Coffee offers a wealth of good health

The Roaring ’20s might have been called the Pouring ’20s: Seems coffee-drinking contests were the rage. On January 18, 1927, the Reno Gazette Journal reported that Frank Trachimowitz downed 90 cups in three hours, 28 minutes. The next month, 28-year-old Albert Baker, a San Francisco salesman, buzzed right by him, glugging 157 cups in six hours, 20 minutes.

I believe coffee offers great health benefits — but at two to four or five cups a day, black with no sugar, and filtered, not French press or drip/percolated.

Previously, I’ve told you about how coffee can lower lousy LDL cholesterol, and reduce your risk of dementia, cardiovascular woes, liver and Parkinson’s disease, some cancers and acute kidney disease.

Now, research that looked at almost half a million adults around age 58 for about 12 years has found that two to three cups a day of caffeinated brew decreases the risk of death over that time span by 27 percent; decaf reduces it 14 percent and instant 11 percent.

And, four to five cups a day of caffeinated coffee offers a 17 percent reduction in your risk of A-fib and other arrhythmias; while two to three cups of instant cuts the risk by 12 percent.

The benefits come from the caffeine and more than 100 biologically active ingredients coffee and decaf contains. Caffeine promotes weight loss, memory and energy. The other ingredients in coffee appear to dilate blood vessels and protect their lining, change your metabolism, up insulin sensitivity and reduce inflammation.

Don’t be afraid to get your workouts mixed up. Take aerobics and weight training: A study in the British Journal of Sports Medicine tracked 100,000 older adults for up to 10 years and found that combining moderate to vigorous aerobics for 30 minutes, five days a week, and weight training once or twice a week delivers a 41 percent reduction in your risk of dying prematurely. In contrast, weightlifting by itself reduces the risk by 9 percent — and reduces the risk of dying from cancer. Aerobics alone lowers the risk of death by 32 percent.

Those are important benefits — but you don’t need to stop there. If you mix in the benefits from stress reduction, improved nutrition, training your brain for speed, good dental care, and smart money management, which are explained in my book “The Great Age Reboot,” you can reengineer your body so that 90 is the new 40!