Coffee and Caffeine - Your New Best Friends, Seriously

Coffee and caffeine are among the more studied and opined upon substances in the modern world, and all of us have been subjected to the "it's bad/it's good" flipping judgment generators over the years.  Perhaps you remember the flap about caffeine causing lumpy breasts?  Or the overcaffeinated executive jokes?  The addiction/withdrawal warnings that leave one wondering if caffeine is also a gateway drug, and if so, a gateway to what? 

But amid all this attention there seems to be lately some thoughtful research linking caffeine/coffee consumption to some unexpected positive health benefits.  Like reducing your risk of basal cell carcinoma and several kinds of strokes, type 2 diabetes, and, what about this -

"Women who drink one to five cups of coffee a day—including decaf—reduce their risk of death from all causes by 15 to 19 percent compared to women who drink no coffee at all."

Anneli Rufus (writing for the Daily Beast) has assembled a summary of interesting research results concerning coffee.  WNL appreciates not only the headlines summarizing the 13 positive and 1 negative study she includes in her article, but also that she includes links to the journal where the article appeared.  Where medical study conclusions appear in print is a very important part of the information non-medical readers need to help them evaluate the reliability of the information.  You can click on the links and go read the article for yourself!

But there are still those negatives.  The cost, for one thing.  And remember that lady who got burned by her takeout coffee from McDonalds and not only had private part skin grafts but national ridicule for her trouble? The beans are loaded with pesticides from what I hear, and every sort of labor and slavery abuse has been brought up in connection with both coffee and chocolate.  Free trade organic the only answer?

How about this?  Time Magazine reports that entrepreneurial Harvard biomedical engineering professor David Edwards has developed no-calorie, inhalable lime-flavored (? why not coffee flavored) caffeine puffs from a tiny Chapstick-size dispenser.  The product is called AeroShot and Time's Maia Szalavitz reports and reviews this new way to get your wake-up buzz.

WNL:  People can get pretty worked up about coffee (chocolate, too), maybe because they are so public and ubiquitous, but also so very personal.  Hope you enjoy this new information and let me know what you think of AeroShot?  I can't imagine it taking the place of a luscious latte, but it might have a use for times when you can't get to your favorite coffee place.


(Video:  "Coffee: The Greatest Addiction Ever" recently appeared in Andrew Sullivan's popular column "The Dish")