ADD A Cup Of Java To Your Vitamin C Regimen?

Coffee is in the news a lot lately dispelling some of the bad press over the years. Here is an excerpt from my Life Extension newsletter and subscription to their monthly magazine concerning he BENEFIT to blood flow for your small blood vessels from drinking caffeinated coffee every day.

I do not overdo it, however I have started drinking perhaps two cups of caffeinated coffee every day. I enjoy it and it might just be doing me some good.

Dan

 Let's take a look:

http://www.lef.org/newsletter/2013/1122_Coffee-improves-small-blood-vessel-function.htm?utm_source=eNewsletter_000&utm_medium=email&utm_term=Article&utm_content=Button&utm_campaign=2013Wk47-2

EXCERPT:

Coffee improves small blood vessel function

Friday, November 22, 2013. The American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2013, held November 16-20 this year in Dallas, was the site of a presentation by Masato Tsutsui, MD, PhD of a benefit for coffee in improving small vessel blood flow. Previous studies have revealed improvement in large artery function in association with caffeine consumption, as well as a reduced risk of dying from cardiovascular events over a given period of time. "Although microvessels regulate vascular resistance and tissue blood flow, and play an essential role in the circulatory system, no study has ever addressed the effect of coffee on microvascular function," Dr Tsutsui and his coauthors write.

The current double-blinded study included 27 healthy men and women aged 22 to 30 who were not coffee drinkers. Participants were given a five ounce cup of coffee that contained caffeine or one cup of decaffeinated coffee, and finger blood flow was measured via Doppler flowmetry, which evaluates microscopic blood circulation. (Blood flow to the fingers is an indicator of small blood vessel endothelial function.) After two days, those who received coffee that contained caffeine were given a cup of decaffeinated coffee and participants who received decaffeinated were given coffee with caffeine, and blood flow was re-evaluated.

Dr Tsutsui's team found that blood flow increased by 30% over a 75 minute period among those who received coffee containing caffeine in comparison with those that received the decaffeinated beverage. There was no significant difference in heart rate observed between the two groups.

"This gives us a clue about how coffee may help improve cardiovascular health," stated Dr Tsutsui who is a cardiologist and professor in the pharmacology department at the University of the Ryukyus in Okinawa, Japan. "If we know how the positive effects of coffee work, it could lead to a new treatment strategy for cardiovascular disease in the future."

"Our double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover study demonstrated, for the first time, that caffeine contained in a cup of coffee ameliorates microvascular endothelial function in healthy individuals," the authors conclude. "These findings may explain, at least in part, the association of coffee consumption with reduced mortality of cardiovascular disease."

Research suggests coffee could be reason for Ikarian longevity

An article published on March 18, 2013 in the journalVascular Medicine suggests that the consumption of boiled coffee could be the reason for the exceptional longevity of residents of the Greek island Ikaria, which has a high percentage of long-lived individuals. While 0.1 percent of Europeans survive longer than 90 years, ten times as many inhabitants of Ikaria live to the age of 90 or older.

The study included 142 residents of Ikaria aged 66 to 91. The participants underwent ultrasound assessment of flow-mediated dilation to assess endothelial function, a measure of cardiovascular health. Responses to dietary questionnaires were used to quantify coffee intake as low, moderate or high.

While flow mediated dilation increased with coffee intake, drinking boiled Greek coffee was associated with better endothelial function in comparison with drinking other types of coffee, even among subjects with hypertension. "Boiled Greek type of coffee, which is rich in polyphenols and antioxidants and contains only a moderate amount of caffeine, seems to gather benefits compared to other coffee beverages," lead researcher Gerasimos Siasos of the University of Athens Medical School explained.

"To our knowledge, there are no clinical studies evaluating the effects of chronic coffee consumption on endothelial function, especially in subjects with established cardiovascu­lar risk factors such as elderly individuals," the authors write.

