My wife will readily attest to my coffee addiction: Four Barrel's amazing single pour coffee, Chemex, French press, Greek coffee, Americanos, siphon coffee, or even just plain, old-fashioned drip coffee - if you can name it, I will probably drink it. So I was delighted to hear about a Harvard study suggesting that coffee might lower the risk of prostate cancer.
Sounds promising, but news stories about food x potentially preventing condition y have become a near daily phenomenon - and they're often based on small studies. The Harvard study (link to abstract), on further inspection, looks a little different:
We conducted a prospective analysis of 47 911 men in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study who reported intake of regular and decaffeinated coffee in 1986 and every 4 years thereafter. From 1986 to 2006, 5035 patients with prostate cancer were identified, including 642 patients with lethal prostate cancers, defined as fatal or metastatic.
Of course, this is still one study - and it's not the final word on the matter. But, until more research can be done, I'll be sipping my three to six cups daily. You know, just in case.
Photo by rommy ghaly
