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Science

Coffee A Health Drink? 404

Posted by Zonk from the never-touch-the-stuff dept.
Yocto Yotta wrote to mention an article from The Independent which would seem to indicate that coffee has numerous health benefits, and could be construed to be a 'health drink'. From the article: "'A study has found that coffee contributes more antioxidants - which have been linked with fighting heart disease and cancer - to the diet than cranberries, apples or tomatoes...[antioxidants in coffee] have been linked to a number of health benefits, including protection against heart disease and cancer. Studies have associated coffee drinking with a reduced risk of liver and colon cancer, type two diabetes, and Parkinson's disease.'"
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Coffee A Health Drink? More

Coffee A Health Drink?

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  • That explains... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29, 2005 @02:33AM (#13425151)
    ... Why computer programmers and other cube dwellers are always the picture of health and fitness!

  • Yellow Teeth (Score:5, Funny)

    by panaceaa ( 205396 ) on Monday August 29, 2005 @02:33AM (#13425156) Homepage Journal
    In addition, the yellow teeth you get will prevent you from getting STDs!!

    As if us Slashdotters need any additional help with that :).

    • Re:Yellow Teeth (Score:5, Informative)

      by moro_666 ( 414422 ) <kulminaator@gCOB ... m minus language> on Monday August 29, 2005 @04:34AM (#13425590) Homepage
      actually getting yellow teeth barely is any real concern for the health (it may look ugly but it doesnt kill you)

      you should be althrough worried for the calcium levels that you affect with drinking coffee. in many studies coffee has been proved to be responsible for increasing calcium extraction from human body, therefor your teeth and bones will get weaker. this seems to be an individual dependant case however, not everybody is affected in the same range.

      see this link

      http://www.cosic.org/coffee-and-health/bone-health [cosic.org]

      drinking enough milk will compensate this anyway, so if you are a real caffeine addict, just make sure you drink enough milk to keep the bones&teeth healthy and wash your teeth enough to keep em white. this way you wont break your bones while raising the coffe cup and wont need to go to dentist after your cup has accidently collided with your teeth.

      i love coffee, and there is nothing that keeps me from drinking it. concidering the chances that *vogon* ships may be out here by next thursday doesnt make really worried about the fact that my teeth may get yellow. (i dont like thursdays, seriously i dont like them!)

      ps. people who drink caffeine coffee should have their head examined.

      • Re:Yellow Teeth (Score:2, Informative)

        by moro_666 ( 414422 )
        oopsie, that last line should be

        ps. people who drink caffeine **FREE** coffee should have their head examined.

        my mistake, (i even used preview this time, but didnt notice the missing word) sry :)

      • Re:Yellow Teeth (Score:5, Informative)

        by garett_spencley ( 193892 ) on Monday August 29, 2005 @11:17AM (#13427627) Journal
        I gave up coffee about a year ago for health reasons. Mostly because I have a history of heart disease and diabetis in my family. I don't honestly know if coffee will increase my risk of those, but I figured caffiene is still a stimulant, I'm addicted to it.. so lets cut it out of my diet just for the heck of it.

        So this article isn't without a bit of irony :)

        Anyway the other day I was going on 3 hours of sleep so I decided to make myself a cup a coffee and I became curious as to the calorie content of a cup of black coffee, assuming there are any calories in black coffee. I came across this page:

        http://www.dietbites.com/CalorieIndexDrinks.html [dietbites.com]

        I'm not sure how reliable it is... but it claims that coffee renders Vitamin B inactive. Not being a nutritionalist or a doctor I did a bit of research on what the B vitamins are good for and found out that they're pretty essential.

