Filtering the Facts: 7 Fresh Perks from Coffee
Provided by EatingWell.com
Coffee lovers may be raising their cups at the growing stream of positive news about their favorite drink. For healthy adults, having two or three cups of joe daily generally isn’t harmful and it may have health perks. Some recent findings even suggest that coffee may help lower the risk of diseases like diabetes and heart disease.
A cup of coffee contains about 1 gram of soluble fiber, the type that can help lower cholesterol, according to a recent report in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.
Recent Harvard studies, involving more than 193,000 people, found that regular coffee drinkers had a significantly lower risk of type2 diabetes than those who abstained. The more they drank, the lower their risk.
Despite coffee’s reputation for being bad for the heart, recent epidemiologic studies haven’t found a connection; some even suggest coffee can be protective. A study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition reported that healthy people 65 and over who drank four or more cups of caffeinated beverages daily (primarily coffee) had a 53 percent lower risk of heart disease than non-coffee-drinkers.
