Coffee

Omaz

How about the smell of coffee???  Ummm, fresh ground.

AMP47

wallycat wrote:
TUESDAY, May 10 (HealthDay News) -- Women who drink a substantial amount of coffee each day may lower their risk for developing a particular type of breast cancer, Swedish researchers say.Their study linked consumption of five or more cups of coffee a day to a relatively marked reduction in the non-hormone-responsive disease known as ER-negative breast cancer. However, coffee consumption did not appear to lower the risk for developing ER-positive breast cancer, a hormone-responsive estrogen receptor form of the disease.Daily consumption of coffee may protect against the most aggressive type of breast cancer, ER-negative, said study co-author Dr. Per Hal, a professor in the medical epidemiology and biostatistics department at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm."Now, we don't have all the details," he cautioned. "We don't know, for example, what specific type of coffee we're talking about here. But what we do know is that the protective effect is quite striking and remains even after adjusting for a lot of other factors that have the potential to play a protective role. And we know that we're talking about what we could call a relatively normal amount of coffee drinking. Certainly we're not talking about consuming gigantic amounts of coffee. So, this is a very intriguing finding."The study, reported online May 11 in Breast Cancer Research, involved 5,929 Swedish women, aged 50 to 74. About half of the women had breast cancer.Questionnaires were used to assess behavioral and health characteristics, including smoking and drinking patterns, physical activity routines, family history of breast cancer, hormone therapy protocols, nutritional intake, body mass index, education level and coffee consumption habits. Both tumor status and breast cancer type were also noted.The principle finding: Drinking coffee appeared to spur a "strong reduction" in risk for ER-negative breast cancer, the researchers wrote. Women who drank five cups of coffee a day had a 33 percent to 57 percent lower risk for ER-negative cancer than did those who drank less than one cup a day.The study revealed an apparent association between coffee consumption and a reduction in breast cancer risk, but not a cause-and-effect relationship.And Hal was not eager for consumers to jump to conclusions."There are one or two other studies that have pointed in the same direction as ours -- but not many, just a few," he cautioned. "So before I would go to tell my neighbors to start drinking more coffee than they already do, I would like to know what is the biological mechanism at work here. And that's not yet clear."Hal noted that he and his colleagues are now working on a new study to tease out that information.Dr. Stephanie Bernik, chief of surgical oncology at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, described the findings as both "interesting" and "provocative," given that the kind of cancer coffee appears to protect against is one for which there are relatively few effective treatments."It is this kind of study that opens the door to improving treatment, as scientists try to uncover what biologic factors in a substance are beneficial, and then attempt to extract these factors and use them to defend against cancers," Bernik noted. "The goal would be to try and discover what it is in coffee that may be beneficial.""The next step is to find out what chemical factors in coffee cause the decreased rate of cancer and then attempt to see if these same chemicals can be used to treat a patient once they are already diagnosed with cancer," she said.

pil

Here I am chugging down a cup of greentea and coffee and have 8 minutes to do it. I have to stop fluid or food intakes 3 hours before my Cat Scan and Bone scan. 

 mmm I had to have my coffee.  I may have a small saltine quickly in case my stomach get upset drinking that liquid. 

 Happy day all

BeckySharp

Hi all of you coffee drinkers!  I had to give up coffee several years ago due to GERD (acid reflux).  I found a suggestion on Mayo's website on how to wean yourself off coffee.  It recommended a drink made from nuts, dates, etc.  It is called teeccino and can be bought at www.teeccino.com It tastes just like coffee!  I have been drinking it for a long time.  Hazelnut is my favorite.  A good thing.  I have lymphedema and was told to give up coffee if I drink it.  Becky

LeapFrog39

I tried the teeccino....it has chickory in it which some people can be sensitive to....in a gastric sort of way....

 Coffee is a comfort thing for me. I generally only have one or two cups (of course, they are really big cups) a day. it's the one thing I'm not real willing to give up, in fact, I think someone will have to pry the cup out of my cold, dead hands.  I'm mean, geez, I've given up pizza, burgers, sugar and recently milk, and I'm eating so many veggies I'm beginning to feel like one....nope, the coffee stays.

Omaz

pil - Good luck with your scans!

TonLee

lol....coffee drinkers are a spunky lot!!

I tried Teecino many years ago...never quite did it for me.  I even weaned myself onto it but substituting a tsp of of it for coffee, until the entire basket was teecino....I think I still have a can..over 10 years old! lol

TonLee

Fearless,

My fav 3 things too!!