        According to this page: http://home.howstuffworks.com/vitamin-b.htm [howstuffworks.com]

        "The B-complex vitamins are actually a group of eight vitamins, which include thiamine (B1), riboflavin (B2), niacin (B3), pyridoxine (B6), folic acid (B9), cyanocobalamin (B12), pantothenic acid and biotin. These vitamins are essential for:

                * The breakdown of carbohydrates into glucose (this provides energy for the body)
                * The breakdown of fats and proteins (which aids the normal functioning of the nervous system)
                * Muscle tone in the stomach and intestinal tract
                * Skin
                * Hair
                * Eyes
                * Mouth
                * Liver"

        So .. while the article may have some truth to it, it seems like it's a pretty big trade off. You gain some anti-oxidants but you lose your Vitamin B and Calcium absorption .. which really sucks.
      • Dude...this is the whole point behind cappuccino vs. espresso. If you're worried about your calcium levels, you just pick the cappuccino. :)

  • Not for us anymore (Score:4, Funny)

    by KiloByte ( 825081 ) on Monday August 29, 2005 @02:34AM (#13425157)
    Beh. Both programmers and sysadmins are supposed to never ingest any healthy stuff, so I guess that coffee is out of the question then.

  • Ob-dilbert (Score:5, Funny)

    by riflemann ( 190895 ) <riflemann@@@bb...cactii...net> on Monday August 29, 2005 @02:35AM (#13425160)
    I knew I was right when they tried to take take my coffee away from me! [cactii.net]

  • See (Score:5, Funny)

    by OneArmedMan ( 606657 ) on Monday August 29, 2005 @02:35AM (#13425163)
    ihavebeensayingforyearsthatdrinkinglotsofcoffeeisa goodthinganditsnothingtoworryabout. /Deeeep breath /twitch twitch

  • Coffee drinkers... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Dhalphir ( 862198 ) on Monday August 29, 2005 @02:36AM (#13425168)
    ...unite! Demand to be viewed as demi-gods of health and prosperity!

  • Didn't see that coming (Score:5, Funny)

    by slashdot.org ( 321932 ) on Monday August 29, 2005 @02:37AM (#13425171) Homepage Journal
    Shit, I had just convinced my boss to replace the expresso machine for a wine cooler...

    • Re:Didn't see that coming (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29, 2005 @02:45AM (#13425212)
      Espresso, not expresso.

  • Hmmmm...It All Makes Sense Now (Score:3, Funny)

    by jpiggot ( 800494 ) on Monday August 29, 2005 @02:38AM (#13425177)
    So what you're saying is that I had to spend $1.49 every morning at Starbucks to avoid colon cancer.

    I knew there was a reason that coffee was so goddamn expensive !!

  • Great, just great! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by FlameboyC11 ( 711446 ) on Monday August 29, 2005 @02:38AM (#13425181)
    Us seattlites really needed another reason to drink coffee.

  • the worst are always good for you in some ways. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by silverkniveshotmail. ( 713965 ) * on Monday August 29, 2005 @02:39AM (#13425187) Journal
    Is it just me or is this sort of thing said about everything we're told is bad for us every once and a while? I remember a while back i even heard people saying that cigarettes helped with alzheimer's or something here it is
    Alzheimer's delayed by cigarettes [medicalnewstoday.com]
    • That's okay, I'd rather forget things sitting on my couch than remember everything laying in an iron lung.

    • Re:the worst are always good for you in some ways. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by uighur ( 818297 ) on Monday August 29, 2005 @03:32AM (#13425394)
      The article doesn't quite say coffee is good for you. All it says is "Americans get more of their antioxidants from coffee than any other dietary source. Nothing else comes close," The real Slashdot headline should've been "Americans don't eat enough fruits/vegetables". but that wouldn't have been sensational enough.
    • Here in Nerf(tm) World we like to greatly exagerate risks that don't have to do with automobiles and deprecate the concordant benefits to the point of ignorance.

      With regard to automobiles, of course, we do things the other way around, deprecating the risks and exagerating the benefits, which are mostly imagined in the first place.

      KFG

  • Opposites Distract. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29, 2005 @02:40AM (#13425189)
    Does this study factor in all the other ingredients that make up coffee? It doesn't do good to say it gives you a lot of anti-oxidents, while some other chemicals give you some bad benefits. Kind of cancelling out.

  • Moderation (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ZeroExistenZ ( 721849 ) on Monday August 29, 2005 @02:40AM (#13425192)

    Well, study showed the same about alcohol.
    It doesn't mean getting drunk every day is a healthy thing to do, as is maintaining a caffeïne addiction. Moderation in things is key I believe.

    I just know that quitting the whole coffee-addiction had benefits for me personally.

  • A disconnect (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    From the article:

    But Professor Vinson urged moderation, recommending that people should drink only one or two cups of coffee per day.

