Health benefits of coffee and a proposed warning label

Coffee is among the most popular beverages ever, enjoyed by millions of people worldwide each day. Estimates suggest that Americans consumed 3.4 billion pounds of coffee last year. When it comes to its health effects, coffee is also among the best studied beverages. How much is too much? Does coffee cause cancer? What is behind the proposed new warning label for coffee? Fortunately, the news on coffee is mostly good. This includes a recent study that found coffee drinkers live longer, a conclusion that held up even for heavy coffee consumption (eight or more cups of coffee each day), and regardless of whether the coffee was caffeinated or not. And longevity was linked to coffee consumption regardless of what type of caffeine metabolism genes you carry. The authors concluded that the health benefits of coffee go beyond caffeine. Prop 65 warning label Perhaps you saw articles like this one describing an effort in California to require a notification to coffee consumers of a possible link to cancer. Here’s the reason: in 1986 California passed Proposition 65, which requires businesses to provide a warning label when exposing any consumer to any item on a long list of potentially harmful chemicals. Acrylamide is on that list, and coffee contains acrylamide, a chemical produced during the roasting process. How worried should we be about acrylamide in coffee? Nothing has changed in our understanding regarding the potential side effects of coffee, or its benefits. No study has con...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Health Healthy Eating Source Type: blogs