Health Benefits of Coffee

As a certified and confirmed Starbuckeroo for many years, it is extremely gratifying to share with you the following article concerning the health benefits of drinking coffee. Of course, this has long been known by a few, but totally misrepresented by many. Why would Master Fard Muhammad give a nod to coffee in His teachings of How to Eat to Live to His Messenger, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, unless there was some benefit? While fasting, we are only allowed water and coffee! No tea, no jucie, no nothing! Only coffee and water!

I consider coffee to be one of the joys of life, along with good genuine chocolate. We generally have been led to think of coffee as seperate and apart from herbal teas, even though it is made the same exact way. Why shouldn't coffee be considered the ultimate herbal tea? It has way more benefits than any other herb. Why is it so popular despite its demonization, sometimes demonized in the same way as raw whole pure milk? Because people innately know it to be good and good for them.

Among other things, coffee perfects and accelerates thought, reducing computational errors and improving motor performance skills. Coffee of course increase mental alertness and speeds learning. It helps digestion in many ways and has a mild laxative effect. On the heart it is as positive inotropic effect, that is, it increases the force and power of the heart. It helps the kidneys by producing the well known diuresis, or increased flow of urine, helping to purify the body.

Side effects? Yes, if you drink too much. You might get the shakes or have difficulty sleeping. My personal recommendation - no more than 240mg of caffeine, which is about three 8 oz. cups of coffee per day. So, my daily vente bold red eye is right up to the limit!

Enjoy. Learn. Share.

Coffee: Drink to Your Health

By Sylvia Booth Hubbard

For many years, coffee was considered a vice, linked with sleepless nights and cigarettes. But scientists have discovered that coffee contains potent antioxidants that can fight numerous ailments, including heart disease and diabetes. According to the American Coffee Association, 54 percent of Americans drink coffee on a daily basis, and they drink, on average, over three cups each.

Most studies examined the effects of caffeinated coffee. When decaffeinated coffee was included, the benefits were usually reduced.

The diseases coffee can benefit include:

• Dementia. Drinking moderate amounts of coffee during middle age — classified as three to five cups daily — can decrease the risk of dementia by 65 percent, according to a 2009 study by Swedish and Finnish researchers.

• Liver disease. In those who drink too much alcohol, those who drank the most coffee — more than four cups every day — reduced their risk of developing alcoholic cirrhosis by 80 percent.

• Heart disease. Research associated with The Nurses' Health Study found that women who drank two to three cups of coffee daily had a 25 percent lower risk of dying from heart disease. Along the same line, a Spanish study found that men who drank more than five cups of coffee each day lowered their risk of dying from heart disease by 44 percent, and that women who drank four to five cups each day reduced their risk by 34 percent.

• Prostate cancer. A recent study from Harvard Medical School found that men who drank the most coffee slashed their risk of developing the fastest growing and most difficult to treat prostate cancers by more than half when compared to men who drank no coffee.

• Gout. Drinking four or more cups of coffee each day dramatically reduces the incidence of gout, say U.S. and Canadian researchers. Men who drank four to five cups daily lowered their risk by 40 percent, and those who drank six or more cups daily reduced their risk of developing gout by 59 percent when compared to men who didn't drink coffee.

• Breast cancer. Coffee can either reduce the risk of developing breast cancer or delay its onset, according to Swedish studies. They found that coffee alters a woman's metabolism and produces a safer balance of estrogens. Women who drank two to three cups of coffee a day reduced their cancer risk by as much as two-thirds, depending on the specific type of breast cancer.

• Diabetes. Enjoying six or more cups of coffee daily can cut chances of Type 2 diabetes by 54 percent in men and 30 percent in women over those who don't drink coffee.

• Parkinson's disease. Several studies show that drinking coffee lowers a man's risk of developing Parkinson's up to 80 percent — and the more the better.

• Colon cancer. A Japanese report found that women who drank three or more cups of coffee every day slashed their risk of developing colon cancer in half.