    ...

    A spokesman for the British Coffee Association said: "This study reconfirms the fact that moderate coffee consumption of four to five cups a day not only is perfectly safe but may confer health benefits."

    A disconnect between science and industry if I ever I saw.

  • hhm.. (Score:2, Funny)

    by Kuku_monroe ( 753761 )
    Then we have: 1 glass of wine a day + 3 cups of coffee a day + A hanful of bugs = Healthiest person ever!
    • Damn, that means that my morning required waking medicine plus my daily apres work stress reliever plus my sleeping in the dumpy apartment that I live in will mean I can continue doing so for many many many years.... what a hoot.

  • Crunch time programmers sickly as ever (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Finkbug ( 789750 ) on Monday August 29, 2005 @02:45AM (#13425215)
    From the article,

    "A study has found that coffee contributes more antioxidants - which have been linked with fighting heart disease and cancer - to the diet than cranberries, apples or tomatoes."

    The key bit here is "to the diet". This doesn't make coffee a health food, it means the collective we don't eat enough of the healthy stuff. Yet another misrepresentation of research and thanks to Slashdot for picking it up. I eagerly await the modded funny posts.

  • Take with a pinch of cocoa (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Sinner ( 3398 ) on Monday August 29, 2005 @02:45AM (#13425216)
    The study was funded by the American Cocoa Research Institute. Make of that what you may.

    Compared to a lot of the "alcohol is good for you" hype that I've seen, the article is actually pretty balanced. Still, this kind of thing makes me uncomfortable.

  • Best antioxidants ! Don't trust vitamins ! (Score:5, Informative)

    by zymano ( 581466 ) on Monday August 29, 2005 @02:47AM (#13425223)
    I try and drink 2 glasses of Tea a day. Also try blueberries. Boysenberries taste great but aren't listed.

    Oh yeah , Vitamins may not work and make corporations rich.
    http://www.diet-blog.com/archives/2005/08/05/do_vi tamin_pills_really_work.php [diet-blog.com]

    List of most powerful antioxidant fruit and vegetable.
    http://www.mdsupport.org/library/antiox.html [mdsupport.org]

    http://my.webmd.com/content/Article/104/107639.htm [webmd.com]

    http://altmedicine.about.com/cs/supplements/a/anti oxidants.htm [about.com]

    http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5489179/ [msn.com]

  • Health drink? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by rinkjustice ( 24156 ) <rinkjustice&NO_SPAMrocketmail,com> on Monday August 29, 2005 @02:48AM (#13425224) Homepage Journal
    Any substance that, when withdrwn from, gives you headaches, the sweats and severe drowsiness can be classified as a toxin to the body. Likewise, caffeine is habit-forming, intensifies feelings of anxiety, can produce insomnia, stains teeth etcetera.
    • Any substance that, when withdrwn from, gives you headaches, the sweats and severe drowsiness can be classified as a toxin to the body.

      Another interpretation of that would be that headaches, sweating, and drowsiness are signs that you aren't getting enough coffee!!!

      Myself, I could count the cups of coffee i've drunk in my life (30 years of it) on one hand. I've seen too many people try to give it up to want to drink it regularly, and i'm highly strung enough as it is. Plus, if I really need it, one can of

    • Re:Health drink? (Score:2, Funny)

      by kfg ( 145172 )
      Ok, but what are the cons?

      KFG

    • Re:Health drink? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Mr2001 ( 90979 ) on Monday August 29, 2005 @03:06AM (#13425301) Homepage Journal
      Any substance that, when withdrwn from, gives you headaches, the sweats and severe drowsiness can be classified as a toxin to the body.

      No, it cannot. "Toxin" has a precise definition, and it doesn't mean "anything that might cause negative effects in some situation". Merriam-Webster defines it as a poisonous substance that is a specific product of the metabolic activities of a living organism and is usually very unstable, notably toxic when introduced into the tissues, and typically capable of inducing antibody formation.

      Caffeine is a drug, and an addictive one at that, but it isn't poisonous. Please stop watering down our language.

    • Re:Health drink? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by JanneM ( 7445 )
      Any substance that, when withdrwn from, gives you headaches, the sweats and severe drowsiness can be classified as a toxin to the body.

