Drinking Coffee May Cut Risk of Heart Disease

Good news for coffee drinkers (as I sit here drinking my white chocolate caramel cappuchino). It turns out that drinking coffee can reduce your risk of heart disease.

In one of the largest, most comprehensive studies ever done (129,000 men and women over two decades) on coffee consumption, it was found that people who consumed several cups of coffee every day were less likely to die of heart disease than people who did not drink coffee. According to the results, women who drank four-to-five cups of coffee per day were 34% less likely to die of heart disease and 26% less likely to die from any cause, while men who drank more than five cups per day were 44% less likely to die from heart disease and 35% less likely to die overall.

The researchers theorize that anti-inflammatory compounds found in coffee may be responsible for the health benefits seen in this and other studies. Unfortunately, other studies conducted in the past show different results, so it's hard to know which is right, since scientists don't yet understand what is going on at the biochemical level.

These results, while promising, have yet to be confirmed, so you shouldn't take this as confirmation that you should be sucking down coffee after coffee all day long.

Alcohol Lowers Risk of Rheumatoid Arthritis

Randall Parker at Future Pundit reports that a study conducted in Scandinavia reveals that people who consume alcohol have a lower risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis. In fact, the more you drink, the less your risk for RA. Those in the top quartile of alcohol consumption, for example, had as much as a 50% lower risk of developing the autoimmune disease than those who drank the least.

And from earlier reports, we know that rheumatoid arthritis greatly increases the risk of heart disease. So now I have an excuse for going out on $2 pint-night... I'm doing it for my health!