforehand.

A second study showed that people talked more in a group setting under the influence of caffeinated coffee—but they also were more on-topic than those who drank decaf.

Coffee seems to work its magic in teams by making people more alert, said Amit Singh, co-author of the study and a doctoral student in marketing at The Ohio State University's Fisher College of Business.

"We found that increased alertness was what led to the positive results for team performance," Singh said.

"Not surprisingly, people who drank caffeinated coffee tended to be more alert."

Singh conducted the study with Vasu Unnava and H. Rao Unnava, both formerly at Ohio State and now with the Graduate School of Management at the University of California, Davis. The study appears online in the Journal of Psychopharmacology.

While many studies have looked at how caffeine affects individual performance, this is the first to examine the impact it has on teams, Singh said.

The first study involved 72 undergraduate students who said they were coffee drinkers. They were instructed not to drink coffee before the experiment.

Half of them first participated in what they were told was a coffee-tasting task. They were split into groups of five. After drinking a cup of coffee and rating its flavor, they were given 30 minutes of filler tasks to give the caffeine a chance to kick in. The other half of the participants did the coffee tasting at the end of the experiment.

Each group then read about and were asked to discuss a controversial topic—the Occupy movement, a liberal movement that highlighted social and economic inequality. After a 15-minute discussion, group members evaluated themselves and the other group members.

Results showed that those who drank the coffee before the discussion rated themselves and their fellow team members more positively than did those who drank coffee after the discussion, Singh said.

The second study was similar, except that 61 students all drank coffee at the beginning of the study. However, half drank decaf and the others drank caffeinated brew.

http://journals.sagepub.com/loi/jop

What Does the Research Say About Coffee and Your Health?

In continuation of my update on coffee...

Coffee-Cup of joe. Java. No matter what you call it, millions of people worldwide wake up and fuel their day with it. And though consumers might be jittery about the recent court battle in California over cancer warnings, experts say most of the science actually indicates coffee could have health benefits.

"The overall picture is quite clear," said Dr. Frank Hu, chair of nutrition at Harvard University's T.H. Chan School of Public Health. "There is no long-term increased risk of major chronic disease, including diabetes, cardiovascular disease or even cancer."

The java confusion stems over an eight-year court case. A Los Angeles-based judge's preliminary decision last month requires cancer warning labels because of concerns about acrylamide, a chemical produced during the roasting process. Acrylamide also is present in some fried or roasted starchy foods, including french fries, potato chips, breakfast cereals and toast. It's also found in cigarette smoke. The judge gave the coffee industry a few weeks to file appeals and could issue a final ruling late this month.

But there's little evidence acrylamide levels in food cause cancer in humans. Studies have found no consistent evidence acrylamide exposure in food is associated with cancer risk, according to the U.S. National Cancer Institute. The World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer reviewed more than 1,000 human and animal studies and issued a statement in 2016 that "found no conclusive evidence for a carcinogenic effect of drinking coffee."

"The California judge's decision to label coffee as a cancer risk is really inconsistent with the scientific literature," Hu said. "It's very misleading and has already caused a huge amount of confusion in the general public. The health outcomes have been remarkably consistent."

Hu was senior author of a 2015 study in the journal Circulation that concluded people who regularly drink moderate amounts of coffee daily -- fewer than five cups -- experienced a lower risk of death from heart and neurological diseases.

About four years ago, the U.S. government gave coffee its OK, too. The Department of Agriculture's dietary guidelines for all Americans, published every five years as a go-to source for nutrition advice, said three to five cups a day, which can be up to 400 milligrams a day of caffeine, can be part of a healthy diet. The American Heart Association suggests that people who have an arrhythmia, an abnormal heart rhythm, talk to their health care provider about caffeine intake.

"This guidance on coffee is informed by strong and consistent evidence showing that, in healthy adults, moderate coffee consumption is not associated with an increased risk of major chronic diseases (e.g., cancer) or premature death, especially from cardiovascular disease," the federal guidelines say. "However, individuals who do not consume caffeinated coffee or other caffeinated beverages are not encouraged to incorporate them into their eating pattern."

More recently, a review of more than 200 studies published last fall in the BMJ concluded three to four cups a day may be "more likely to benefit health than harm." It found a lower risk of liver disease and some cancers in coffee drinkers, and a lower risk of dying from stroke.

All of that should be good news to the people around the world who drink more than 1.1 billion cups of coffee each day.