      Well, of course withdrawing water will give you headaches, drowsiness and even hallucinations. So let's cut down on that as well.

      Seriously, point is well taken, but you need to binge on coffee at a pretty pathological level to really get adverse physical effects. It's pretty benign as drugs go.

  • So far so good (Score:4, Funny)

    by Eminence ( 225397 ) <akbrandt@gmail.TEAcom minus caffeine> on Monday August 29, 2005 @02:52AM (#13425243) Homepage
    Now I only wait for the scientists to confirm my lifelong suspicion, that chocolate (especially chocolate covered wafer bars) is a healthy vegetable product (chocolate is made from fruit, isn't it?) that should be a cornerstone of a healthy diet.
  • Great! so I can lay back on the couch with a Grande Frapacino and let the caffeine up my heart rate, while the anti-oxidents reduce my guilt from not eating any fruits and vegetables.

    It's good to know that such great work comes from studies funded by such unbiased groups as the American Cocoa Research Institute.

    Perhaps similar studies funded by Hustler and Blueboy might find benefits in swallowing versus spitting?

  • I had to switch to tea (Score:3, Funny)

    by nauseaboy ( 874436 ) on Monday August 29, 2005 @02:54AM (#13425250)
    That's funny because everytime I drink coffee, I feel like my heart is going to explode.

  • ... because I drink a hell of alot of it.

  • you could say the same of chocolate

    except that chocolate, like coffee, is consumed with enough sugar and dairy to counteract any benefits you might be getting and then some

    so bring on the coffee! ...BLACK coffee ...NO sugar

    not so attractive anymore, eh? ;-P

  • Yes, coffee has anti-oxidants (Score:5, Informative)

    by bahwi ( 43111 ) on Monday August 29, 2005 @03:01AM (#13425283)
    And if you REALLY want a health benefit, switch to decaf. Sorry, I know everyone wants to pretend what they do is fine or healthy and wants to find that reason why, but some things are just bad for you(Fast food for example, although we all eat it anyways). Just because coffee has anti-oxidants doesn't mean that it will prevent cancer. Caffeine is pro-inflammatory, so most likely those anti-oxidants will be reducing damage of the caffeine.

    Don't wanna give up caffeine? No problem. Still want to reduce your risk of cancer, have some real food. Steam some kale, have an apple, some berries(Not Apple-Berry Poptarts, not the same thing). Just add a few veggies or fruits to your daily food intake and you'll be a lot better for it. Cut something out, or reduce, and you'll be even better. Don't have to give up coffee/caffeine, but it isn't some miracle health food, and don't think of it as such.
    • Switch to decaf?

      Considering the amount of processing and chemicals they run through the bean to get the caffeine out, it is hardly a healthier substitute.

      Having a food in moderation is not going to have a detrimental effect. Having a cup of coffee in the morning isnt going to give you a heart attack. Having 20 cups is not going to benefit you when your heart is pumping at twice the rate.

      The key to personal health is moderation. In all forms. That includes exercise as well as eating.
      • That's what I was trying to say. Don't call coffee a health drink and start drinking more of it. If you want to be more healthy eat some veggies.

        And there are a few methods of getting a natural decaf or at least a lower or no chemical decaf. But considering how many chemicals are in regular coffee anyways, decaf isn't really increasing that amount by much(excluding organic). But you'll avoid the pro-inflammatory effects with decaf.
    • I once had to give up all caffiene as part of an exclusion diet to figure out which foods were giving me problems. It wasnt pleasant.
      One of the surprises was that decaffienated coffee is not "No caffiene coffee", it's merely "Reduced caffiene coffee", in other words they cant remove all of it so you arent giving up caffiene by drinking it.

      There may be a coffee industry Slashdotter along in a minute to give chapter and verse but the other thing I learned was that the method of caffiene extraction differs

    • but some things are just bad for you

      Sure, somethings are bad for you, but caffeine ain't one of them. After extensive research very few and minor side effects have been found for caffeine, and pro-inflammatory isn't one of them.

