People with Parkinson’s May Benefit from Coffee

In the latest medical discovery, a new study has found the significant role played by coffee in people suffering from Parkinson’s disease. Based on the new research, regular intake of coffee benefited those who have the disease by way of helping control their movement. This is considered one of the first studies in humans suggesting that caffeine can help in the movement of people diagnosed with the illness.

The research findings were published in the online journal of Neurology published by theAmerican Academy ofNeurology. Lead author Dr. Ronald Postuma said they found that those who use caffeine are less likely to develop Parkinson’s disease.

A total of 61 people were involved in the study. They were all displaying symptomsof Parkinson’s disease such as sleepiness during the day. The researchers then divided them into two groups with one given only a placebo while the other group was given the pill containing 100 milligrams of caffeine which they took twice a day. After the first three weeks, their dosage was increased to 200 milligrams twice a day for another three weeks. The caffeine consumed was equivalent to about two to four cups of coffee per day.

Among those who were given caffeine, the researchers found a five -point average improvement in the severity of their condition. Additionally, they displayed a three-point improvement in their motor symptoms such as the speed of their movement and body stiffness compared to those who were only given the placebo.

In the area of daytime sleepiness, depression and quality of life, there was not much positive improvement owing to the short duration of the study.

The experts expressed enthusiasm on these findings considering the fact that coffee can become a cheap alternative to helping control body movement which is a major symptom of Parkinson’s disease. They suggested that caffeine can be explored as a treatment option and can even be used as a supplement to the regular medications.

http://www.brewed-coffee.com/health/people-with-parkinsons-may-benefit-from-coffee/#more-1413

Wanna Espresso con Panna?

Need a serious caffeine boost but craving for something sweet at the same time? I suggest you try an espresso con panna.

Espresso con panna, or espresso with cream, will give you the caffeine boost that only espresso can give in one small satisfying shot and at the same time tickle your taste buds with the hot and cold medley from the contrast between the cream on top and the coffee at the bottom.

If you plan on getting a good espressocon panna, like the one in the photo up there (which coffee-addict Noemi Ruthswore the me it definitely is), make sure you don’t go for watered-down versions that some coffee shops serve. Stay away from their espresso con panna if you see the barista taking out his canned whipped cream, which might be less fattening than old-fashioned hand-whipped heavy cream, but won’t give you the same satisfying creamy goodness of a properly whipped cold cream.

You can also make espresso con panna at home quite easily. All you need to do is to whip up some cold heavy cream and add your whipped cream on top of a freshly brewed single or double shot of espresso (a 3oz shot should be enough to start your day right). You can add a tablespoon of sugar or a drop of vanilla extract on the cold cream before you whip it up, depending on sweet you want your whipped cream to be. It’s also a good idea to make more than you need for a couple of espresso shots and just store the rest in your fridge for your next espresso con panna.


Photo via NoemiRuth

http://www.brewed-coffee.com/espresso/espresso-con-panna/

Could Coffee Protect Against Liver Disease in Alcohol Drinkers?

For guys who drink alcohol, heavy coffee consumption may protect against liver damage, according to a new study from Finland.

"Our findings suggest a possible protective effect for coffee intake in alcohol consumers," said study researcher Dr. Onni Niemelä, of Seinäjoki Central Hospital and the University of Tampere in Finland.

The researchers asked nearly 19,000 Finnish men and womenbetween ages 25 and 74 about their coffee and alcohol consumption. They also measured participants' blood levels of the liver enzyme gamma-glutamyl transferase (GGT).

Drinking alcohol raises levels of GGT in the blood. Over time, drinking can also lead to alcoholic liver disease. People with liver disease show higher levels of GGT in their blood. Men in the study who consumed more than 24 alcoholic drinks per week, or about 3.5 drinks daily, had the highest levels of the liver enzyme — about three times higher than men who did not drink alcohol.

But among the men who were heavy drinkers, those who also consumed five or more cups of coffee daily showed a 50 percent reduction in GGT compared with men who drank no coffee.
The researchers found no significant association between coffee consumption and GGT levels in female drinkers.

"The findings are thought-provoking, though it is impossible to derive meaning from them," said Dr. David Bernstein, chief of the division of hepatology at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, New York, who was not involved in the new study.

In addition to drinking alcohol, smoking, older age and being overweight can also raise GGT levels. While there were no differences in these variables among heavy drinkers, moderate drinkers, former drinkers and nondrinkers in the study, the researchers cannot say for sure whether some interaction between alcohol and one of these factors affected the results. And participants may not have estimated accurately the amount of coffee and alcohol they drink.

The researchers found that the way that coffee was prepared — whether it was filtered, boiled or served as espresso, for example — did not seem to make a difference in the findings.

Previous studies have suggested that drinking coffee may decrease GGT levels, and that caffeine may play a role in this.

It remains unclear whether elevated levels of the liver enzyme correlate with symptoms of liver disease. "If I go out and have a six-pack tonight, my levels will be up, but it doesn't mean I have liver disease," Bernstein said.