What's responsible for coffee's healthy benefits? Most researchers believe it's the antioxidants (polyphenols or flavonoids) in coffee, but there are hundreds of compounds in coffee that may be partially responsible.

© 2010 Newsmax. All rights reserved.

Vitamin D Makes You Smart

Vitamin D prevents the flu.
Vitamin D cures asthma.

Now it seems, vitamin D makes you smart!

Want to prevent or improve mental decline? Try vitamin D. The following study shows a clear cut association between cognitive decline and vitamin D levels. The lower the vitamin D, the lower the cognitive ability.

Vitamin D, the 'sunshine vitamin', tends be be very deficient in darker skinned people. Studies show a vast majority of blacks in the US are vitamin D deficient. Could this be why blacks tend to score lower on tests of mental ability?
Could it really be related to vitamin D?
Could it really be so simple? Poor nutrition makes you dumb. Wow!

Enjoy. Learn. Share.

Low Vitamin D Level Tied to Cognitive Decline
Study Shows Elderly People With Higher Vitamin D Levels Performed Better on Mental Tests
By Charlene LainoWebMD Health News
Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD
April 16, 2010 (Toronto) -- Two new studies add to evidence that older people with low levels of vitamin D may be more likely to suffer from cognitive impairment.
The hope is that vitamin D supplements may be able to slow mental decline -- an intervention that one research team plans to put to the test this summer.
Vitamin D is best known for helping the body absorb calcium, which restores and strengthens bone, protecting against fracture.
But vitamin D also seems to have anti-inflammatory effects that may help keep blood vessels healthy, ensuring nutrient- and oxygen-rich blood flow to brain cells, says Amie Peterson, MD, of Oregon Health & Science University in Portland.
In addition, the presence of vitamin D receptors throughout the brain suggests that it may directly affect brain tissue, she tells WebMD.
Testing Cognitive Impairment
Still, whether vitamin D has a role in memory and cognition is unclear at this point, Peterson says, and studies have had conflicting results.
To help answer the question, Peterson and colleagues studied about 150 people aged 70 and older living on their own. Their average age was 85, and about three-fourths were women.
Participants' vitamin D levels ranged from 9 to 90 nanograms per milliliter of blood. Levels of 30 or higher are considered normal, according to Peterson.
All participants were given a standard 30-point test that is used to screen for cognitive impairment.
Results showed that the lower their score on the test, the lower their vitamin D levels.
The average vitamin D level was 42.8 for the 42 participants with a perfect score of 30 on the test; 36.7 for the 89 participants who scored between 27 and 29 ("still normal but lower," says Peterson), and 34.8 for the 21 people with scores of 22 to 26 ("mild cognitive impairment").
The study also showed that lower vitamin D levels were associated with a greater risk of falling.
This summer, Peterson and colleagues plan to embark on a study of people with Parkinson's disease to look at the effect of vitamin D supplementation on cognition, balance, and gait. Still to be tested is whether the intervention will help older people who are otherwise healthy.
Vitamin D Deficiency Common in Elderly
The second study involved 752 women, aged 75 and older, in France.
A total of 129 of the women had vitamin D levels that were below 10 nanograms per milliliter, suggesting vitamin D deficiency, which is common among older women, says Cédric Annweiler, MD, of Angers University Hospital.
Compared to women with higher vitamin D levels, those with levels below 10 were about twice as likely to have cognitive impairment, as measured by a standard test of cognitive skills, he tells WebMD.
The researchers plan to follow the women for seven years to see whether those with low vitamin D levels are more likely to develop Alzheimer's disease or other dementia, Annweiler says.
Studies like that are needed to answer the question of which comes first: vitamin D deficiency or cognitive impairment, says David Knopman, MD, a neurologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., who was not involved with the new work.
"People with dementia or cognitive impairment tend to become socially isolated and less physically active, so they’re less likely to get outside" to get the benefits of the sun's vitamin-D-producing ultraviolet light, he tells WebMD.
The studies were presented at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Neurology.
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