You guessed it - with caffeine!

With politicians and other do-gooders in the good old USA clamoring to save us from the evil of caffeine (and ourselves, so they can control us), it’s surprising scientists have not gone along with the bewitched caffeine hunt. Just the opposite - they have had the temerity to study caffeine’s effects, that turn out to be quite beneficial. How dare they! 

So it falls on us to tell you the good news....

BENEFIT No. 1:   COMBAT STRESS

Rodrigo Cunha from Portugal's University of Coimbra and his team fed mice drinking water with caffeine added, then put some of the animals under stress.

"If the animal is not stressed there isn't a very evident change in physiological parameters or behavior," he said.

"However, if you introduce changes to the lifestyle of the animals, what we see is they cope much better."

Surprise - caffeine had a CALMING effect on the mice. Who would've thought?


BENEFIT No. 2:    PREVENT MEMORY LOSS

Professor Cunha and his team also found that caffeine blocked a stress-related compound in the body and prevented associated issues such as memory loss.

"What caffeine is doing is not making the system work better; what caffeine is doing is leading the system away from going into the wrong way of working," he says.

"So it's prevention, not an improvement."

I’m sure that’s just fine with the rest of us, isn't it?


BENEFIT No. 3:   REDUCE DEPRESSION

Citing from his previous studies, Professor Cunha also found evidence that caffeine could help with depression. However, it was not clear previously whether it was the act of buying caffeine containing drinks or food, or caffeine itself, which cheered people up.

"This study was the first to establish a causal link," says he. 

"All factors were controlled. The only variable was the intake of caffeine."

Since humans have very different brains to mice (although one wonders sometimes), further investigation is needed. Nevertheless this study is a step towards better treatment for stress and associated illnesses. 

Amen...!

Source:  http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-06-09/study-finds-caffeine-combats-stress-memory-loss/6530818

Several studies have been published lately, suggesting that  the caffeine in coffee reduces the risk of various types of cancer, and also may help avoid its recurrence.

In particular, those who drink at least four cups of coffee daily have a 20 percent lower risk of skin cancer (malignant melanoma) than those drinking the least, according to a recent research by the US National Cancer Institute.

For men who drink over six cups of coffee per day, the risk of getting a fatal cancer is reduced by 60 percent, while three cups a day diminish it by 30 percent, according to the 2011 study, also by the National Cancer Institute.

“ Caffeine turns off the signal paths to breast cancer cells. This results in slower cell proliferation and increased cell death,” said Ann Rosendahl, a researcher at Lund University and co-author of the study.

The study began two years ago, when scientists at Lund University showed that a couple of cups of coffee per day could help avoid the recurrence of breast cancer.

The pattern was noticeable especially in those women who were treated with the anti-hormone medication Tamoxifen.

“For the women treated with tamoxifen and who drank at least two cups of coffee a day, the risk of relapse is almost half that of those who drank a small quantity of coffee or no coffee at all,”  according to Rosendahl.

It turns out that caffeine has an impact on the signaling pathways that cancer needs to grow.

"We have now gone down into the cellular level and thus gained a greater understanding of the underlying causes,”  Rosendahl explains.

As many as 1,100 women took part in the study, of whom over 500 were taking the drug Tamoxifen.  

The federal Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee has finally determined that three to five coffee drinks a day is good for you, because there is scientific evidence that caffeine helps stave off heart disease, Type-2 diabetes, and other chronic diseases. 

The new recommendations take into account recent scientific studies that provide new insights into what constitutes a healthy diet. The Department of Health and Human Services and the US Department of Agriculture are expected to move quickly to approve the committee’s recommendations.

The committee also recommends that Americans eat more fruits, vegetables, and whole grains — a common-sense approach. But before declaring open season at the supermarket, perhaps the most important news was in the guidelines that remain. What it may have given back to Americans in dark roast, it continues to take away in added-sugar intake, particularly in sweetened beverages.

The committee found such a strong connection between added sugar and obesity, Type-2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease that its recommendations go far beyond personal intake to policy prescriptions.  It actually advocates:

1. Beverage taxes -  because there is a shortage of taxes, isn't there?
   
2. Reducing the marketing of sugary drinks to children and the availability of added sugars in school and youth settings.
   
3. Running  campaigns to convince young adults to cut sugar consumption. Good luck with that!
   

Let's look at the bright side - they've proven caffeine (in moderation, up to 400 mg/day) to be a health saving product. Who can ask for anything more from the feds?