Valgirl

Ok - I have my one cup of coffee in the AM and then my 2-3 cups of Brassica Green Tea.  Only decaf after 2pm.  Hope I'm covering all the bases.

Omaz

Just got this in my email from WebMD:

Does Coffee Cut Breast Cancer Risk?

Study Suggests Heavy Coffee Drinking May Help Reduce Risk of Certain Cancers By Kathleen Doheny
WebMD Health News Reviewed by Laura J. Martin, MD

May 10, 2011 -- Women who drink more than five cups of coffee a day may be reducing their risk of one type of breast cancer, new research suggests.

Previous research has produced conflicting results about coffee and breast cancer risk, says researcher Jingmei Li, PhD, of the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm.

In her new research, she found coffee drinking reduces overall breast cancer risk modestly -- by 20% -- when she considered age. "The 20% decrease in risk associated with drinking five or more cups of coffee a day was statistically significant only when adjusted for age," she tells WebMD.

When she took into account other factors, such as education level, drinking of alcohol, and hormone therapy use, she found a 57% reduction in risk for cancers known as estrogen-receptor negative cancers. This type of breast cancer is less likely to respond to hormone therapy than estrogen-receptor positive breast cancer.

However, a U.S. expert warns that the new finding about reduction in risk for ER-negative breast cancer could be due to chance. The only solid message from this study and previous ones, says Shumin Zhang, MD, ScD, a researcher at Harvard Medical School, is this: "Drinking coffee doesn't seem to increase the overall risk of breast cancer."

A Visual Guide to Breast Cancer

Coffee Drinking and Breast Cancer Risk

The researchers from Karolinska Institutet evaluated coffee drinking and breast cancer risk in 2,818 patients with breast cancer and 3,111 study participants who did not have breast cancer.

The breast cancer patients were classified by estrogen-receptor tumor subtypes.

Breast cancer cells are termed ER-negative if they don't have receptors for estrogen. They are ER-positive if they do. Receptors are proteins on the outside surfaces of cells that can attach to hormones found in the blood. When estrogen attaches, it can fuel the growth of breast cancer cells.

Participants were ages 50 to 74, all Swedish born and residents there between October 1993 and March 31, 1995.

The researchers collected information on coffee drinking habits. They also asked about education, family history of breast cancer, menstrual history, reproductive history, and habits such as smoking, drinking alcohol, and exercising.

Coffee drinkers were grouped into four categories:

• One cup or less a day
• More than one cup and up to three cups a day
• More than three cups and up to five cups a day
• Five or more cups a day

Those who had one cup or less a day served as the reference group.

Conflicting Research

''The results are biologically plausible," Li says. Coffee has compounds that may affect breast cancer of different ER subtypes in different ways, she tells WebMD.

For instance, she says, coffee has been shown to boost blood levels of the phytoestrogen enterolactone. It is linked in other studies with a decrease in ER-negative breast cancer risk, she says.

In her own research, Zhang has found that several cups of coffee daily, overall, do not seem to pose a risk for breast cancer.

However, in research published in 2008, she found coffee intake was linked with an increased risk of ER-negative cancers -- exactly the opposite of the new study.

Li's finding that heavy coffee drinking may reduce ER-negative breast cancer risk, she says, is interesting. However, she isn't convinced. "It is unclear if this observation was a chance finding."

ruthbru

Well, that is as clear as espresso!

Omaz

Maybe they just can't commit....

TonLee

Lol, probably coffee drinkers back one study, non-coffee drinkers another....

wandergo1

Love my coffee also....I have switched to Truvia/Stevia for the sugar, going to try and find some healthy creamer. This is my second time around after 5 yrs. so Im giving up lots and cutting down to 2 cups per day. Got to have some enjoyment I guess.

 

Roselinda

coffee has played a crucial role in many societies.The energizing effect of the coffee bean plant is thought to have been discovered in north east region of ethiopia. the cultivation of coffee first expended in the arab world.

Omaz

wandergo - We have been discussing estrogen from cows that crosses into milk in the hot flash forum.  I am wondering about creamer too.  We were going to look into goat milk as a possibility.

Roselinda -  Thanks for bringing the thread back from inactivity!

odie16

Must say, I am with Fearless One - my 3 favorite things too and I refuse to give them up. I am a serious coffee consumer with choc creamer in the a.m. and french vanilla in the evening to mellow out.