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Coffee
drinkers have reduced cancer rates
By
Kara Ogushi
Online Forty-Niner
Staff Writer
An
apple a day may keep the doctor away, but
a cup of coffee may keep liver cancer at
bay.
According
to a 10-year study by the National Cancer
Center in Tokyo, more than 90,000 Japanese
people who drank coffee every day or almost
everyday had 50 percent less risk of liver
cancer versus those who did not drink coffee.
A
research team led by Monami Inoue, of the
National Cancer Center, found that people
who did not drink coffee developed 547.2
cases for every 100,000 people. