Posts filed under 'Health'
Research from the International Journal of Dermatology suggests that caffeine may stimulate hair growth! Hey, yet another reason to drink coffee, right?! Dr. Ernesto Illy, chairman of Illy Coffee, will be discussing this and other coffee related health issues, such as its positive effects on degenerative diseases Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, at the International Culinary Center on Friday, April 27th. Naturally, following his speech will be a special espresso extraction tasting. 
(via EarthTimes)
April 26th, 2007
A new study has found that people from families prone to Parkinson’s Disease, who drink coffee (or smoke, surprisingly), are less likely to develop the disease. It may just be coincidental, they’re not sure yet. In other words, people with physical conditions that lower their risk of Parkinson’s may also be more inclined to enjoy drinking coffee - not the other way around. Still, it’s yet one more excuse to go brew up a cup. (via Reuters)
April 13th, 2007
While drinking coffee can cause a short-term increase in blood pressure, a recent study has found that coffee intake has no effect on overall blood pressure long term. In other words, you won’t develop a blood pressure problem because of your coffee intake. Interestingly, people who were considered ‘light coffee drinkers’ were found to actually be at higher risk of developing high blood pressure than heavy drinkers! A possible explanation would be that heavy coffee drinkers may actually develop a tolerance to the blood pressure raising effects of caffeine. You can read the whole article here.
March 23rd, 2007
Acrylamide? It’s bad stuff, as one might guess by the sinister name. Acrylamide is a carcinogenic byproduct of baking, roasting, frying, or toasting starchy foods. There’s still not a lot of information about this chemical, but needless to say it’s best to minimize intake of any carcinogens! To decrease its levels in roasted coffee, you simply roast the coffee longer. The problem is, doing so decreases the amount of antioxidants, and also reduces the flavor qualities. So, there’s a balance somewhere…the acrylamides may be harmful, but the antioxidants in coffee may offset that to some extent. This is an avenue I expect will be studied more, and in the meantime, it doesn’t sound like there’s enough information to draw any conclusions from, let alone make any changes in coffee consumption habits. (read more)
March 22nd, 2007
There are no federal standards for exactly how much caffeine is allowed in coffee that is labeled as ‘decaffeinated’. A general rule of thumb, though, is that an eight ounce cup of decaf coffee (quite small, actually) would contain around five milligrams of caffeine. For comparison, a cup of regular coffee would have around 60 to 120 milligrams of caffeine. The results of an independent test of retail coffee showed some with twice the normal levels of caffeine, with the worst being eleven milligrams of caffeine in the decaf coffee from Dunkin Donuts. Now, the truth is, we’re talking about pretty small differences, but it is interesting and not entirely unexpected, as caffeine extraction is a process which is potential subject to all sorts of variables (along those lines, the coffee provider for Chick-Fil-A has a spec of 1.5 to 8 milligrams of caffeine in their decaf coffee). For more about this study, follow this link.
February 18th, 2007
About this time last year, we reported on some coffee by Caffe Sanora that contains very high levels of doctor-recommended anti-oxidants. They’re back in the news again, this time with a press release discussing some of the testing that has been done to validate their claims (you can read the press release here). If you’ve tried this coffee, please add a comment to this entry letting us all know what you think!
February 3rd, 2007
Did you know that coffee is an excellent source of antioxidants? Drinking between one and three cups a day provides the levels generally associated with reducing the risk of colon cancer, slowing the aging process, enhancing short term memory, etc. Drink more than that and you could open yourself up to new health complications, including potential heart problems for really heavy habitual drinkers. So like anything in life, coffee is good…in moderation! (via WKRC)
December 13th, 2006
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