Coffee 'healthier' than food

2005-08-28 21:48

Washington - When the Ink Spots sang, "I love the java jive and it loves me" in 1940, they could not have known how right they were.

Coffee not only helps clear the mind and perk up the energy, it also provides more healthy antioxidants than any other food or beverage in the American diet, according to a study released on Sunday.

The findings by Joe Vinson, a chemistry professor at the University of Scranton, in Pennsylvania, gives a healthy boost to the warming beverage.

"The point is, people are getting the most antioxidants from beverages, as opposed to what you might think," Vinson said.

Antioxidants, which are thought to help battle cancer and provide other health benefits, are abundant in grains, tomatoes and many other fruits and vegetables.

Beverages

Vinson's team analysed the antioxidant content of more than 100 different food items, including vegetables, fruits, nuts, spices, oils and common beverages.

They then used data on typical food consumption patterns to calculate how much antioxidant each food contributes to a person's diet.

They concluded that the average adult consumes 1 299 milligrams of antioxidants daily from coffee. The closest competitor was tea at 294 milligrams.

Rounding out the top five sources were bananas, 76 milligrams; dry beans, 72 milligrams; and corn, 48 milligrams. Americans drinks 1.64 cups of coffee daily.

That does not mean coffee is a substitute for fruit and vegetables.

Consumers

"Unfortunately, consumers are still not eating enough fruits and vegetables, which are better for you from an overall nutritional point of view due to their higher content of vitamins, minerals and fibre," Vinson said.

The antioxidants in coffee are known as polyphenols. Sometimes they are bound to a sugar molecule, which covers up the antioxidant group, Vinson said.

"If I say more coffee is better, then I would have to tell you to spread it out to keep the levels of antioxidants up," Vinson said. "We always talk about moderation in anything."

His findings were released in conjunction with the annual convention of the American Chemical Society in Washington.

In February, a team of Japanese researchers reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute that people who drank coffee daily, or nearly every day, had half the liver cancer risk of those who never drank it.

Occured

The protective effect occurred in people who drank one to two cups a day and increased at three to four cups.

Last year, researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health found that drinking coffee cut the risk of developing the most common form of diabetes.

Bonnie Liebman, nutrition director of the Centre for Science in the Public Interest, said she was not surprised by Vinson's finding, because tea has been known to contain antioxidants.

- AP