Anyone who knows me knows that I love coffee. But like with anything good, everyone is always telling me to stop drinking it or cut back severely, from my already moderate 2-3 cups per day. Everyone, even here in San Francisco, just seems to want to vilify caffeine, always citing some ancient, and debunked, link to some horrific disease.
This article in the LA Times is a good round up of the latest research on coffee. If, like many dads, you count on a good cup of Joe to keep up with the kids, this is good news for you and your overall health.
Coffee drinkers, rejoice! The heavenly brew, once deemed harmful to health, is turning out to be, if not quite a health food, at least a low-risk drink, and in many ways a beneficial one. It could protect against diabetes, liver cancer, cirrhosis and Parkinson’s disease.
What happened? Lots of new research, and the recognition that older, negative studies often failed to tease apart the effects of coffee and those of smoking because so many coffee drinkers were also smokers.
Booster Shots blog
“Coffee was seen as very unhealthy,” said Rob van Dam, a coffee researcher and epidemiologist at the Harvard School of Public Health. “Now we have a more balanced view. We’re not telling people to drink it for health. But it is a good beverage choice.”