Coffee keeps ovarian cancer at bay

New York, Jan 22: Addicted to caffeine and tired of hearing its negative impact on your health from those around you.

Its time for you to hit back at all those who said excessive amounts of coffee caused anxiety, sleeplessness and palpitations as new research claims that three cups of coffee a day could help prevent ovarian cancer. The study found that caffeine lowered a woman's chances of developing the disease by a fifth. The risk was even less for women who do not take the Pill or do not use hormone replacement therapy but smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol had a negative effect, it found.

The report published in American Medical Journal Cancer compared the diets of more than 80,000 women with the incidence of ovarian cancer. Out of them 737 of the women developed ovarian cancer.

Women who had at least three cups of coffee a day were 20 per cent less likely to develop ovarian cancer than those who drank none.

Among women who had never taken the Pill, coffee drinking cut the risk of ovarian cancer by 35 per cent. And for those who had not had hormone replacement therapy, the risk was 43 per cent less.

''We observed a significant inverse trend of ovarian cancer risk with caffeine intake,'' Dr Shelley Tworoger said.

The reasons why caffeine protects against ovarian cancer is not clear and further studies were being carried carried out. The benefits and risks of drinking coffee continue to be the subject of much debate.

Some studies have shown caffeine can reduce the risk of Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, gallstones, diabetes and gout.

The most recent study published yesterday, however, blamed coffee for increasing the risk of miscarriages.

UNI