      Puritans like to believe that if something feels good then it has to be bad for you. Be it sex, coffee, or just even a hearty dance have all been at some point condemned by puritanical societies who cannot possibly believe that certain things are fun and harmless at the same time.
  • Junk food does not make you fat, it's all down to fresh OJ, smoking can help you to live longer (assuming you do not get lung cancer) and being in a road accident helps reduce the signs of aging.
  • Coffee does contain a small amount of antioxidents, which eliminates "free radicals" in the bloodstream. This is good. However, coffee is a powerful diarrhetic, which ultimately means it removes more water from your body than it provides. This can cause dehydration, probably the foremost cause of cancer (whether people realize it or not). My personal ideology for this kind of thing is "everything in moderation", but calling coffee a health drink just seems silly to me. After all, other caffeine drinks like

    • Dehydration causes cancer?? I think not. (Score:4, Informative)

      by spineboy ( 22918 ) on Monday August 29, 2005 @04:20AM (#13425545) Journal
      ..This can cause dehydration, probably the foremost cause of cancer...

      I'd like to see some documentation for that statement that you seemed to pull out from under your tin-foil hat. I have never heard ANY evidence to even remotely suggest that dehydration causes cancer. Honestly, show me even one article froma reputable scientific journal, and I will deign to argue this point with you, otherwise you are wasting our time with nonsensical ideas, like pyramid power and homeopathy.

      I'm fairly certain that I'm right- I know the literature, since I am an oncology surgeon.

    • Re:Too bad it's a diarrhetic. (Score:4, Informative)

      by zerblat ( 785 ) <jonas@sk[ ]c.se ['ubi' in gap]> on Monday August 29, 2005 @04:22AM (#13425556) Homepage
      ITYM diuretic [wikipedia.org], not diarrhetic [thefreedictionary.com].
      This can cause dehydration
      Only if the diuretic effect isn't compensated by the water that coffee contains. AFAIK, coffee isn't dehydrating unless it's really, really strong (but I guess the diuretic effect varies a bit from person to person). So, if you're afraid of dehydration, just drink a glass of water with you coffee.
    • Bunk.

      Widely held concerns that caffeine promotes dehydration during exercise, resulting in a negative effect on performance, have now been dismissed. A review paper by Ron Maughan, a professor of human physiology at Loughborough University, and Griffin, published in the Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics two years ago, states that: "Any evidence that caffeine promotes the loss of water from the body has been overplayed. It makes no difference if people drink tea, cola, coffee or water when they exe

    • Re:Too bad it's a diarrhetic. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by FidelCatsro ( 861135 ) <fidelcatsro&gmail,com> on Monday August 29, 2005 @05:13AM (#13425714) Journal
      I was having a look around for anything which suggest dehydration may be a major factor in causing cancer... so far i have only really found one study which suggest that it could possibly be a contributory factor.

      Do you have any links to any studies which suggest it as a foremost cause. As right now to me it doesn't appear to be that logical an assertion , but i would be very interested in being shown evidence to the contrary .I had always believed that the foremost cause of cancer is cigarets by a large margin

  • That explains why (Score:2, Interesting)

    by L10N ( 458520 )
    The first fricken thing I ever get on a hospital meal tray is a cup of coffee!!! And I have been in the hospital enough to have a good spectrum of meals. Coffee, no matter what is else on the tray, there is always Coffee!

    mmmmmmm
    • The first fricken thing I ever get on a hospital meal tray is a cup of coffee!!! And I have been in the hospital enough to have a good spectrum of meals. Coffee, no matter what is else on the tray, there is always Coffee!

      I rather thought that it was because coffee was a semi-instent beverage that can be bought for a few dollars a pound for cafeteria grade crap where one pound can provide 600 to 1000oz of liquid (4.6gal to 7.8gal). Assuming a standard hospital ration of coffee is about 4oz that's 150 to 250
  • until we get research proving the long-obvious health benefits of mountain dew.
  • starbucks llc has acquired slashdot.org from it's previous corporate parents

    so welcome to slashbucks
    cappuccino for nerds. macchiato that matters.

  • Anti-oxidants do no such thing (Score:3, Interesting)

    by sam_handelman ( 519767 ) <samuel...handelman@@@gmail...com> on Monday August 29, 2005 @03:45AM (#13425440) Journal
    The actual evidence of *any* health benefit from dosing people with anti-oxidants (as opposed to fruits and vegetebles, which contain many other things besides anti-oxidants, for example fiber) is non-existent.

