Drinking Coffee in Large Amounts Chases the Blues Away

Drinking Coffee Beneficial To Women's Mental Health

Drinking coffee may be good enough to stave off depression - at least for women. This is the conclusion of new research published in The Archives of Internal Medicine.

About 51,000 women were asked about the extent of their coffee drinking habit from 1996 until 2006. They also volunteered information about related factors such as smoking, weight and exercise.

All participants have not shown signs of depression before the study commenced. In the ensuing ten years after the survey started, there were 2,607 cases of clinical depression recorded.

Women who drank regularly were found to be 20 percent less likely to have a diagnosis of depression. Moreover, with each additional cup of coffee, the benefit also rose significantly.

Study author Dr. Albert Ascherio cautioned that further tests will confirm the positive link between having loads of coffee and lower risk of depression. He said that drinking coffee is not necessarily recommended since caffeine is known to raise anxiety levels and disrupt sleep patterns.

The researchers also looked at how similar sources of caffeine such as tea and soda had the same effect as regular coffee drinking. They found out that there was no such link found for the other drinks.

Caffeine is believed to alter mood and may have some protective effect against dementia and Parkinson's disease. That can explain how it can also prevent or slow down signs of depression.

Drinking coffee up to six cups per day was shown to decrease suicidal thoughts. But the risk increases when one consumes eight or more cups per day.

Posted by George Daniels on Thursday September 29 2011, 5:55 AM EST. Ref: NYT. All trademarks acknowledged. Filed under Featured News, Health. Comments and Trackbacks closed. Follow responses: RSS 2.0