"The present study provides evidence that chronic consump­tion of the boiled Greek type of coffee is associated with improved endothelial function in elderly individuals with an increased burden of cardiovascular risk factors," they conclude. "Given the wide­spread use of coffee beverages across the world and the fact that even small health effects of coffee could have a large impact on public health, further studies are needed to docu­ment the exact beneficial mechanisms of coffee in vascular integrity.

COFFEE.....Friend or Foe?

There has been a lot of press over the years about the negative effects of drinking coffee. That seems to be changing and new research shows a host of benefits of coffee including coffee consumption offering protection against heart failure and stroke.

Let's take a look:

There are approximately 150 million Americans that drink coffee on a daily basis. NEW studies show that coffee reduces the risk of hemorrhagic and ischemic stroke by improving endothelial function which is the mechanism by which blood vessels retain their control over blood flow and pressure.

That is important since STROKE is among the top three causes of death in America. Drinking 5 or more cups of coffee a day has shown that it can reduce death from stroke by up to 36%. If you do the math with more than 140,000 deaths from stroke every year, 36% of that number might save the lives of some 50,000 people.

Other benefits of drinking coffee:

• Reduces risk of dying from heat disease
• Show to help in preventing diabetes
• Cuts cancer risk
• Reverses impairment in Alzheimer's patients

A large study which involved 59,000 people conducted over a 19 year period provides evidence of the protective effects of coffee against heart failure. One aspect of this study showed women who consumed even ONE CUP of coffee a day reduced heart failure risk by 27% (vs.) those who drank no coffee at all.

A separated study indicated that 4 cups of coffee a day provides the strongest protection against heart failure in both men and women.

Summary of article that appeared in the August 2013 issue of Life Extension Magazine:

• Coffee is the most widely consumed pharmacologically active beverage in the world
• Coffee is NO longer associated with poor health outcomes due to new studies
• Drinking 5 cups of coffee a day can protect you against many age related diseases
• Recent studies show coffee's ability to boost endothelial function
• Coffee has been shown to offer protection against diabetes, which itself is the cause of cardiovascular diseases and cancer
• Coffee helps protect against cancer and neurodegenerative disorders like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases.
• In short coffee is NOT the culprit if was once thought to be

What about differences between caffeinated and decaffeinated and black (vs.) drinking coffee with cream or milk? Here is a LINK to another report on coffee and it has additional information with more detail and more answers to any concerns over detrimental (vs.) positive effects of drinking coffee:

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/coffee/


There are still some pro's and con's on this subject and I am NOT suggesting that everyone go out and start drinking 4 or 5 cups of coffee every day for improved health:

Dan

EXCERPTS:

5. Why does it seem like scientists keep flip-flopping on whether coffee is bad for you or good for you?

Often people think of coffee just as a vehicle for caffeine. But it’s actually a very complex beverage with hundreds and hundreds of different compounds in it. Since coffee contains so many different compounds, drinking coffee can lead to very diverse health outcomes. It can be good for some things and bad for some things, and that’s not necessarily flip-flopping or inconsistent. Few foods are good for everything. That’s why we do studies on very specific health effects—for example, studies of how coffee affects the risk of diabetes—but we also conduct studies such as this most recent one looking at coffee consumption and mortality over a long period of time, which better reflects the overall health effect.

Coffee is also a bit more complex to study than some other food items. Drinking coffee often goes along together with cigarette smoking, and with a lifestyle that’s not very health conscious. For example, people who drink lots of coffee tend to exercise less.They are less likely to use dietary supplements, and they tend to have a less healthful diet. So in the early studies on coffee and health, it was hard to separate the effects of coffee from the effects of smoking or other lifestyle choices.

Over the several decades that coffee has been studied, there have been some reports that coffee may increase the risk of certain cancers or the risk of heart disease. But in better conducted studies, such as the one we just published—larger studies that have a lot of information about all other lifestyle factors and make a real effort to control for these lifestyle factors—we do not find many of these health effects that people were afraid of.