People should not think that drinking more coffee will cancel out the effects of heavy drinking, he said. "We know nothing about whether decreasing levels of the liver enzyme leads to improvements in overall health, or a decreased risk of liver disease," Bernstein said.

The study was published online March 14 in the journal Alcohol and Alcoholism.

http://www.myhealthnewsdaily.com/3653-coffee-alcohol-liver-damage.html

NIH Study: Coffee Really Does Make You Live Longer, After All

Caffeine addicts, rejoice: all the coffee you're downing over the course of a day could be lengthening your lifespan. For real.

According to research published today in the New England Journal of Medicine, people who drank four or five cups of coffee a day tended to live longer than those who drank only a cup or less. The benefit was more pronounced for women, but men also stand to gain somewhat from pounding joe.
Coffee-drinking men cut their risk for death by 12 percent after four to five cups of java, according to the study, which was led by the National Institutes of Health's Neal Freedman. Women who drank the same amount had their the risk of death reduced by 16 percent.

Freedman and his team drew data from the National Institutes of Health-AARP Diet and Health Study, a 13-year assessment. They found that coffee drinkers progressively cut their risk of death the more they drank. The sweet spot appears to be between four and five cups of coffee a day -- any more than that, and the effect wears off somewhat.

There is a catch: people who drink coffee tend to die sooner than non-coffee drinkers. That's because coffee consumption is often linked with other unhealthy behaviors like smoking. So, to add the most years to your life, the next time you're down at the diner, double down on the coffee, but leave the cigarettes out of it.
Update: Although the study may offer coffee drinkers some peace of mind when it comes to their habit, it's important to remember that this is an observational study only, not a clinical trial. As Freedman told Bloomberg News, "we don't know for certain coffee is having a cause and effect," and that coffee has more than 1,000 compounds that ought to be tested.

Coffee Stories

There is a Turkish saying that “coffee needs to be black like hell, strong like death and as sweet as love”.

Throughout the centuries coffee made its way through five continents, wandered around the world, laying physical and cultural roots wherever it went. What has not been said yet about coffee that has not already been expressed by philosophers, authors, poets and screenwriters in the East and the West?

What is it about a little cup of coffee that awakens such excitement in all of us?

Come and read what cultural personalities from around the world have to say about coffee and how it actually all got started:

Honorè de Balzac
“Coffee slides down into the stomach and ideas come marching in like an army, galloping memories, imaginary horsemen with their fancy riding, legions of artillerists scramble by, figures take shape, the paper becomes filled with ink, the system starts and stops in waves of the black beverage, like the battle determined with black dust.”

Herman Friele
“Sleep is just another symptom of a lack of caffeine.”

Sheikh Adb-al-Kadi in 1587
“Coffee is the common man's gold, and like gold it brings to everyman the feeling of luxury and nobility.”

Mahmoud Darwish
“You must pour a cup of coffee gently and lovingly into a white cup. Coffee cannot express itself properly in a dark cup.”

Christian Friedrich Henrici (Picander) Coffee Cantata Composed by Bach
Mm! how sweet the coffee tastes,
more delicious than a thousand kisses,
mellower than muscatel wine.
Coffee, coffee I must have,
and if someone wishes to give me a treat,
ah, then pour me out some coffee!

Israeli Comedy From 1976, Chelfon Mountain Not Answering
Victor Chason shouts at an Egyptian soldier who is boiling water (a hint about torture in Egyptian captivity) with an electric spoon:  What is this? Have you become Ashkenazim? That’s how to make coffee?!
_____________________________________________________________________
There are several legendary accounts of the origin of the drink itself. One account involves the Yemenite Sufi mystic Shaikh ash-Shadhili. When traveling in Ethiopia, the legend goes, he observed goats of unusual vitality, and, upon trying the berries that the goats had been eating, experienced the same vitality. A similar myth attributes the discovery of coffee to an Ethiopian goatherder named Kaldi.

In Ethiopia it was customary in the past to eat the coffee beans, and to not make a drink out of them. Ethiopian monks used to chew the beans in order to stay awake. The coffee wandered along with the Ethiopian traders that brought it to their country and began growing it. It is possible that an Arabic doctor El Razy mentioned coffee in one of his letters in the 9th century, but the first time any reference was made to making a drink out of roasted beans is dated several centuries later.

The most important of the early writers on coffee was Abd al-Qadir al-Jaziri, who in 1587 compiled a work tracing the history and legal controversies of coffee entitled Umdat al safwa fi hill al-qahwa. He reported that one Sheikh, Jamal-al-Din al-Dhabhani, mufti of Aden, was the first to adopt the use of coffee (circa 1454). Coffee's usefulness in driving away sleep made it popular among Sufis. A translation traces the spread of coffee from Arabia Felix (the present day Yemen) northward to Mecca and Medina, and then to the larger cities of Cairo, Damascus, Baghdad, and Istanbul.

