Coffee: The Feel Good Health Food

Some things that make you feel good are actually good for you, and coffee, according to Gretchen Reynolds, is one of the most potent. Writing in the New York Times, Reynolds reports that a large-scale epidemiological study conducted last year showed that after 13 years, men who reported drinking two or three cups of coffee a day were 10 percent less likely to have died than those who didn’t drink coffee, and women drinking the same amount had 13 percent less risk of dying during the study. Wait, there’s more. Reynolds tells us that other studies have linked moderate coffee drinking —  three or four 5-ounce cups of coffee a day  — with a reduction in the risk of developing type-2 diabetes, prostate cancer, oral cancer and breast cancer recurrence. And more: In a 2012 study, Reynolds reports, researchers tested the blood levels of caffeine in older adults with mild cognitive impairment, a common precursor of Alzheimer’s disease. Four years later, the researchers tested again, and found that those with little or no caffeine circulating in their bloodstreams were far more likely to have progressed to full-blown Alzheimer’s than those whose blood indicated they’d had about three cups’ worth of caffeine. Read more from Gretchen Reynolds.