Coffee's latest health perk?
Drinking coffee may cut your risk of colon cancer by as much as 50 percent, a new study suggests.
The more you drink, the more you may reduce your risk -- and it makes no difference whether the coffee is regular or decaf, researchers said."The protective effect is not caffeine, per se, but probably a lot of other antioxidant ingredients in the coffee that are released in the roasting process," said senior researcher Dr. Gad Rennert. He is director of the Clalit National Israeli Cancer Control Center in Haifa, Israel.
These findings can't prove that coffee reduces the risk of colon cancer, only that coffee is associated with a reduced risk, Rennert said. However, the association appears strong, he added.
"For years we were not sure if coffee was dangerous. Today we have evidence that that's not the case, that actually coffee is good for you," he said.
For the study, Rennert's team -- which included researchers at the University of Southern California's Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center -- collected data on more than 5,100 men and women in northern Israel who were diagnosed with colon cancer. These patients were compared with more than 4,000 men and women with no history of colon cancer.
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