In 1511, it was forbidden to drink coffee in Mecca. In Cairo, Egypt, a similar ban was instituted in 1532, but due to the beverage’s tremendous popularity the ban was lifted quickly. In 1554 the first coffee shop was opened in Istanbul by two Syrian traders. It is told that these traders were so successful that one of them managed to save the sum of 5,000 gold coins in three years. In 1633, Ottoman sultan Murad IV bans coffee and tobacco and even threatens the death penalty to coffee drinkers, but in 1634 the great mufti of the Ottoman Empire in the Fatwa allowed smoking and coffee drinking out of the principle that anything that is not explicitly forbidden in Islamic tradition – is allowed.

Coffee Plantations in West Indies Islands
The vigilant trading between Venice and North American countries, and the and the import of a variety of African merchandise brought about the penetration of coffee in Venice, the first place to drink coffee in Europe. As early at the 16th century the British Eastern India company and the Holland Eastern India company brought coffee to England, and the first coffee shop was opened in 1650 in Oxford by a Jewish Turk called Jacob or Jacobs. The beverage’s popularity rose rapidly and by 1675 England already had some 3,000 coffee shops. Coffee arrived in France in 1669, as a result of a visit by the Turkish ambassador who brought a great quantity of coffee powder with him and some coffee beans to the royal courtyard, and this is how the drinking of coffee became established n Paris. Coffee came to Venice as part of the booty for beating the Turks in the War Over Venice (1683), and by this time they were adding sugar and milk.

Coffee reached the new world as a result of French colonization, to Martinique at first and the Western Indie Islands, where the French set up coffee plantations. In 1787, Lieutenant-Colonel Francesko De Melo Plata smuggled coffee beans from the French Guinea to Brazil, forever changing the history of coffee. The wide use of slavery in the coffee plantations of Brazil brought about a significant increase in the world’s coffee production throughout the 19th century, transforming coffee from a beverage for nobility to a beverage for all. Throughout most of the 19th and 20th centuries Brazil was the main producer of coffee in the world and had a monopoly that required maintaining high prices, which brought additional producers into the market, among them Columbia, Guatemala and Indonesia.

http://www.strauss-group.com/en/-1/Other-Pages/General-content-pages/Coffee-Stories/

The Coffee Song by Frank Sinatra

Way down among Brazilians
Coffee beans grow by the billions
So they've got to find those extra cups to fill
They've got an awful lot of coffee in Brazil

 

You can't get cherry soda
'cause they've got to fill that quota
And the way things are I'll bet they never will
They've got a zillion tons of coffee in Brazil

 

No tea or tomato juice
You'll see no potato juice
'cause the planters down in Santos all say "No, no, no"

 

The politician's daughter
Was accused of drinkin' water
And was fined a great big fifty dollar bill
They've got an awful lot of coffee in Brazil

 

[instrumental break]

 

You date a girl and find out later
She smells just like a percolator
Her perfume was made right on the grill
Why, they could percolate the ocean in Brazil

 

And when their ham and eggs need savor
Coffee ketchup gives 'em flavor
Coffee pickles way outsell the dill
Why, they put coffee in the coffee in Brazil

 

No tea, no tomato juice
You'll see no potato juice
The planters down in Santos all say "No, no, no"<<<

 

So you'll add to the local color
Serving coffee with a cruller
Dunkin' doesn't take a lot of skill
They've got an awful lot of coffee
An awful lot of coffee
Man, they got a gang of coffee in Brazil!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3MqmV47Lq8

God’s Coffee – Are you enjoying Life

Are you enjoying your Coffee….. a small story with a lesson..

A group of alumni, highly established in their careers, got together to visit their old university professor.

Conversation soon turned into complaints about stress in work and life.

Offering his guests coffee, the professor went to the kitchen and returned with a large pot of coffee and an assortment of cups – porcelain, plastic, glass, crystal, some plain looking, some expensive, some exquisite – telling them to help themselves to the coffee.

When all the students had a cup of coffee in hand, the professor said:
“If you noticed, all the nice looking expensive cups were taken up, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. While it is normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress.

Be assured that the cup itself adds no quality to the coffee. In most cases it is just more expensive and in some cases even hides what we drink.

What all of you really wanted was coffee, not the cup, but you consciously went for the best cups… And then you began eyeing each other’s cups.

Now consider this: Life is the coffee; the jobs, money and position in society are the cups.
They are just tools to hold and contain Life, and the type of cup we have does not define, nor change the quality of Life we live.

Sometimes, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the coffee God has provided us.”
God brews the coffee, not the cups………. Enjoy your coffee!

MORAL
“The happiest people don’t have the best of everything.
They just make the best of everything.”
Live simply. Love generously.
Care deeply. Speak kindly.
Leave the rest to GOD

http://rishikajain.com/2012/06/08/inspirational-stories-pictures-quotes-gods-coffee-are-you-enjoying-life/