But it's still easy to be confused. A quick search for coffee and health online yields hundreds, even thousands, of results.

Studies abound -- some funded by the coffee industry. For example, a European Journal of Nutritionstudy investigated the effects of coffee and its antioxidant properties and found no effect. Researchers took blood samples of 160 volunteers who drank up to three to five cups of coffee or water each day for eight weeks.

"Up to five cups of coffee per day had no detectable effect, either beneficial or harmful, on human health," that study concluded. It was funded by Kraft Foods, which makes Maxwell House coffees.

Of course, "no one is talking about coffee as a magic bullet," Hu said. He and other experts say it's important to keep track of the bigger picture, with the focus on moderation and dietary patterns.

"You can't pin anything on any one specific lifestyle behavior, particularly with diet," said Alice Lichtenstein, a senior scientist and director of the Cardiovascular Nutrition Laboratory at Tufts University in Boston.

"When we talk about diet, it should really be about the whole package, not single items. Right now, the majority of the evidence suggests there may be a health benefit from drinking coffee and there doesn't seem to be any disadvantage. Of course, with a caveat that you don't want to add a lot of cream and sugar, or to use it as an excuse to have a few cookies or a pastry. Then, there is a downside," said Lichtenstein, a professor of nutrition science and policy who also was an advisor on the federal dietary guidelines.

"We have a tendency to focus on one or two specific foods or beverages, and that's when the whole floor falls out from under us."

Moderate coffee consumption more likely to provide beneficial health outcomes

In continuation of my update on coffee

Drinking coffee is "more likely to benefit health than to harm it" for a range of health outcomes, say researchers in The BMJ today.

They bring together evidence from over 200 studies and find that drinking three to four cups of coffee a day is associated with a lower risk of death and getting heart disease compared with drinking no coffee. Coffee drinking is also associated with lower risk of some cancers, diabetes, liver disease and dementia.

However, they say drinking coffee in pregnancy may be associated with harms, and may be linked to a very small increased risk of fracture in women.

The included studies used mainly observational data, providing lower quality evidence, so no firm conclusions can be drawn about cause and effect, but their findings back up other recent reviews and studies of coffee intake. As such, they say, excluding pregnancy and women at risk of fracture, "coffee drinking appears safe within usual patterns of consumption" and they suggest that coffee could be safely tested in randomised trials.

Coffee is one of the most commonly consumed beverages worldwide and could have positive health benefits. But existing evidence is of lower quality from observational research and randomized controlled trials are needed to strengthen the evidence of benefits.

To better understand the effects of coffee consumption on health, a team led by Dr Robin Poole, Specialist Registrar in Public Health at the University of Southampton, with collaborators from the University of Edinburgh, carried out an umbrella review of 201 studies that had aggregated data from observational research and 17 studies that had aggregated data from clinical trials across all countries and all settings.

Umbrella reviews synthesize previous meta-analyses and provide a high-level summary of research on a particular topic

Drinking coffee was consistently associated with a lower risk of death from all causes and from heart disease, with the largest reduction in relative risk of death at three cups a day, compared with non-coffee drinkers. Increasing consumption to above three cups a day was not associated with harm, but the beneficial effect was less pronounced.

Coffee was also associated with a lower risk of several cancers, including prostate, endometrial, skin and liver cancer, as well as type 2 diabetes, gallstones and gout. The greatest benefit was seen for liver conditions, such as cirrhosis of the liver.

Finally, there seemed to be beneficial associations between coffee consumption and Parkinson's disease, depression and Alzheimer's disease.

There was less evidence for the effects of drinking decaffeinated coffee but it had similar benefits for a number of outcomes.

Many of the included studies may have adjusted for factors that may be associated with both the health outcome and with coffee drinking, such as smoking. This was not comprehensive and varied from study to study. The authors can therefore not rule out the effect of such factors on the apparent harmful or beneficial associations.

The authors conclude that coffee drinking "seems safe within usual patterns of consumption, except during pregnancy and in women at increased risk of fracture." And they call for robust randomized controlled trials "to understand whether the key observed associations are causal."

In a linked editorial, Eliseo Guallar at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health says, although we can be reassured that coffee intake is generally safe, doctors should not recommend drinking coffee to prevent disease - and people should not start drinking coffee for health reasons.

As this study shows, some people may be at higher risk of adverse effects, he writes, and there is "substantial uncertainty" about the effects of higher levels of intake. Finally, coffee is often consumed with products rich in refined sugars and unhealthy fats, "and these may independently contribute to adverse health outcomes," he adds.

