Heart Beat: Don't blame the bean
Heart Beat
Don't blame the bean
Coffee is earning a better reputation on the health front as a result of several studies. In summer 2005, University of Scranton chemists reported that coffee beat out fruits and vegetables as the number one source of antioxidants for Americans. It turns out that a cup of coffee delivers a decent jolt of potentially protective antioxidants along with caffeine and hundreds of other substances. And since we drink so much — the average American has three cups a day — the antioxidants add up.
Around the same time, Harvard School of Public Health researchers evaluated studies including almost 200,000 people and concluded that coffee drinkers were less likely to develop diabetes than people who didn't drink coffee. A couple months afterward, two reports suggested that coffee blunts spikes in blood pressure due to mental stress and makes people more alert by perking up the brain's short-term memory center.
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