3 coffees a day linked to more health than harm

Human form of ‘mad cow’ disease detectable in skin

LONDON, Nov 23, (Agencies): People who drink three to four cups of coffee a day are more likely to see health benefits than harm, experiencing lower risks of premature death and heart disease than those who abstain, scientists said on Wednesday.

The research, which collated evidence from more than 200 previous studies, also found coffee consumption was linked to lower risks of diabetes, liver disease, dementia and some cancers.

Three or four cups a day confer the greatest benefit, the scientists said, except for women who are pregnant or who have a higher risk of suffering fractures.

Coffee is one of the most commonly consumed drinks worldwide. To better understand its effects on health, Robin Poole, a public health specialist at Britain’s University of Southampton, led a research team in an “umbrella review” of 201 studies based on observational research and 17 studies based on clinical trials across all countries and all settings.

“Umbrella reviews” synthesise previous pooled analyses to give a clearer summary of diverse research on a particular topic.

“Coffee drinking appears safe within usual patterns of consumption,” Pool’s team concluded in their research, published in the BMJ British medical journal late on Wednesday.

Drinking coffee was consistently linked with a lower risk of death from all causes and from heart disease. The largest reduction in relative risk of premature death is seen in people consuming three cups a day, compared with noncoffee drinkers.

Drinking more than three cups a day was not linked to harm, but the beneficial effects were less pronounced.

Coffee was also associated with a lower risk of several cancers, including prostate, endometrial, skin and liver cancer, as well as type 2 diabetes, gallstones and gout, the researchers said. The greatest benefit was seen for liver conditions such as cirrhosis of the liver.

Poole’s team noted that because their review included mainly observational data, no firm conclusions could be drawn about cause and effect. But they said their findings support other recent reviews and studies of coffee intake.

Abnormal proteins involved in the brain-destroying Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), a human form of “mad cow” disease, are detectable in the skin, researchers said Wednesday, raising new concerns about transmission.

It is highly unlikely that the fast-moving and fatal disease could be spread by casual contact, since the prions in the skin are at levels 1,000100,000 times lower than in the brain, said the report in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

Rather, researchers said the discovery means CJD could be spread through common surgeries that do not involve the brain, said the report.

“It is well known that CJD is transmissible via surgical or medical procedures involving prion-infected brain tissue,” said lead author Wenquan Zou, associate professor of pathology and neurology at Case Western Reserve School of Medicine.

“Our finding of infectious prions in skin is important since it not only raises concerns about the potential for disease transmission via common surgeries not involving the brain, but also suggests that skin biopsies and autopsies may enhance pre-mortem and post-mortem CJD diagnosis.”

Only biopsies, spinal taps or autopsies can tell for sure if a patient is stricken with the rare, degenerative brain disorder which affects one in a million people per year worldwide.

Patients develop tiny sponge-like holes in their brains, and experience sudden memory and vision problems, behavioral changes and poor coordination.

There is no cure for CJD and most people who are diagnosed rapidly deteriorate, and die within a year.