Coffee

More good news for coffee drinkers - especially the guys. 

Coffee cuts prostate cancer risk: Study

More is better when it comes to drinking coffee, to ward off the risk of deadly prostate cancer, according to a major United States study.

Men who drank six or more cups of the beverage per day had a 60 per cent lower risk of developing the most lethal type of prostate cancer and a 20 per cent lower risk of forming any type of prostate cancer, compared to men who did not drink coffee, it said.

Even just one to three cups per day was linked to a 30 per cent lower risk of developing lethal prostate cancer, according to the research carried out at the Harvard School of Public Health.

“Our study is the largest to date to examine whether coffee can lower the risk of lethal prostate cancer,” said Harvard associate professor and the study’s senior author Lorelei Nucci. 

The effects were the same whether the coffee was caffeinated or decaffeinated, leading researchers to believe that the lower risk could be lined to the antioxidant and anti-inflammatory benefits of coffee.

Prostate cancer is the third-most common cancer affecting men in Singapore. About 2,500 cases are diagnosed each year. A blood test can detect it early, and the caner can be graded on a Gleason score; the higher it is, the more likely the cancer is to spread.

Risk factors are typically lined to high-fat diets, heredity, alcohol and exposure to chemicals.

The study examined 47,911 US men who reported how much coffee they drank every four years from 1986 to 2008.

The lower risk seen in coffee drinkers remained even after researchers allowed for other factors that typically boost risk and were more often seen in coffee drinkers, such as smoking and failure to exercise.

- Agence France-Presse