Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Coffee May Cut Stroke Risk (yeah)

This is for my brother, Pat, with whom I discussed the virtues of drinking coffee just yesterday:

[CBS News]

Coffee may lower your risk of suffering a stroke, recent research indicates. The National Institutes of Health study was done at the UCLA Stroke Center, The Early Show Medical Correspondent Dr. Jennifer Ashton said Monday.

It “looked at 20,000 people, coffee drinkers and non-coffee drinkers,” Ashton told co-anchor Julie Chen, “and found that those who drink coffee have fewer strokes and that stroke risk actually decreased the more coffee they drank.”

The largest benefit was found among people consuming six or more cups of Java a day, Ashton pointed out, “a considerable amount,” she noted.

Still, Ashton said in putting the findings in perspective, “This is one of those things we have to take … in conjunction with everything else. This is one potential benefit and again, we know that there can be risks seen with the more caffeine that we consume. People are variably more sensitive or less sensitive to higher amounts of caffeine. So, it’s just one piece of the puzzle.”

Read more here.

[HT Kevin Bussey]