However, even with these caveats, "moderate coffee consumption seems remarkably safe, and it can be incorporated as part of a healthy diet by most of the adult population," he concludes.

Ref : http://www.bmj.com/content/359/bmj.j5356

Moderate coffee consumption more likely to provide beneficial health outcomes

Moderate coffee consumption may offer protection against age-related cognitive decline

A new report from the Institute for Scientific Information on Coffee (ISIC), a not-for-profit organisation devoted to the study and disclosure of science related to coffee and health, highlights the potential role of coffee consumption in reducing the risk of cognitive decline. The report concludes that a moderate intake of coffee (3-5 cups per day) may provide protection against age-related cognitive decline and other neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

The report provides a summary of the research presented at ISIC's symposium, titled 'Nutrition, Coffee and Age-Related Cognitive Decline', held during the European Union Geriatric Medicine Society's 2016 Congress in Lisbon, Portugal. The findings are particularly relevant given Europe's ageing population: the number of people aged 60 years or over is projected to rise to 217.2 million by 2030, therefore understanding and communicating diet and lifestyle factors that may limit age-related cognitive decline will help to improve the quality of life for this growing demographic.

The symposium speakers whose insights and research contributed to ISIC's report were:

• Professor Lisette de Groot, Professor of Nutrition and Ageing, Division of Human Nutrition at Wageningen University (The Netherlands)
• Professor Rodrigo A. Cunha, Professor at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Coimbra and Principal Investigator at the Centre for Neuroscience and Cell Biology of the University of Coimbra (CNC) (Portugal)
• Dr Elisabet Rothenberg, Associate Professor of Nutrition at Kristianstad University (Sweden)

Key highlights about coffee from the report include:

• Research published in 2016 suggests that moderate coffee consumption can reduce the risk of developing Alzheimer's by up to 27%. Research has suggested that it is regular, long-term coffee drinking that is key to helping to reduce the risk of Alzheimer's Disease.
• The association between coffee consumption and cognitive decline is illustrated by a 'U-shaped' pattern in recent meta-analyses, with the greatest protection seen at an intake of approximately 3-5 cups of coffee per day.
• Although the precise mechanisms of action behind the suggested association between coffee and age-related cognitive decline are unknown, caffeine is likely to be involved. There are many other compounds in coffee, such as antioxidants and anti-inflammatory agents, which may also play a role. Caffeic acid, for example, is a polyphenol (antioxidant) found in coffee, and research suggests that these may be associated with improved cognitive function.

Professor Rodrigo A. Cunha, Professor at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Coimbra and Principal Investigator at the Centre for Neuroscience and Cell Biology of the University of Coimbra (CNC), Portugal, commented:

"Healthcare professionals have an important part to play in providing patients with accurate research-based information, to help them to follow a healthy diet and lifestyle, and in turn, reduce their risk of age-related cognitive decline. Moderate coffee consumption could play a significant role in reducing cognitive decline which would impact health outcomes and healthcare spending across Europe."

In its Scientific Opinion on the safety of caffeine, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) concluded that intakes of up to 400mg of caffeine (the equivalent of up to 5 cups of coffee per day), from all sources, do not raise any concerns for healthy adults. One cup of coffee provides approximately 75-100mg caffeine.

Coffee, Wine Good for Healthy Gut, Sodas May Be Bad

The food you eat and the medicines you take can alter your gut bacteria in ways that either help or harm your health, two new studies suggest.

Foods like fruits, vegetables, coffee, tea, wine, yogurt and buttermilk can increase the diversity of bacteria in a person's intestines. And that diversity can help ward off illness, said Dr. Jingyuan Fu, senior author of one of the studies.

"It is believed that higher diversity and richness [in gut bacteria] is beneficial," explained Fu. She is an associate professor of genetics at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.

On the other hand, foods containing loads of simple carbohydrates appear to reduce bacterial diversity in the gut, Fu and colleagues found. These include high-fat whole milk and sugar-sweetened soda.

In addition, medications can also play a part in the makeup of your gut bacteria. Antibiotics, the diabetes drug metformin and antacids can cut down on gut bacterial diversity, the researchers found. Smoking and heart attacks also can have a negative effect, the team said.

Each person's intestines contain trillions of microorganisms, which doctors refer to as the "gut microbiome," said Dr. David Johnson. He is chief of gastroenterology at Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, Va., and a past president of the American College of Gastroenterology.

