It is dark and bitter, but is enjoyed on most breakfast and lunch tables in many parts of the world for its refreshing and health benefits. Nigerian researchers have launched a probe into what makes coffee thick. CHUKWUMA MUANYA writes.EXCITED by researches from Asia, America and Europe validating the health benefits of coffee, Nigerian researchers have come together to probe the effects on Nigerians. The team, Ignite Project, include a consultant cardiologist and associate professor of medicine at the College of Medicine University of Lagos (CMUL)/Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Dr. Jane Ajuluchukwu, consultant clinical pharmacologist and associate professor of medicine at CMUL/LUTH, Dr. Sunday Olayemi, a consultant nutritional biochemist at the Nigeria Institute of Medical Research (NIMR), Mr. Bathlomeo Brai and the President Nigeria Medical Association (NMA), Dr. Damise Temiye. The team said that unpublished studies in the country showed that drinking two to three cups of coffee daily reduces painful crisis in sickle cell patients and prevents premature delivery when taken by pregnant women. The researchers said that drinking coffee had been demonstrated to improve an individuals alertness and concentration so aiding better performance and also helping reduce the feeling of tiredness or lethargy. Temiye at a media event in Lagos to kick-start the probe said: I believe that if coffee is not beneficial it will not still be in the market. We want to know what happens when the pregnant woman takes it. Will it be beneficial Will it prevent premature babies Is it given to premature babies to live If mother take it, will it prevent preterm Is it beneficial to sickle cell patients Will it reduce their painful crisis Will it help them to live a better life We need to make more doctors to be aware. We need to collaborate. A lot of things we used are medicinal. Too much of everything is bad. There is nothing that is not of risk but moderation is the answer. Ajuluchukwu said: We are doing our own study in Nigeria and not hoping on what is happening in Finland. We want to do a study to know whether being a Nigerian or being in Nigeria will change the equation. Coffee has been linked to lower risk of brain tumour. There is something coffee does to bad cholesterol to make it impotent and not able to carry out its bad work. It is good in preventing diabetes. Ajuluchukwu said that coffee was one of the most widely researched ingredients and the growing body of scientific research shows that coffee, when drunk in moderation- four to five regular size cups a day- is safe for healthy adults and can even have beneficial health implications as part of a healthy diet and physically active lifestyle. She said: The key ingredient demonstrated to be responsible for enhanced mental performance is caffeine, which is naturally contained in coffee but also in tea and cocoa. Coffee also contains vitamins and minerals. A wide range of studies have shown that caffeine improves mental performance and help maintain a high level of attention for longer periods and improves attention span in some individuals. On the possible side effects of coffee, Olayemi said: Everything in life has risk and everything has benefit. Coffee has polyphenol that helps in insulin sensitivity. You need to take 50 to 100 cups daily for coffee to cause mortality. Brai said that the aim of the Ignite Project was to unravel coffee health benefits. On the quantity to be taken, Brai said: The key is modesty. Water is good but can kill. So it has to be in moderation. If you have two to three cups of coffee a day you are on the safe side, that is 300mg or less. Four to five cups is also okay but it is better to be on the safe side. On the effect of drinking coffee during pregnancy, Brai said: There is no harm in using coffee during pregnancy. Recent report shows that up to 300mg will not affect pregnancy. To Ajuluchukwu: Personally I think coffee is an adult thing just like kolanut. It is for enjoyment, for socialising. So we should not take it as a drug. Take it as enjoyment in addition to the health benefits. We should not take coffee as a drug but as enjoyment benefit. We are sharing unnecessary fears. On why some people have terrible side effects when they take a little coffee, Temiye explained: It is idiosyncrasy reaction. Idiosyncratic drug reaction denotes a non-immunological hypersensitivity to a substance, without connection to pharmacological toxicity. Idiosyncratic stresses here the fact that other individuals would react differently, or not at all, and that the reaction is an individual one based on a specific condition of the one who suffers it. Some people will react badly after taking peanut, that is groundnut. I have peanut allergy. I do not take groundnuts. Meanwhile, a recent study has explained why coffee may be protective against type 2 diabetes. Researchers at University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) have discovered a possible molecular mechanism behind coffees protective effect. A protein called sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG) regulates the biological activity of the bodys sex hormones, testosterone and estrogen, which have long been thought to play a role