Grounds for
celebration!

Your favourite cup of coffee does you no harm, says the author. It may even do you some good.

IF YOU'RE among the millions of people who drink coffee, you've likely seen news reports in recent years implying the brew could damage health. But now the jury is pretty much in, and the news is looking good. Here are the latest findings on what coffee does to the body and mind.

Is It Heart-Healthy?

The idea that coffee is bad for your heart pops up periodically. Over the last 20 years several studies -- mainly from Europe -- found that drinking very strong coffee regularly could sharply increase cholesterol levels. Researchers even isolated fatlike chemicals, cafestol and kahweol, responsible for the rise.

It turned out that the European brewing method -- boiling water sits on the coffee grounds for several minutes before straining -- produces high concentrations of cafestol and kahweol. By contrast, the filter and percolation methods used by the majority of coffee lovers elsewhere remove all but a trace of these chemicals. Moreover, the studies involved large amounts of coffee -- five to six cups a day. Average coffee drinkers down only two cups.

Research has also shown that regular, moderate coffee drinking does not raise blood pressure dangerously. And studies have failed to substantiate fears that coffee might trigger abnormal heart rhythms (arrhythmias) in healthy people.

"For heart disease, I think the issue is closed," says Meir Stampfer, an epidemiologist at Harvard who has studied many aspects of coffee and health. "Coffee drinking at reasonable levels is unrelated to heart risk."

Parkinson's Protection

Evidence suggests that coffee may help fend off Parkinson's disease. A 30-year study of 8000 Japanese-American men found that avid coffee drinkers had one-fifth the risk of those who didn't drink the brew.

Scientists at Massachusetts General Hospital found indirect evidence that caffeine -- the habit-forming stimulant in coffee -- may actually combat Parkinson's. The caffeine seemed to protect mice brain cells from depletion of the nerve chemical dopamine the problem underlying Parkinson's in humans. However, these are preliminary findings; human studies have not consistently supported caffeine's protective role.

Cancer Links?

The studies on coffee and cancer have focused on three organs -- and are reassuring. You may remember a brief coffee scare in the early 1980s when a single study linked coffee with pancreatic cancer. A false alarm: many studies since then have shown that the association is either extremely weak or nonexistent. If there's a connection between coffee and bladder cancer, it likely applies only to coffee junkies. A re-analysis of ten European studies found an increased risk only among people who drank ten or more cups a day.

And studies show that coffee seems to have no adverse influence on the risk of colon cancer.

Miscarriage Concerns

A Canadian analysis of five studies on coffee and miscarriage concluded that pregnant women who drank the caffeine equivalent of two cups of coffee a day had 36 percent more miscarriages than women who drank less than that.

"You're never sure," says epidemiologist Mark Klebanoff at the US National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, "whether drinking coffee increases the risk of a miscarriage or whether many women who have a normal, healthy pregnancy just lose their taste for coffee."

Klebanoff oversaw a study that measured a metabolic product of caffeine in the women's blood -- a more accurate gauge of coffee consumption. In this study, only those who drank the equivalent of more than five to six cups of coffee a day had an increased likelihood of miscarriage.

Here's the Buzz . . .

Caffeine is such a powerful stimulant that the International Olympic Committee and the US National Collegiate Athletic Association set limits on how much can remain in the blood during competition. In addition to boosting physical endurance, caffeine increases alertness and improves mood. The buzz may come at a price, though. People who drink more than they're used to may become restless and unable to sleep. Moreover, it's possible to become physically dependent on caffeine in days.

Should You Drink Up?

Women who are pregnant, likely to become pregnant or breast-feeding should drink no more than two cups of coffee a day to avoid the risk of miscarriage or a jittery breast-fed baby.

Those with heartburn, anxiety and fibrocystic breast lumps may want to see if cutting back on coffee improves their condition. For most people, however, there's virtually no risk in consuming up to three normal cups a day.

Stampfer tries to keep his coffee drinking irregular enough to avoid it becoming a habit: "That way, I can get a buzz when I feel like it."

Reader's Digest, September 2002

Read the left column and then answer
the following questions:


Paragraph 1:

• Which word below BEST describes the language in this opening paragraph? Explain why. (3)
  
  1. formal;
  2. slang;
  3. colloquial;
  4. jargon.

[Need help?]

Formal language is the language of official documents, text-books, etc. There is no room for colloquialism or slang. Slang, on the other hand, is easily recognised by the sheer number of unacceptable words or expressions. The text in this comprehension passage is certainly not jargon because jargon is a language of a specific interest group, such as cricketing jargon, medical jargon or computer jargon. The answer, therefore, has to be "colloquial" because the language is mostly formal but with occasional lapses into "loose" expressions, such as "here's the buzz", etc.

• What is a jury? (2)

[Need help?]

A jury is a body of people gathered in a law court to judge a legal case. When a jury has reached its verdict, the jury-people re-enter the court-room and present their decision to the judge who then reads it to the assembled people.

• What does the writer mean when he says that "the jury is pretty much in"? (2)

[Need help?]

When the writer says that the jury "is pretty much in", he means that at last a decision has been reached: in this case over the question of whether or not coffee is damaging to the body. Out of interest, South Africa does not use the jury system, but it is the main legal decision-making body in the United States where everyone has the right to be judged by jury of his peers rather than by a judge. Unfortunately, a jury is easily fooled.

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Refer to "Is It Heart-Healthy?":

• Why did researchers originally believe that coffee caused a rise in cholesterol? (2)

[Need help?]

Research in Europe showed a rise in cholesterol. The researchers there even isolated the chemicals present in coffee which causes this rise. In answering this question, make sure that you use full sentences and that you use your own words. If you merely quote from the text, you get no marks!

• Explain why scientists apparently changed their minds about this. (4)

[Need help?]

According to the writer, coffee brewing in Europe is different from elsewhere. The Europeans, he says, allow the coffee grounds to remain for a considerable time in the boiling water. It is this that causes the dangerous chemicals to be extracted. On the other hand, elsewhere in the world coffee-filters are used to absorb the chemicals. In any case, the average people do not actually drink that much coffee.

• Why has the writer quoted the actual words of Meir Stampfer? (2)

[Need help?]

Quoting makes the article sound more scientific. It therefore sounds much more believable, even though it may not be. Note that one cannot always trust the quotes in an article like this. Sometimes the writer is merely placing words in the mouth of the specialist in order to make his own conclusions sound more convincing!

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Refer to "Parkinson's Protection":

• Suggest a reason why Japanese-American men and not just ordinary Americans might have been used in the experiment on coffee. (2)

[Need help?]

The Japanese probably drink a lot less coffee than Americans who are well-known as coffee drinkers. The Japanese-Americans therefore provide a better sample with which to base one's research on coffee because their bodies will not be attuned to the dangerous substances.

• Evidence is NOT clear that drinking coffee will ward off Parkinson's Disease. Quote THREE sets of words which tell us this. (3)

[Need help?]

"evidence suggests"; "indirect evidence"; "preliminary findings"; "have not consistently supported". Note that the question calls for three SETS of words and not THREE WORDS! Be careful therefore to answer correctly.

• Why can research conducted by the Massachusetts General Hospital NOT be taken as proof of a link between coffee and Parkinson's Disease? (2)

[Need help?]

The research was on mice. Because it was not conducted on humans, it cannot be held up as reliable.

• What is meant by "the habit-forming stimulant"? (4)

[Need help?]

There are two parts to this question. Make sure that you have given an explanation for both "habit- forming" and "stimulant": "Habit forming": it causes an addiction; "A stimulant": it causes a reaction on the body.

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