The gut microbiome plays an essential but little-understood role in human health, said Johnson, who was not involved with the new studies.

"It's the largest immune system in the body," Johnson explained. "These bacteria have a very dramatic and prominent role in determining health and disease."

To study the effect of lifestyle on the gut microbiome, Fu and her colleagues collected stool samples from more than 1,100 people living in the northern Netherlands.

The samples were used to analyze the DNA of the bacteria and other organisms that live in the gut. In addition to stools, the study collected information on the participants' diets, medicine use and health.

In the second study, researchers with the Flemish Gut Flora Project performed a similar analysis on stool samples taken from 5,000 volunteers in Belgium.

Both studies concluded that diet has a profound effect on the diversity of gut bacteria, although, Fu said, the "underlying theories of these dietary factors remain largely unknown."

Johnson added that medicines can have the same effect, and antibiotics actually can kill off some important strains of gut bacteria. "One dose of an antibiotic may disrupt your gut bacteria for a year," he said.

Both sets of researchers emphasized that their studies only help explain a fraction of gut bacteria variation -- roughly 18 percent for the Netherlands study, and about 7 percent for the Flemish study.

However, the findings from the two groups overlapped about 80 percent of the time, indicating that they are on the right track, the researchers said.

The Belgian researchers estimated that over 40,000 human samples will be needed to capture a complete picture of gut bacteria diversity.

Johnson noted that other research has shown that poor sleep, obesity, diabetes and the use of artificial sweeteners also can interfere with gut bacteria.

"The general rule is a balanced diet with high fiber and low carbs tends to drive a better gut health overall," he said.

According to Fu, once researchers have a clearer understanding of the gut microbiome and its effects on health, doctors could be able to help prevent or heal illness by reading or influencing the bacteria within people's bodies.

"The personalized microbiome may assist in personalized nutrition, personalized medicine, disease risk stratification and treatment decision-making," she said.

Both studies were published in the April 29 issue of the journal Science.

Coffee, Wine Good for Healthy Gut, Sodas May Be Bad  

Can coffee protect against malignant melanoma? Study looks at trends .............

Both epidemiological and pre-clinical studies have suggested that coffee consumption has a protective effect against non-melanoma skin cancers. However the protective effect for cutaneous melanoma (malignant and in situ) is less clear, according to a study published January 20 in the JNCI: Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

To determine if there is an association between coffee consumption and risk of cutaneous melanoma, Erikka Loftfield, M.P.H., of the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, National Cancer Institute, and colleagues used data from the NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study. Information on coffee consumption was obtained from 447,357 non-Hispanic white subjects with a self-administered food-frequency questionnaire in 1995/1996, with a median follow-up of 10 years. All subjects included in the analysis were cancer-free at baseline, and the authors adjusted for ambient residential ultraviolet radiation exposure, body mass index, age, sex, physical activity, alcohol intake, and smoking history.

Overall, the highest coffee intake was inversely associated with a risk of malignant melanoma, with a 20% lower risk for those who consumed 4 cups per day or more. There was also a trend toward more protection with higher intake, with the protective effect increasing from 1 or fewer cups to 4 or more. However, the effect was statistically significant for caffeinated but not decaffeinated coffee and only for protection against malignant melanoma but not melanoma in-situ, which may have a different etiology.

The researchers point out that the results are preliminary and may not be applicable to other populations, and therefore additional investigations of coffee intake are needed. However, they conclude that "Because of its high disease burden, lifestyle modifications with even modest protective effects may have a meaningful impact on melanoma morbidity.

Ref : http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/content/107/2/dju421

Can coffee protect against malignant melanoma? Study looks at trends   

Chemical compound in coffee may help prevent damaging effects of obesity

In continuation of my update on chlorogenic acid

Researchers at the University of Georgia have discovered that a chemical compound commonly found in coffee may help prevent some of the damaging effects of obesity.

In a paper published recently in Pharmaceutical Research, scientists found that chlorogenic acid, or CGA, significantly reduced insulin resistance and accumulation of fat in the livers of mice who were fed a high-fat diet.

"Previous studies have shown that coffee consumption may lower the risk for chronic diseases like Type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease," said Yongjie Ma, a postdoctoral research associate in UGA's College of Pharmacy and lead author of the paper. "Our study expands on this research by looking at the benefits associated with this specific compound, which is found in great abundance in coffee, but also in other fruits and vegetables like apples, pears, tomatoes and blueberries."

