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| | The !Gano Excel Healthy Coffee! Network is not currently active and cannot accept new posts | | Healthy Benefits of Coffee | Views: 295 | | Jun 10, 2007 12:39 pm | | Healthy Benefits of Coffee | # | 
Chris Nyers | | Hello everyone:
Check out this article that I just found...
Thanks
Chris Nyers
Gano Excel Affiliate
www.myganoexcel.biz/8088123
"Live Life Simply and Sharply"
Sunday, June 10, 2007 (SF Chronicle)
Coffee's perk -- It's healthy
Erin Allday, Chronicle Staff Writer
Apparently it's harder to shake a bad reputation than a caffeine habit.
Even after decades of study suggesting coffee is not harmful, one of the
world's favorite beverages remains much maligned, with people afraid that
it may cause everything from cancer to heart disease and high blood
pressure.
But according to research, coffee might actually have some health
benefits, and it's one of the few drinks available these days that doesn't
come loaded with sugar and calories. It might guard against gout, diabetes
and Alzheimer's disease, and other health problems.
Just make sure you stay away from the Frappuccinos.
Of course, the scientists performing these studies might be a bit biased.
"I should probably mention that I start off every day with a double
cappuccino," said Dr. Robert Rushakoff, an endocrinologist with UCSF.
Full disclosure aside, he said, coffee has shown promising results in
recent studies that compare consumption with diabetes rates, including
reports that suggest people who drink six or seven cups a day were 50
percent less likely to develop Type 2 diabetes.
No one understands quite why, although caffeinated coffee seems to have
more of an impact than decaf. A lot more study needs to be done, Rushakoff
said, especially since the results are based on historical observations
and not clinical trials -- the gold standard for medical research.
"I wouldn't say people who aren't drinking coffee should start," Rushakoff
said. "It says to me that people who are at high risk for diabetes should
be on a good exercise program and an excellent diet, and it wouldn't hurt
if they're drinking caffeinated coffee."
American coffee consumption per capita has decreased since peaking in the
1940s, from 46.4 gallons a year per person in 1946 to 24.2 gallons per
person in 2005, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The best
explanation for the drop is the increasing popularity of alternative
sources of caffeine -- primarily soda.
Even so, coffee consumption has picked up in the past 10 years with the
explosion of Starbucks and other coffee chains, and today, more than half
of Americans drink coffee regularly.
So we're drinking a lot of coffee, even if we don't think we should be.
"I should probably cut down," said Tony Tade of San Leandro, glancing
wistfully at the cup of coffee he bought in downtown San Francisco on his
way to work. "Usually, I have two cups a day, and that's too much.
Drinking coffee every day, that can't be good for you."
In fact, two cups a day is probably just fine, most doctors say. The
trouble comes when people start adding sugar and cream to their coffee, or
even worse, buying thick, blended drinks -- with whipped cream on top, of
course -- that have hundreds of calories.
A 12-ounce cup of coffee with no extra ingredients has only about 10
calories. The same size Frappuccino from Starbucks -- a coffee drink
enhanced with flavored syrups like chocolate, vanilla or caramel -- can be
up to 370 calories. Twelve ounces is considered a small.
"You go into these coffee shops, and the cups keep getting bigger and
bigger," said Sharon Meyer, a nutrition therapist at the Institute for
Health and Healing at California Pacific Medical Center. "And then there's
everything that goes with the coffee -- the milk and the soy milk and the
sugar and syrups. If you want to drink coffee, drink a small cup, 8
ounces, and it needs to be black."
Meyer doesn't actually approve of her patients drinking coffee, or any
sort of caffeine, saying it's a source of insomnia and anxiety. And, a
rarity among medical professionals, she doesn't drink the stuff herself,
preferring water and caffeine-free tea.
But most doctors -- yes, the same doctors who drink several cups a day --
say there's no reason people should feel guilty about their coffee habit.
Even if the debate's still open on coffee's potential health benefits,
decades of study -- and the fact that it has been consumed for hundreds of
years -- show that it's not doing any harm, said one nutritionist.
Once upon a time, doctors worried that coffee was causing a wide variety
of common ailments, including heart disease, ulcers and indigestion.
Almost all of those concerns have been disproved, but there's still some
argument over coffee's effect on high blood pressure.
A Canadian study published this month showed that coffee may prevent gout.
Diabetes has been the latest focus of research, and studies also have
suggested coffee could lower the risk of developing Parkinson's disease
and Alzheimer's disease. Coffee may also lessen the risk of depression and
suicide.
Doctors are a long way from prescribing coffee, but they're generally not
telling people to give it up, as long as they're drinking in moderation --
two or three cups a day.
"On balance, coffee is a wash," said Dr. Arthur Klatsky, a cardiology
consultant with Kaiser Permanente in Oakland who drinks one or two cups a
day. "Most of the bad effects are probably individual intolerances, like
getting jittery or having heart palpitations. But attempts to link it to
serious adverse health consequences have failed."
Nutritionist Jo Ann Hattner, who teaches at Stanford University School of
Medicine, said she's suggested patients drink coffee if they have trouble
getting started in the morning, or if they're having problems with
constipation.
"It's a stimulant. It helps everything get going, including the GI tract,"
Hattner said. "If people are tired, I tell them to get more sleep. Lack of
sleep is not healthy and they could develop other symptoms from that. But
if you need a jump-start sometimes, yes, drink the coffee."
So if the experts have known for decades that coffee is no big deal, why
is it still considered such a guilty pleasure?
Partly because it feels like an addiction, Klatsky said. Most regular
drinkers crave it every morning, and suffer headaches or other withdrawal
symptoms if they try to cut it out. And partly because caffeine is a drug
and an obvious stimulant.
Something that feels good can't possibly be good for us, right?
"We have an emotional tie to coffee," Klatsky said. "We're a puritanical
culture, and we still have a big holdover from the days when anything that
felt good was a problem. There's this assumption that anything that feels
good, there's got to be a payback down the line." ----------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 2007 SF Chronicle
Private Reply to Chris Nyers | | Jun 11, 2007 8:38 pm | | re: Healthy Benefits of Coffee | # | 
Birgit Jurock | | Hi Chris,
intersting article.
Boy am I happy, we have the Healthy Coffee. Best choice for health and no reason anymore to have a bad conscious.
Yes, what would we do without coffee, don't know. This is a must-have for me.
There are of course other doctors who say that caffein in any form isn't too good for us, because it causes the stress hormones to rise and they are definately not good for us, working like poison in our bodies.
Sorry, have no medical article at hand right now.
But here also, with our gano coffee we don't have to worry, because the caffeine is sooo low and we still get the "kick".
Cheers,
BirgitPrivate Reply to Birgit Jurock |  | |
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