Posts filed under 'Health'
Have you ever heard of the medical condition known as “blepharospasm”? Neither have I. For many people, usually between 50 and 70 years old, it’s a life-altering affliction characterized by an uncontrollable twitching of the eyelid. In extreme cases, their eyelids may be clamped shut, rendering them effectively blind. Researchers in Italy found that drinking one or two cups of coffee a day seemed to reduce the risk of this condition (as reported in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry). From the article, it appears that coffee drinking won’t help treat an existing condition, but rather can help prevent it from forming.
On a more humorous side, those Italians take their coffee drinking so seriously that researchers found that “the low frequency of decaffeinated coffee intake in Italy prevented us from examining the effects of caffeine on blepharospasm” and thus they’re not certain whether it’s the caffeine that provides the benefit, or some other ingredient in coffee.
You can read the full story over at the BBC News website.
June 20th, 2007
According to the medical journal Gastroenterology, drinking coffee appears to lower your risk of developing liver cancer. The study (actually, eleven separate studies) involved 239,146 people, 2,260 of who had liver cancer. For every two cups of coffee drank per day, a forty three percent reduced risk of liver cancer was observed. Read more here.
June 7th, 2007
Well, the stories and studies keep rolling in, with one thing clear – drinking coffee, in moderation, can decrease many health risks. Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, kidney stones, gallstones, depression, suicide, type 2 diabetes, etc. One interesting thing to note is that the apparent decreased risk of type 2 diabetes is the same for those who drink decaffeinated as caffeinated. There’s a possible downside though, a potentially increased risk of leukemia and stomach cancer. You can read more about this over at Physorg (yeah, I know, not the usual sort of article for that website!).
April 30th, 2007
An abstract from the International Journal of Dermatology:
Background Androgenetic alopecia (AGA) is a common problem in men of all ages, affecting approximately 50% at 50 years of age. The underlying cause is an androgen-dependent miniaturization of genetically predetermined hair follicles. Here, the hair organ culture model was used to investigate the effects of testosterone and caffeine; the latter being a promising candidate for hair growth stimulation.
Methods Hair follicles from 14 biopsies, taken from the vertex areas from male AGA patients, were cultivated for 120–192 h in vitro with normal William’s E medium (control) or William’s E medium containing different concentrations of testosterone and/or caffeine. Hair shaft elongation was measured daily and at the end of cultivation, cryosections of follicles were stained with Ki-67 to evaluate the degree and localization of keratinocyte proliferation.
Results Significant growth suppression was found in hair follicles treated with 5 µg/ml testosterone. This was counteracted by caffeine in concentrations of 0.001% and 0.005%. Moreover, caffeine alone led to a significant stimulation of hair follicle growth. These results were confirmed immunohistochemically by Ki-67 staining.
Conclusions Androgen-dependent growth inhibition of ex vivo hair follicles from patients suffering from AGA was present in the human hair organ culture model, a constellation which may serve for future studies to screen new substances against androgen-dependent hair loss. Caffeine was identified as a stimulator of human hair growth in vitro; a fact which may have important clinical impact in the management of AGA.
April 26th, 2007
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
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