During the past 20 years, there has been a dramatic increase in obesity in the United States. More than one-third of U.S. adults and approximately 17 percent of children are obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the annual medical cost of obesity is more than $147 billion.

Aside from weight gain, two common side effects of obesity are increased insulin resistance and the accumulation of fat in the liver. Left untreated, these disorders can lead to diabetes and poor liver function.

To test the therapeutic effects of CGA, researchers fed a group of mice a high-fat diet for 15 weeks while also injecting them with a CGA solution twice per week.

Chemical compound in coffee may help prevent damaging effects of obesity

Caffeine's effect on the brain's adenosine receptors visualized for the first time

In continuation on my update on coffee

Molecular imaging with positron emission tomography (PET) has enabled scientists for the first time to visualize binding sites of caffeine in the living human brain to explore possible positive and negative effects of caffeine consumption. According to research published in the November issue of The Journal of Nuclear Medicine, PET imaging with F-18-8-cyclopentyl-3-(3-fluoropropyl)-1-propylxanthine (F-18-CPFPX) shows that repeated intake of caffeinated beverages throughout a day results in up to 50 percent occupancy of the brain's A₁adenosine receptors.

"There is substantial evidence that caffeine is protective against neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson's or Alzheimer's disease," noted Elmenhorst. "Several investigations show that moderate coffee consumption of 3 to 5 cups per day at mid-life is linked to a reduced risk of dementia in late life. The present study provides evidence that typical caffeine doses result in a high A₁ adenosine receptor occupancy and supports the view that the A₁ adenosine receptor deserves broader attention in the context of neurodegenerative disorders." 

Caffeine's effect on the brain's adenosine receptors visualized for the first time

Coffee's Unique Health Benefits........

In continuation of my update on coffee, 

 

• Coffee is the greatest source of antioxidants in the American diet.3,4 And the good news is that sound scientific studies have found that the common fears about excess coffee consumption are invalid, and higher intake means bigger benefits. 
• An impressive number of studies have shown a strong association between higher consumption of coffee and a significantly reduced risk of most chronic diseases, including diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, Alzheimer's disease, and others.
• With over 1,000 phytochemicals, coffee's unparalleled antioxidant punch no doubt plays a role in its protection against disease. But a multitude of direct biological actions on the body are suspected, such as an improvement in intracellular signaling,95,96 which may help prevent cancer, diabetes and more.
• Drinking just one cup of coffee a day - caffeinated or decaffeinated - can decrease the risk of developing diabetes by 13%.24 But at 12 cups a day, the risk of getting diabetes is slashed by 67%.21
• Far from being a risky habit, coffee has now been shown to provide powerful protection against an epidemic of diabetes and a rising tide of other age-related diseases. It's an all-natural and inexpensive elixir - to go!

 While I wanted to compile all the benefits of coffee in one article, I found a detailed article and many interesting ones at  Life Extension Magazine.  

At the same I was impressed with A graphic on coffee- How  Coffee Revolutionized the world !. It gives an idea about how the coffee revolutionized the world since 800 AD to 2012, well done Tony Shin.. 

Coffee may protect against womb cancer: Study

 In continuation of my update on the benefits of coffee

A new study shows that regular intake of coffee may significantly lower risk for endometrial or womb cancer.

For the study the researchers looked at coffee consumption and endometrial cancer risk in more than 67,000 women aged between 34 and 59 enrolled in the long-running Nurses' Health Study. The researchers found that women who took more than four cups of coffee a day over a 26-year period were 25 percent less likely to get the cancer. Women who drank two to three cups a day were 7 percent less likely to get it. Drinking less than four cups a day was not associated with reduced risk. Furthermore drinking tea did not reduce the risk. Additionally drinking more than two cups of decaffeinated coffee a day was tied to a 22 percent reduced risk for endometrial cancer.

The benefit wasn't a complete surprise, since coffee has been shown to lower estrogen and insulin levels, and higher levels of these hormones have been associated with an increased risk of endometrial cancer. But the new findings do help to clarify how obesity, estrogen and coffee might interact in triggering tumors.

“It would be premature to make a recommendation that women drink coffee to lower their endometrial cancer risk,” study author Dr. Edward Giovannucci, professor of nutrition and epidemiology at Harvard School of Public Health...

Ref : http://cebp.aacrjournals.org/content/early/2011/10/03/1055-9965.EPI-11-0766.abstract?sid=d8d229ed-e4b4-4b7a-bc6a-f3f86cba4c0e