Coffee facts

Every once in a while I receive interesting news about coffee, including its possible health benefits. Everyone loves to hear these facts, because we love coffee and it might give us a good reason to have another coffee break, hang out at a cafe, or to stop at yet another drive-through coffee stand. Although there are plenty of websites where you can find these same facts, Here are a few gleaned today from HealthSpring and WebMD

The neuroprotective antioxidant value of coffee is significantly (30 times the amount!) boosted by roasting it. (Refresher for those of you who are losing memory capacity despite coffee consumption: antioxidants are the compounds that protect our cells from oxidation - or rather, oxidative stress - and therefore, protect us from all sorts of health problems such as cancer, inflammation, and aging.) So you should roast your coffee rather than eat the green beans??

Coffee lowers the risk of gout. (I can't honestly say I've ever heard of someone having gout, but still...)

Lowers cholesteral

Caffeine protects against the death of red blood cells and resulting anemia.

Here are more nasty conditions they say we can avoid by drinking coffee: Parkinson's, colon cancer, liver cirrhosis, gallstones, asthma, diabetes, headaches, and tooth decay. The list is impressive and seems to go on and on.

Considering how many people drink coffee (400 billion cups of coffee is consumed each year), it's a wonder any of these conditions even exist.