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A Look at Coffee Vending Machines -
Coffee vending machines are a way to provide people who like their coffee with an option to keep caffeinated all day. These machines take money, allow for customized selections (such as cream, sugar, and special flavors), dispense a paper or...
Coffee: A Historic Beverage, And A Great Holiday Gift
Ah, coffee... a fantastic dark beverage that wakes us up in the morning. For some of us, it keeps us up during the day, or for late night study sessions. We drink it out of habit, we drink it from addiction, we drink it for flavor; whatever the...
Coffee, Caffeine & Fitness
One look at a line at the local Starbucks in the morning and you don’t need to be convinced of the huge amount of coffee consumption in the U.S. The National Coffee Association found in 2000 that 54% of the U.S. adult population drinks coffee...
Coffee History
Coffee - THE Drink of Choice Did you know coffee is the most consumed beverage in the world. How did coffee get this ranking? What country first figured out coffee was safe for consumption? When was the first drink of coffee prepared? Where did the...
Coffee Jelly
Note: Makes 4 servings, Total Carbohydrates: 8 Ingredients: 2 Tbsp. water 2 1/2 tsp. gelatin 1 1/2 cups water 1 1/2 tsp. liquid sweetener 1 Tbsp. Splenda 1/2 cup brewed espresso 1/2 cup whipping cream Optional whipped cream and whole...
Dessert - Cognac Coffee with Sesame Wafers
Cognac Coffee
1 Pot Strong Coffee or 1 shot espresso per person
Cognac, ¼ Cup per cup of coffee
Ground Cardamom, ¼ tsp per cup of coffee
Ground Cinnamon, ¼ tsp per cup of coffee
1 Cup Heavy Cream
¼ Cup Confectioner's...
Does Your Morning Coffee Cause You Pain or Discomfort?
Does your morning coffee cause you pain? Are you frustrated when a night out dining with friends ends in discomfort instead of relaxed conversation? Do you carry antacids with you every day? Heartburn is more than just a nuisance. It can detract...
Gourmet Coffee Stops Decrease Gas Mileage – Home Brew Tastes Better, Costs Less
Copyright © 2005 http://TastesOfTheWorld.net A researcher has stirred up the commuter coffee mug with the suggestion that morning rush hour traffic is worsened by stops for daily morning gourmet coffee at Starbucks and other premium coffee...
Gourmet Flavored Coffee
Coffee tastes great by itself, but for an extra special taste sensation, try gourmet flavored coffee. There are many flavoring substances which can be added to coffee to give your daily cup of Java an out of the ordinary flavor experience. Some...
The French Press Coffee Maker: Connoisseur Equipment
Ask any connoisseur how he likes his coffee. French Press Coffee Maker coffee is the answer you'll get, in nine cases out of ten. Coffee lovers all over the world mostly agree that the French Press Coffee Maker is the best equipment for brewing...
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Coffee and Depression: Coffee as an Antidepressant! What?
Coffee and Depression:
When you grab that morning cup of java, you’re probably not thinking of it as an antidepressant. You’re just trying to get that morning pick me up to get your day going.
However, recent studies have shown that java really does function as an antidepressant, raising the spirits of people who regularly drink the stuff. It acts on the central nervous system and has mild antidepressant effects.
Coffee and depression studies have found that drinking it reduced the rate of suicide in the large demographic populations observed.
The first coffee and depression study that raised the topic of java as an antidepressant was done in 1993. In this study, a Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Program study of 128,934 nurses found that java drinkers were significantly less likely to commit suicide than nondrinkers.
This Nurse’s Health Study on coffee and depression did not go so far as to establish a causal relationship between java drinking and the drop in the suicide rate. The study stated that it could be that the coffees itself had little to do with it, but that people who drink coffee share other characteristics that make them less likely to commit suicide.
A second study on coffee and depression, however, confirmed these controversial findings and went farther as to state that it was the coffee that dropped the suicide rate. This study was especially noteworthy, as it was large-scale and adjusted for confounding factors.
Published in the Archives of Internal Medicine in 1996, the study followed more than 86,000 registered nurses in the United States between 34 and 59 years of age for ten years. Dr. Ichiro Kawachi, an epidemiologist at Harvard Medical School who led this study, looked at the data from the Kaiser Permanente study hoping to discount their findings.
Instead of what he expected to find, he confirmed the original study’s results with his own: using coffee as an antidepressant reduced the suicide rate in these nurses.
Dr. Kawachi discovered that the nurses he studied who drank two to three cups of coffee a
day were one-third less likely to commit suicide as those who didn't drink any.
The nurses who drank more than four cups a day were 58% less likely to commit suicide than their colleagues who drank less. The coffee and depression study of female nurses found eleven suicides among those who drank two to three cups of caffeinated coffee per day, compared with twenty-one cases of suicide among those who said they almost never drank coffee.
However, Dr. Kawachi and others aren’t ready yet to use coffee as an antidepressant for clinical depression. At the minimum, Dr. Kawachi says that his study shows that drinking lots of coffee can’t be bad for your health.
Psychiatrists point out that people must understand that depression isn’t simply a state of mind; it is a very serious medical issue that cannot be resolved simply by drinking coffee.
And cardiologists, while they recommend to their patients with heart and other health problems to steer clear of caffeine, know that it’s not good for a patient’s mental health to do so immediately in a cold turkey manner. Instead, they recommend bringing down the coffee consumption gradually in order to avoid a severe state of depression due to the drop in caffeine and other antidepressants in coffee.
Whether it is the caffeine or something else, coffee does seem to have at least a mild antidepressant effect. The caffeine in coffee may have mood-elevating actions through effects on neurotransmitters such as dopamine and acetylcholine.
It is also possible that coffee drinking has social effects, such as increasing personal contacts and time spent socializing, that might reduce thoughts of suicide.
Reference: Kawachi, I., et al., "A prospective study of coffee drinking and suicide in women," Arch Intern Med (1996), 156(5):521-25
About the Author
Randy works with his son on Ultimate Coffees Info. Randy owned and operated a very successful storefront/mailorder business from 1988 to 2003. Currently full time owner/operator of several online businesses.
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