Wikipedia fountain and source of all knowledge....

I have the discovered where the tree of knowledge went to. It was scanned onto the internet and renamed Wikipedia. I swear this site has everything I would ever want to know. For example I discovered that Bruce Willis (action hero god), is actually a Missouri Synod Lutheran..ROCK ON. I knew there was a reason I enjoy his movies so much. I also stumbled upon a really exciting article about coffee. Now some of you may or may not know about my efforts to purge myself of my dependency upon coffee. I unfortunately had worked myself up to at least 5 or 6 cups in the morning alone. It seemed like i was not able to function if i didn't have a cup of java in my hand. It was only after I found myself reaching for my cup in my sleep and grabbing my alarm clock and trying to drink it instead, that I decided perhaps I should back down. Now I can handle my cofffee....really i can quit anytime i choose. .....ITS BEEN HELL. May i just say that yes you can experience withdrawal effects from coffee. I have had a headache for the last week....which is only relieved by taking a shot of espresso...well yesterday I made it through the entire day without having a cup...i drank tea instead...and i was miserable. This morning I am treating myself to a small cup of regular.....Tasty and i am feeling great. I just need to stay strong....Anyway I digress. Back to this article i found. I have selected three aspect that it covered particularly well. I have also included the link below......

Coffee
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.



Coffee is a drink, usually hot, prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant. These seeds are usually called coffee beans, although they are not technically beans. Coffee is the second most traded commodity in the world, trailing only petroleum. Coffee is one of humanity's chief sources of caffeine, a stimulant. Its potential benefits and hazards have been, and continue to be, widely studied and discussed.

Benefits
Coffee increases the effectiveness of pain killersÂ?especially migraine medicationsÂ?and can rid some people of asthma. Some of the beneficial effects may be restricted to one sex, for instance it has been shown to reduce the occurrence of gallstones and gallbladder disease in men. Coffee intake may reduce one's risk of diabetes mellitus type 2 by up to half. While this was originally noticed in patients who consumed high amounts (7 cups a day), the relationship was later shown to be linear (Salazar-Martinez 2004).
Coffee can also reduce the incidence of cirrhosis of the liver and prevent colon and bladder cancers. Coffee can reduce the risk of hepatocellular carcinoma, a variety of liver cancer (Inoue, 2005). Also, coffee reduces the incidence of heart disease, though whether this is simply because it rids the blood of excess fat or because of its stimulant effect is unknown. At the annual meeting of the American Chemical Society in Washington, D.C., on August 28, 2005, chemist Joe Vinson of the University of Scranton presented his analysis showing that for Americans, who as a whole do not consume large quantities of fresh fruits and vegetables, coffee represents by far the largest source of valuable antioxidants in the diet.[4]
Coffee contains the anticancer compound methylpyridinium. This compound is not present in significant amounts in other food materials. Methylpyridinium is not present in raw coffee beans but is formed during the roasting process from trigonellin, which is common in raw coffee beans. It is present in both caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee, and even in instant coffee. 6
Coffee is also a powerful stimulant for peristalsis and is sometimes considered to prevent constipation; it is also a diuretic.
Many people drink coffee for its ability to increase short term recall and increase IQ. It also changes the metabolism of a person so that their body burns a higher proportion of lipids to carbohydrates, which can help athletes avoid muscle fatigue.
Some of these health effects are realized by as little as 4 cups a day (24 U.S. fl oz, 700 mL), but others occur at 5 or more cups a day (32 U.S. fl oz or 0.95 L or more).
Some controversy over these effects exists, since by its nature coffee consumption is associated with other behavioral variables. Therefore it has been variously suggested that the cognitive effects of caffeine are limited to those who have not developed a tolerance, or to those who have developed a tolerance and are caffeine-deprived.
Practitioners in alternative medicine often recommend coffee enemas for "cleansing of the colon" due to its stimulus of peristalsis, although mainstream medicine has not proved any benefits of the practice.

Risks
Many notable effects of coffee are related to its caffeine content.
Many coffee drinkers are familiar with "coffee jitters", a nervous condition that occurs when one has had too much caffeine. Coffee can also increase blood pressure among those with high blood pressure, but follow-up studies showed that coffee still decreased the risk of dying from heart disease in the aggregate. Coffee can also cause insomnia in some, while paradoxically it helps a few sleep more soundly. It can also cause anxiety and irritability, in some with excessive coffee consumption, and some as a withdrawal symptom. There are also gender-specific effects, in some PMS sufferers it increases the symptoms, and it can reduce fertility in women, also it may increase the risk of osteoporosis in postmenopausal women, and there may be risks to a fetus if a pregnant woman drinks 8 or more cups a day (48 U.S. fl oz or 1.4 L or more).
A February 2003 Danish study of 18,478 women linked heavy coffee consumption during pregnancy to significantly increased risk of stillbirths (but no significantly increased risk of infant death in the first year). "The results seem to indicate a threshold effect around four to seven cups per day," the study reported. Those who drank eight or more cups a day (48 U.S. fl oz or 1.4 L) were at 220% increased risk compared with nondrinkers. This study has not yet been repeated, but has caused some doctors to caution against excessive coffee consumption during pregnancy.
Decaffeinated coffee is occasionally regarded as a potential health risk to pregnant women, due to the high incidence of chemical solvents used to extract the caffeine. These concerns have almost no basis, however, as the solvents in question evaporate at 80�90 °C, and coffee beans are decaffeinated before roasting, which occurs at approximately 200 °C. As such, these chemicals, namely trichloroethane and methylene chloride, are present in trace amounts at most, and neither pose a significant threat to unborn children. Women still worried about chemical solvents in decaffeinated coffee should opt for beans which use the Swiss water process, where no chemicals other than water are used, although higher amounts of caffeine remain.
The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition published a study in 2004 which tried to discover why the beneficial and detrimental effects of coffee are conflicting. The study concluded that consumption of coffee is associated with significant elevations in biochemical markers of inflammation. This is a detrimental effect of coffee on the cardiovascular system, which may explain why coffee has so far only been shown to help the heart at levels of four cups (20 fl oz or 600 mL) or fewer per day.
The health risks of decaffeinated coffee have been studied, with varying results. One variable is the type of decaffeination process used; while some involve the use of organic solvents which may leave residual traces, others rely on steam.
A study has shown that cafestol, a substance which is present in boiled coffee drinks, dramatically increases cholesterol levels, especially in women. Filtered coffee only contains trace amounts of cafestol


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee_(drink)