in the development of type 2 diabetes. And coffee consumption, it turns out, increases plasma levels of SHBG. The study was published in the current edition of the journal Diabetes.The study showed that women who drink at least four cups of coffee a day are less than half as likely to develop diabetes as non-coffee drinkers.When the findings were adjusted for levels of SHBG, the researchers said that protective effect disappeared. For the study, the researchers identified 359 new diabetes cases matched by age and race with 359 apparently healthy controls selected from among nearly 40,000 women enrolled in the Womens Health Study, a large-scale cardiovascular trial originally designed to evaluate the benefits and risks of low-dose aspirin and vitamin E in the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease and cancer. They found that women who drank four cups of caffeinated coffee each day had significantly higher levels of SHBG than did non-drinkers and were 56 per cent less likely to develop diabetes than were non-drinkers. And those who also carried the protective copy of the SHBG gene appeared to benefit the most from coffee consumption. When the investigators controlled for blood SHBG levels, the decrease in risk associated with coffee consumption was not significant. This suggests that it is SHBG that mediates the decrease in risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Also, moderate coffee consumption has been shown to improve aortic distensibility in hypertensive elderly individuals. A detailed study conducted by a team from the University of Athens on the Aegean island of Ikaria has demonstrated that moderate consumption of coffee by hypertensive elderly individuals can lead to improvements in aortic distensibility. Distensibility is a measure of the elasticity of arteries, and low levels have long been recognised as an indicator of atherosclerosis and a reliable predictor of future cardiovascular events. By increasing the load on the heart, hypertension leads to vascular changes and neuro-hormonal activation, which causes increases in vascular stiffness and reduced elasticity. Between June and October 2009, researchers from the University of Athens conducted a health and nutrition survey using a target group of 343 men and 330 women aged between 65 and 100all of whom were long-term residents of Ikaria. The island was selected because of its populations high life expectancy, with an above-average proportion of residents over 90 years of age. Consideration was given to a wide range of socio-demographic, bio-clinical, lifestyle and dietary characteristics related to cardiovascular risk factors such as hypertension, diabetes, hypercholesterolemia, obesity and anthropometric indices. Physical activity status and biochemical parameters related to cardiovascular risk were also evaluated.Coffee consumption was particularly measured during the initial phase of the study because it is a deeply embedded social tradition within the Greek population, and also because of conflicting evidence of its impact on cardiovascular health. Coffee has also been shown to protect against head and neck cancers. Data on the effects of coffee on cancer risk have been mixed. However, results of a recent study add to the brewing evidence that drinking coffee protects against cancer, this time against head and neck cancer. Full study results are published online first in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research. Using information from a pooled-analysis of nine studies collected by the International Head and Neck Cancer Epidemiology (INHANCE) consortium, participants who were regular coffee drinkers, that is, those who drank an estimated four or more cups a day, compared with those who were non-drinkers, had a 39 per cent decreased risk of oral cavity and pharynx cancers combined. Data on decaffeinated coffee was too sparse for detailed analysis, but indicated no increased risk. Tea intake was not associated with head and neck cancer risk. The association is more reliable among those who are frequent, regular coffee drinkers, consuming more than four cups of coffee a day. Also, high and moderate consumption of tea and moderate coffee consumption are linked with reduced heart disease, according to a study published in Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology: Journal of the American Heart Association. Researchers in The Netherlands found: drinking more than six cups of tea per day was associated with a 36 per cent lower risk of heart disease compared to those who drank less than one cup of tea per day and drinking three to six cups of tea per day was associated with a 45 per cent reduced risk of death from heart disease, compared to consumption of less than one cup per day.And for coffee they found: coffee drinkers with a modest intake, two to four cups per day, had a 20 per cent lower risk of heart disease compared to those drinking less than two cups or more than four cups; and although not considered significant, moderate coffee consumption slightly reduced the risk of heart disease death and deaths from all causes.Researchers also found that neither coffee nor tea consumption affected stroke risk.
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