A new cancer study links higher coffee consumption to lower percentage of women, who develop breast cancer.

Recent studies have shown that those who drink more than three cups of coffee daily are less likely to develop high blood pressure, suggest that coffee drinkers are less likely to develop liver cancer, showed that coffee is the number one source of healthy antioxidants in the diet, and that coffee reduces development of type 2 diabetes.

Other coffee studies suggest that coffee contributes to better short-term memory and that coffee may increase sex drive in women.

The latest coffee study was conducted by Steven Narod of the University of Toronto. The study, published in the International Journal of Cancer in January, studied women with a very specific gene mutation known as BRCA1. Those
women have an 80 percent risk of developing breast cancer before their 70th birthday. But according to Narod, those
involved in his study, "... who drank six or more cups of coffee a day on average had about a 75-percent reduction in the risk of developing breast cancer."

A recent study of sexual behavior in rats suggests that coffee serves as the equivalent of female Viagra. That study was tentative at best, and looked only at rats which were not habitual coffee drinkers. So women who consume coffee rarely may find coffee to be a sexual stimulant.

But other health studies link coffee consumption to solid evidence that high levels of antioxidants in coffee carry health benefits and may reduce the risk of several cancers. A separate cancer study shows coffee drinkers are less likely to develop cancer of the liver as consumption levels increase.

A paper presented last year at the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) in Chicago linked coffee drinking with better short-term memory. Florian Koppelstatter, M.D., Ph.D., said, "We were able to show that caffeine modulates a
higher brain function through its effects on distinct areas of the brain." Koppelstatter is a radiology fellow at the Medical University-Innsbruck in Austria.

Health benefits of gourmet coffees can be discussed at the Coffee Talk Forum: http://www.tastesoftheworld.net/talk