Researchers finding significant health benefits of coffee

Coffee is now being studied more closely by researchers who are seeing potential for significant disease prevention and therapeutics. They are trying to understand how the coffee and caffeine actually work within the cells as population studies show promise for therapeutics. Harvard researchers have done a study which indicates that drinking 1-3 cups of caffeinated coffee can reduce diabetes risk. The studies are looking back at data of 126,000 people over 18 years and not the more rigorous forward clinical studies but the trends are strong. Another study suggests that people who drink coffee regularly are 80% less likely to develop Parkinson’s disease. The evidence is also strong that the reported benefits of coffee is the caffeine content. Caffeine is a vasodilator and phosphodiasterase inhibitor. Parkinson’s drugs are now being develop which contain a derivative of caffeine, based on the evidence from research studies. Caffeine has also been seen to benefit asthma sufferers and headache sufferers possibly because it acts to dilate blood vessels. Drs. are now trying to understand why coffee demonstrate these benefits and how it acts on a cellular level.