I'm still going to drink coffee for the Alzheimers benefits.
http://www.blisstree.com/2013/02/21/food/nutrition/coffee-benefits-antioxidants/
In the past ten years or so, “antioxidants” has become THE buzzword
in health food marketing. But a new study says that just because a food
is antioxidant rich, doesn’t mean it will prevent disease–particularly when it comes to stroke risk and dementia.
Researcher Elizabeth Devore, an epidemiologist at
Brigham and Women’s Hospital, has studied the impact of antioxidants and
certain compounds on aging and health before. Last year, she published
research proving that eating berries can delay cognitive decline. And in
the past, she’s analyzed data from the Rotterdam study, comparing
reported diets and health data of over 5,000 subjects, all aged 55 and
older, whose health and diets were monitored for 14 years. She found
that subjects who consumed high amounts of vitamin E were less likely to
develop dementia, and subjects whose diets were high in vitamin A were
less likely to have a stroke.
In her latest research, she revisited the Rotterdam study to analyze
how antioxidants impact stroke risk and likelihood of dementia. Contrary
to what food marketers would lead us to believe, she found that there
wasn’t much of a connection at all; at least not when looking at the
general category of antioxidants.
In the group she studied, most subjects who consumed a high amount of
antioxidants were getting them from coffee and tea. While past studies
have linked high consumption of coffee and tea to a lower risk of stroke
and dementia, those were largely conducted in European countries, where
diets also tend to be high in other antioxidant-rich foods, like wine,
fruits and vegetables, which leads her to believe that it may not be the
antioxidants in coffee that are actually boosting brain health for the
people who drink it.
“We’re seeing strong and clear benefits with specific antioxidants
but not overall,” she told NPR. “As we’re able to move into these more
nontraditional antioxidant foods, we’ll be able to tease out more
specific information for people.”
The loose link between antioxidants and proven health benefits has
already gotten some food manufacturers in trouble–POM Wonderful, for
example, got more than a little slap on the wrist from the U.S. Supreme
court for making false claims about the antioxidant benefits of their pomegranate juice.
But as researchers do start to tease out the health benefits of certain
antioxidants and flavonoids, it might just get harder to justify that
double-shot mocha if you’re not getting your share of fruits and
vegetables, too.
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