After a long holiday weekend, some of you may need to have an extra cup of coffee to get this short week started. Well, good news, if you do. Women who “drink a substantial amount of coffee each day may lower their risk for developing a particular type of breast cancer,” according to a study in Breast Cancer Research.
HealthDay reported that the researchers assessed “5,929 Swedish women, aged 50 to 74,” half of whom had breast cancer. Drinking coffee “appeared to spur a ‘strong reduction’ in risk for ER-negative breast cancer.” This form of breast cancer is particularly aggressive and more difficult to treat.
Women who drank “five cups of coffee a day had a 33% to 57% lower risk for ER-negative cancer than did those who drank less than one cup a day.”
However, WebMD noted that a “US expert warns that the new finding about reduction in risk for ER-negative breast cancer could be due to chance.
Nevertheless, the 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.'”
Coffee now has been associated with:

• a lower risk of diabetes,
• a lower risk of Parkinson’s disease,
• a lower risk of cirrhosis and liver disease,” said Mucci.

Also:

• Drinking coffee reduces prostate cancer risk
• Drinking coffee reduces breast cancer risk
• Coffee may have perks for longer living
• Tea and coffee ‘protect against heart disease’

It is also clear that drinking excessive amounts of coffee can lead to jitters, heart palpitations, and insomnia in some people.
Here are some of my other blogs about the health benefits of coffee:

• Coffee and Your Health
• Iced Coffee Drinks Can Pack as Many Calories as an Entire Meal

So, Barb and I are off for our first cup of java — but not iced coffee!