That Health Rules

I am a coffee drinker.  I usually have a cup of coffee everyday and nothing more.  Except on occasions where I take another cup in the afternoon but usually I average only 5-7 cups per week.  I’ve written about the many benefits of coffee in this website and in the newpapers…and seems like more benefits are being known the more we know about coffee.

Now comes a recently published article on coffee and mortality published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, June of 2008: the official journal of the American College of Physicians.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

Setting: Health Professionals Follow-up Study and Nurses’ Health Study: 41 736 men and 86 214 women with no history of CVD or cancer at baseline.

Results: After adjustment for age, smoking, and other CVD and cancer risk factors, the relative risks for all-cause mortality in men across categories of coffee consumption (<1 cup per month, 1 cup per month to 4 cups per week, 5 to 7 cups per week, 2 to 3 cups per day, 4 to 5 cups per day, and 6 cups per day) were 1.0, 1.07 (95% CI, 0.99 to 1.16), 1.02 (CI, 0.95 to 1.11), 0.97 (CI, 0.89 to 1.05), 0.93 (CI, 0.81 to 1.07), and 0.80 (CI, 0.62 to 1.04), respectively (P for trend = 0.008). For women, the relative risks were 1.0, 0.98 (CI, 0.91 to 1.05), 0.93 (CI, 0.87 to 0.98), 0.82 (CI, 0.77 to 0.87), 0.74 (CI, 0.68 to 0.81), and 0.83 (CI, 0.73 to 0.95), respectively (P for trend < 0.001). This inverse association was mainly due to a moderately reduced risk for CVD mortality and was independent of caffeine intake.

By contrast, coffee consumption was not statistically significantly associated with risk for cancer death after adjustment for potential confounders.

Decaffeinated coffee consumption was associated with a small reduction in all-cause and CVD mortality.

Conclusion: Regular coffee consumption was not associated with an increased mortality rate in either men or women. The possibility of a modest benefit of coffee consumption on all-cause and CVD mortality needs to be further investigated.

^{___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________}

To further summarize the data in layman’s terms:

• This study shows that increasing consumption of coffee was associated with decreasing mortality or death.  
• People who drank at least 5 -7 cups of coffee per week had a significantly LOWER overall risk of dying from any cause. 
• People who drank 4-5 cups per day or more had the strongest protection.

What was interesting also in the study was that among women who were coffee drinkers, most reduction in death was due to a reduction in cardiovascular disease. What I like most in coffee are the studies showing its frequent consumption to result in a reduction albeit small, in the risk of diabetes.

Is Regular better than Decaf?  Well, In the study, whether people drank regular or decaffeinated coffee, benefits were noted, suggesting that the one product present in coffee that results in health benefits maybe its high levels of polyphenols  known to reduce inflammation and also known to provide other positive effects on the heart, blood vessels, and blood sugar.

What more can you ask?

I will continue to enjoy my coffee everyday whatever benefits they give me is already a PLUS!!!!

What is Mediterranean Diet?

The common Mediterranean dietary pattern has these characteristics according to the American Heart Association :

• high consumption of fruits, vegetables, bread and other cereals, potatoes, beans, nuts and seeds
• olive oil is an important monounsaturated fat source
• dairy products, fish and poultry are consumed in low to moderate amounts, and little red meat is eaten
• eggs are consumed zero to four times a week
• wine is consumed in low to moderate amounts

The diet simply put focuses more on our consumption of olive oil, vegetables, fruits, nuts ( my post on Going nuts on Nuts) , cereals, legumes and fish ( my post on the Benefits of Eating fish)  and avoiding the well liked and “unhealthy meat and “saturated fat loaded” dairy products.

The many touted benefits of this diet has long been known in the medical field.  In fact major organizations have patterned their recommended healthy diets on the contents of the mediterranean diet.  Why?  Because… Many epidimeological studies have shown that the incidence of heart disease in Mediterranean countries is lower than in the United States where meat and saturated fat is a plenty!!!!.  In fact in those studies, where people practice the Mediterranean diet, mortality rates or the risk of death were also significantly lower!!!!

In a recent article published in the May 30 online of BMJ, Mediterranean diet has been shown to lower the risk of developing diabetes.  Another PLUS to this otherwise healthy alternative way of eating….

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

Participants who adhered closely to a Mediterranean diet had a lower risk of diabetes. The incidence rate ratios adjusted for sex and age were 0.41 (95% confidence interval 0.19 to 0.87) for those with moderate adherence (score 3-6) and 0.17 (0.04 to 0.75) for those with the highest adherence (score 7-9) compared with those with low adherence (score <3). In the fully adjusted analyses the results were similar.

A two point increase in the score was associated with a 35% relative reduction in the risk of diabetes (incidence rate ratio 0.65, 0.44 to 0.95), with a significant inverse linear trend (P=0.04) in the multivariate analysis.

Conclusion Adherence to a Mediterranean diet is associated with a reduced risk of diabetes.

^{________________________________________________________________________________________________________________-}

In this study, during an average of 4 years of follow-up, the researches found that found that people who adhered to a Mediterranean diet very closely had a lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes. and their risk were reduced by 83 percent.

It is however very important to emphasize that major health benefits may not be entirely due to the diet alone.  A healthy diet should always partner with healthy lifestyle including more physical activity.  All these require no shortcut but plain discipline!

A Healthy Diet For More Wealth!