Where are you on Coffee? ? SMOKINCHOICES (and other musings)

By Karen Kaplan ? / ?LOS ANGELES TIMES

LOS ANGELES ? Scientists in Norway have more good news for coffee drinkers. Researchers have already found evidence that the drink ? or the beans it?s brewed from ? can help people lose weight, reduce the risk of developing Alzheimer?s disease or dementia, boost muscle growth, protect against certain types of cancers and even reduce the risk of premature death, among many other benefits.

Now comes word that a cup of joe reduces physical pain.

The surprising finding is based on a study involving 48 volunteers who agreed to spend 90 minutes performing fake computer tasks meant to mimic office work. The tasks were known to cause pain in the shoulders, neck, forearms and wrists, and the researchers wanted to compare how people with chronic pain and those who were pain-free tolerated the tasks.

As a matter of convenience, the scientists allowed people to drink coffee before taking the test ?to avoid unpleasant effects of caffeine deprivation, e.g. decreased vigor and alertness, sleepiness, and fatigue,? they reported.

But when it came time to analyze the data, the researchers from Norway?s National Institute of Occupational Health and Oslo University Hospital noticed that the 19 people who drank coffee reported a lower intensity of pain than the 29 people who didn?t.

• In the shoulders and neck, for instance, the average pain intensity was rated 41 (on a 100-point scale) among the coffee drinkers and 55 for the coffee abstainers. Similar gaps were found for all pain sites measured, and coffee?s apparent pain-mitigation effect held up regardless of whether the subjects had chronic pain or not.

The authors of the study, which was published this week in the journal BMC Research Notes, cautioned that since the study wasn?t designed to test coffee?s influence on pain, the results come with many uncertainties. For starters, the researchers don?t know how much coffee the coffee drinkers consumed before taking the computer tests. They also doubt that the coffee drinkers and abstainers were similar in all respects except for their java consumption.

(Haven?t we been admonished for decades not to drink coffee for all kinds of reasons? ?Food purists, of course rarely drink coffee, said (by doctors) to be bad for the heart, ?pregnant women, ?wrecks your sleep, ?over-stimulating and so much more. ?

I?ve been sipping or drinking coffee for years ? - since I was 5 or 6, ?and taking the first draft of my mother?s coffee ? she used cream and sugar and I loved it. Have been drinking the mud with cups of my own since mid-teens. ? Have gone through all the phases so many others have pursued chasing the perfect cup o?Joe with fancy coffee pots and varying methods and special papers for filtering in preparing. ? ?Was never fond of instant or decaf. And guess I generally wanted it strong enough to fight back.

Don?t need coffee to ?wake up? in the morning. ?Prefer to have it early, but sometimes its after dinner that I realize haven?t had my coffee today. ?I really like it, but not for the high. ?Sorta an indulgence like the after dinner chocolate I prefer to have if its in the house. ?Ah ?well, I never told you that I?m perfect. ? ? Jan)

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Source: http://smokinchoices.wordpress.com/2012/09/06/where-are-you-on-coffee/

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