Getting a regular jolt of java may actually be better for your health than abstaining. "People assume that coffee intake is bad, but that's not true at all," says David Liebeskind, M.D. associate neurology director of the UCLA Stroke Center. His research shows that drinking three or more cups of coffee a day reduces stroke risk by 48 percent. Another stat worth remembering: A new study in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease found that people who drank three to five cups of coffee a day had a 65 percent lower risk of developing dementia than those who drank little or none. Research also shows that coffee may help prevent Parkinson's disease, type-2 diabetes, liver cancer and gallstones. What's so magical about java? "It could be the caffeine or some other component in coffee, or it could be how the caffeine interacts with the other components," Dr. Liebeskind says.
* If you are pregnant, the less caffeine you consume the better . (From the LHJ magazine.)
