Coffee for health

To stay healthy, eat your veggies and drink your coffee. Coffee? Yep, coffee. It's chock full of polyphenols, powerful antioxidants that protect you from a host of diseases. And, if you're like most Americans, you're getting far more antioxidants from coffee than from fruits and vegetables:

... Coffee not only helps clear the mind and perk up the energy, it also provides more healthful antioxidants than any other food or beverage in the American diet, according to a study released Sunday.

The University of Scranton researchers measured the antioxidant content of more than a hundred foods and drinks, and then used USDA consumption data to calculate their antioxidant contributions to the average diet:

They concluded that the average adult consumes 1,299 milligrams of antioxidants daily from coffee. The closest competitor was tea at 294 milligrams. Rounding out the top five sources were bananas, 76 milligrams; dry beans, 72 milligrams; and corn, 48 milligrams. According to the Agriculture Department, the typical adult American drinks 1.64 cups of coffee daily.

Wow. If 1.64 cups of coffee provide 1,299 mg of antioxidants, then most days, I'm getting ... [mumble, mumble, carry the one] ... around 8,000 mg! No wonder I vibrate sometimes -- it's the force of billions of free radicals being quenched all at once.

There has been a lot of good health news about coffee in the past few years. Recent studies suggest that moderate to heavy coffee drinkers have half the risk of type 2 diabetes and liver cancer, one-third the risk of Parkinson's disease, and significantly fewer cases of Alzheimer's disease.

Back in May, I was pleased to note the health benefits of drinking single-malt whisky, drinking beer, being slightly overweight, and masturbating. I'm delighted to add drinking coffee to the list.