6. What is the latest research on the risks of coffee or caffeine during pregnancy?

For pregnant women, there has been quite a bit of controversy over whether high intake of coffee or caffeine may increase the risk of miscarriage. The jury is still out. But we know that the caffeine goes through the placenta and reaches the fetus, and that the fetus is very sensitive to caffeine; it metabolizes it very slowly. So for pregnant women it seems prudent to reduce coffee consumption to a low level, for example one cup a day.

7. Should people with high blood pressure consider reducing their coffee or caffeine intake? What about people with diabetes?

We know that if people are not used to using any caffeine, and they start to use caffeine, their blood pressure goes up substantially. Within a week of caffeine consumption, however,we see that the effect is less pronounced—there is less of an increase in blood pressure. After several weeks of continued caffeine consumption, however, a little bit of increase in blood pressure remains. In studies that look at the incidence of hypertension in the general population, drinking caffeinated coffee is not associated with a substantial increase in risk. But if people have hypertension, and are having a hard time controlling their hypertension,they could try switching from caffeinated coffee to decaffeinated coffee, to see if it has a beneficial effect.

With diabetes, it’s a bit of a paradox. Studies around the world consistently show that high consumption of caffeinated or decaffeinated coffee is associated with low risk of type 2 diabetes. But if you look at acute studies that just give people caffeine or caffeinated coffee, and then have them eat something rich in glucose, their sensitivity to insulin drops and their blood glucose levels are higher than expected. There isn’t any long-term data on coffee consumption and glucose control. But if people have diabetes and have trouble controlling their blood glucose,it may be beneficial for them to try switching from caffeinated to decaffeinated coffee. Making the switch from caffeinated to decaf may be better than quitting coffee altogether, because some research suggests that decaffeinated coffee actually reduces the glucose response.

8. How do you explain the paradoxical findings on coffee and caffeine consumption and diabetes?

It’s possible that there are simply different effects for short-term and long-term intake of coffee and caffeine.And, as I mentioned before, it’s becoming increasingly clear that coffee is much more than caffeine, and the health effects that you see for caffeinated coffee are often different than what you would expect based on its caffeine content.

For example, if you look at exercise performance, it seems that caffeine can be somewhat beneficial, but caffeinated coffee is not. Or if you look at blood pressure and compare the effects of caffeinated coffee to the effects of caffeine, you’ll find that caffeinated coffee causes blood pressure increases that are substantially weaker than what one would expect for the amount of caffeine it contains. The same is true for the relationship between coffee, caffeine, and blood glucose after a meal. It’s possible that there are compounds in coffee that may counteract the effect of caffeine, but more research needs to be done.

9.  Is drinking coffee made with a paper filter healthier than drinking boiled coffee or other types of coffee?

Coffee contains a substance called cafestol that is a potent stimulator of LDL cholesterol levels. Cafestolis found in the oily fraction of coffee, and when you brew coffee with a paper filter, the cafestol gets left behind in the filter. Other methods of coffee preparation, such as the boiled coffee common in Scandinavian countries, French press coffee, or Turkish coffee, are much higher in cafestol. So for people who have high cholesterol levels or who want to prevent having high cholesterol levels, it is better to choose paper filtered coffee or instant coffee, since they have much lower levels of cafestol than boiled or French press coffee.Espresso is somewhere in the middle; it has less cafestol than boiled or French press coffee, but more than paper filtered coffee.

10. Do tea and coffee have similar beneficial effects?

One could expect some of the beneficial effects of coffee to be similar for tea, since some of the compounds are similar. A study in China has found that drinking large quantities of Oolongtea—a liter a day—is beneficial for glycemic control in people with diabetes.But research on tea in the U.S.has not shown the type of beneficial effect we see for coffee, probably because people in the U.S.tend to drink tea that is weaker in strength and tend to drink less of it.