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In what’s got to be the dumbest idea yet from the nanny state of California (sorry, guys, but it’s true), coffee sold in the state may need to be labeled as a carcinogen.
The science is beyond feeble. You’d need to drink 2,000 cups of coffee a day to get to the level that caused cancer in mice. And humans metabolize coffee differently anyway.
More importantly, according to CNN, there is “no statistically significant association between dietary acrylamide intake and various cancers.”
So the great California coffee cancer scare is pseudoscientific bullsh*t.
Want to know what’s not bullsh*t?
The actual science, which proves overwhelmingly that drinking coffee is incredibly good for you (with one exception, which I’ll get to in a bit).
A recent article in the Annual Review of Nutrition described a meta-analysis of 127 studies of the effects of coffee on human health. The meta-analysis, conducted at the University of Catania in Italy and without funding from beverage companies, ranked random trials and observational studies according to their methodology and reliability and then collated the results into a “super study.”
According to The Washington Post, the meta-analysis found probable evidence that drinking coffee is associated with:
- A decreased risk of many common cancers–including breast, colorectal, colon, endometrial and prostate–with a 2 to 20 percent reduction in risk, depending on the cancer type.
- A reduction in risk of 5 percent for cardiovascular disease and around 30 percent for both Type 2 diabetes and Parkinson’s disease.
- A lower death rate.
It turns out that coffee contains natural antioxidants, which are molecules that reduce the free radicals that damage your cells and cause you to age. Coffee also repairs your DNA, thus making your cells less likely to become cancerous.
Coffee is also a natural anti-inflammatory drug which calms your body so that you don’t overreact to stress. Finally, coffee improves the efficiency of enzymes that regulate insulin and glucose metabolism, thereby fending off Parkinson’s and Type 2 diabetes.
Far from the carcinogen that some California crazies seem to believe it to be, coffee is about as close as we have to a wonder drug. Plus, it tastes really good (if made correctly). And makes you more alert.
Far from being at risk from coffee, most Americans don’t drink enough. To get the maximum health benefit you need to drink…wait for it…at least four to five 8-ounce cups a day.
There is one (1) group of people, though, who should not so indulge: pregnant women. This is not because the coffee damages their health (coffee always has huge health benefits) but because coffee slightly increases the risk of miscarriage.
For everyone else, though, drink up…and then have another.