    In fact, it essentially proves that anti-oxidants either provide no benefit, or are bad for you.

    Vitamin E and beta-carotene are both quite potent anti-oxidants (free radical scavengers.) Others are more or less potent, but Vitamin E and BC are both potent enough that you would see an effect if there is one.

    Vitamin E has demonstrably no benefit in fighting heart disease. [nih.gov] But thanks for playing!

    Beta Carotene actually makes lung cancer appreciably *more* lethal - there is a good chance that this is because it is an anti-oxidant, and that pro-oxidants fight cancer.

    READ THIS REVIEW BEFORE YOU ARGUE WITH ME:
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd= Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=1603028 0&query_hl=5 [nih.gov]

    The evidence that bleeding yourself with leeches is actually good for you is *far* more compelling than anything that has ever been delivered for anti-oxidants.

  • Antioxident quantity not valid for health benefits (Score:3, Informative)

    by rufusdufus ( 450462 ) on Monday August 29, 2005 @03:45AM (#13425442)
    Antioxidents are a new fad, and while we might stipulate there is some validity to eating antioxidants, its a mistake to equate antioxidents in any particular food as being significant. The problem is that these studies never take into account total antioxidant intake in the diet.
    For example, while coffee and tea do have antioxidents in them, you'd have to drink dozens of gallons to equal what you get from a little bit of oregano (one of the foods with the highest antioxidant contant,far higher than blueberries). In fact, there are many many foods that have giant doses of antioxidents in them. If you look at your actual overall diet, it is unlikely that coffee would ever be a significant source of antioxidents. And if in fact it is, and you are concerned about antioxidents in your diet, you'd do better to add a higher source into your diets.
    For example, cherries, blueberries, dried plums, artichokes, russet potatoes, red cabbage, walnuts, pecans, hazelnuts, cinnamon, and cloves.
  • This article gets tossed around over and over. It looks like Starbucks' PR firm is doing their job.
  • I drink a lot of coffee, and my stomach doesn't like it. I always drink water a glass of water every time I drink a cup of coffee; otherwise I start to feel bad.

    I lot of our daily consumptions have a good and a bad side. Just because coffee appears to have a good amount of antioxidants, it still has a lot of negative side effect. This invalidates the articles claim that coffee might be used as a health drink.

    It is not logical to conclude, that just because an ingredient has some good effects its healthy to

  • High Consumption Rate (Score:4, Funny)

    by wildsurf ( 535389 ) on Monday August 29, 2005 @04:31AM (#13425584) Homepage
    "The American findings are probably reflected in Britain, where people drink about
    70 million cups of coffee each day despite the country's reputation as a tea-drinking nation."


    Whoa, and I thought 4-5 cups a day was pushing it.

  • Perspective - the true price of coffee (Score:5, Interesting)

    by beforewisdom ( 729725 ) on Monday August 29, 2005 @08:05AM (#13426250)
    I am getting to the end of rather frightening bout of insomnia. It never happened to me before in my life and seems to be on its way out, but I was up for almost 2 weeks straight without getting more then 2 hours of a sleep a night.

    In the process of getting over it I learned that a massive number of people suffer ( silently ) in North America and the UK from chronic insomnia. I don't mean an occasional night without sleep that is slept off the next day, but chronic troubles getting and staying asleep.

    A large number of reasons are lifestyle related. Caffeine use, being over-weight, bad sleep habits, and the way many of us live our lives.

    As the article for this thread shows a lot of Americans like to drink a lot of coffee.

    Americans also take in a significant amount of "hidden" caffeine through iced tea beverages, chocolates, cocoa, soft drinks ( 2 sodas == 1 cup of coffee ) and other drinks. Often Americans will consume these significant caffeine sources at later times in the day when they would not dare to have coffee or hot tea.

    Coffee, on a regular basis, over years is also very hard on the human stomach and contributes to an early decline in digestive power which leads to a tougher time getting the nutrients a human body needs.

    It is also a very environmentally destructive crop, severely depleting the soil where it is grown. A friend told me that South American farmers call it the "Vampire Crop".

