Dr Christian Jessen: The new health drink - coffee - Health & Beauty - Life & Style

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I have lost count of the times coffee makes the health headlines. I challenge you to scan any health magazine and not find numerous recommendations to give up tea and coffee as an important part of "detoxing" and improving health. This advice is, of course, utter twaddle.

Coffee is a misrepresented commodity in my opinion. It is one of the most heavily researched products in the world and the weight of science suggests moderate coffee consumption (of four to five cups per day) is safe and may even confer health benefits.

In the UK we drink 70 million cups of coffee per day, which would make any true adverse effects of coffee a serious problem. But despite the cranks claiming coffee is dehydrating and toxic, it has been proven to be no more a diuretic than water, and is a major dietary source of antioxidants, having significantly more total antioxidant activity than either cocoa, green tea, black tea or herbal tea.

The latest headlines state that just two cups of coffee a day can significantly reduce the risk of stroke. Statistics from eight projects surveying nearly half a million people were combined, making it a highly significant study. It found that those drinking two cups of coffee a day were 14 per cent less likely to suffer a brain clot, while three to four cups a day reduced the dangers by 17 per cent.

Other studies suggest coffee may be protective against the development of Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases, although further research is required on the biological mechanisms underlying the potentially protective effect before it can be stated categorically that coffee protects against these debilitating illnesses.
In addition, thousands of research projects have been carried out to investigate whether there
is a link between coffee consumption and the development of common cancers.

Conclusions suggest coffee consumption may reduce the risk of developing liver carcinoma and prostate cancer, and when confounding factors such as smoking are controlled, scientific evidence shows moderate coffee consumption does not increase the risk of cancer at any of the sites studied, including the breast, kidney, bladder, pancreas, ovaries, colon and rectum. The World Cancer Research Fund states that most evidence suggests consumption of coffee has no significant relationship with the risk of cancer at any site.

Pregnant women should probably reduce their intake but the Food Standards Agency, Royal College of Midwives and The Centre for Pregnancy Nutrition all agree there is no need to cut out coffee completely for a safe pregnancy or while breastfeeding.

I don't think it matters to coffee drinkers if it is good for them but I do think it is important that we know it is not bad for health.