Worried About Prostate Cancer? Drink Coffee.
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Wednesday, May 18th, 2011
Denis Vrublevski/Shutterstock
A new study published yesterday in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute found that drinking coffee may lower the risk of getting lethal prostate cancer.
Coming from the folks over at the Harvard School of Public Health, the study surveyed nearly 50,000 males between 1986 and 2006, and found that 5035 of the men in the pool contracted prostate cancer, and, of them, 642 died of the illness. However, researchers found that the coffee drinkers in group had a 60% lower chance of contracting this lethal form of prostate cancer.
Of course, this result was unique to only the extremely caffeine addled, taking six cups a day to get the desired effect. Lucky for more jumpy Americans, it’s not the caffeine that reduces the risk, as the effect was the same for both regular and decaf coffee.
NPR even points out that the health effects of coffee are surprisingly strong, even stronger than regular exercise, which only reduces the chance of contracting the same type of cancer by 50%, according to the same group.
Lane Wallace, a health writer at The Atlantic, spoke with the researchers, and they shied away from recommending that people increase their coffee intake, telling her “I wouldn’t recommend that men change their coffee consumption based on this study (or any single study).” But couple this new information with other studies that show that coffee can ward off breast cancer, strokes, diabetes and more, and it makes me grateful that I drank enough coffee this morning to make it feel like there’s a hummingbird trapped in my chest.
- Kris King