    If you want a concentrated source of antioxidants without caffeine try taking a tablespoon of organic ( to avoid getting pesticide residues ) citrus zest ( finely grated peel - the part of the peel with the color ) a week:

    http://www.prevention.com/article/0,5778,s1-3-71-1 08-5616-1,00.html [prevention.com]?

    Fresh aromatic herbs area also a good source of concentrated antioxidants and cancer fighters. Use basil. It is cheap in season. It is basically a weed, is easily grown in a garden or in a pot in an apartment.

    Eating cruciferous vegetables like the broccoli in Chinese food ( yay! ) will give you plenty of antioxidants. Other cruciferous vegetables that help are cabbage, collards, kale, mustard greens etc.

    If you have regular trouble sleeping either with falling asleep, staying asleep, spontaneously getting up early, or not feeling rested see either a neurologist or a pulmonologist to rule out physical causes. Sleep apena is the number one physical cause and is mostly due to the weight problem Oceania is experiencing. People accumulate so much excess weight that some of it ends up in the throat region with the result of tissue sagging downwards while they sleep temporarily blocking their flow of air. The flow is unblocked with the brain forcing a brief awakening, often many times a night, often without the person knowing. Being overweight is not the only cause of sleep apena, but it accounts for the vast majority of cases.

    The methods used to treat sleep apena are not pleasant. Avoid surgery. It has been found to only be 25% effective. However, losing weight can be very effective from individual to individual.

    Like I wrote earlier most of sleeplessness is lifestyle related.

    In other areas of our lives bad habits and stress are keeping many, many people awake.

    Only use sleep medications in the short term.

    Many are addictive and many ( not all ) only provide benefits for several weeks, this is true even for many of the prescription drugs.

    Cognitive therapy has proven to be more effective than drugs in managing insomnia over the long term. It is cheap, shows results quickly and can be often be done on one's own after a little help.

    One of the best books about improving sleep, getting rid of insomnia and getting off of medication for sleep was written by a Harvard psychologist who developed and studied his program over the course 10 years.

    It combines the most effective( and prove

  • As for the claims about colon cancer... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by rben ( 542324 ) on Monday August 29, 2005 @09:09AM (#13426584) Homepage
    I strongly suspect that the reason that coffee drinkers tend to have a lower incidence of colon cancer has more to do with the less desirable effects of coffee. People who have diseases that predispose them to have colon cancer, such as ulcerative colitis, can't tolerate coffee as well as healthy individuals do. I suspect the same is true of many other conditions, such as irritable bowel disease.

    It makes one wonder if many of these other claims can't be disregarded as well. Perhaps the fact that you can drink lots of coffee simply means you have a robust constitution that can tolerate more abuse. It doesn't mean you should go ahead and abuse it.

    It is very easy to show statistical correlation, but not nearly so easy to show causation. They aren't one in the same.

  • Coffee is an interesting drug. . . (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Fantastic Lad ( 198284 ) on Monday August 29, 2005 @10:51AM (#13427378)
    Caffeine. It raises your level of alertness and awareness without otherwise affecting your judgement. It sharpens you.

    The only other drug like this generally available is Nicotine. Sharpens you up, makes your thinking clearer and doesn't impair judgement.

    The first government in the world to begin a public perception campaign to prevent the use of Nicotine? Why, that would be the Nazi Party. Why would they not want their populace thinking clearly, I wonder. . ?

    Personally, I don't use either drug. I've never smoked or felt the need to. (It's pretty hard to find non-corporate tobacco these days. No big surprise there. If you can't stop people from smoking, then you'd better make sure the stuff they're smoking contains a ton of extra poisons in order to off-set any advantages.)

    --And I have found recently that caffeine has changed how it affects me so I've stopped drinking it for the time being. I miss coffee, but in the last year especially, I've found I've gained access to a lot of new emotional bandwidth, (I don't really know how else to describe it; being a guy is getting complicated these days as the human race continues rapidly to wake up in interesting ways!), and I seem to need to work on managing this before I can go adding extra octane to my brain.

    Without the coffee, I find I'm much more steady. Not quite my old self, but definitely better. Heck, with the java, I felt like I was pregnant or something. Sheesh!


    -FL

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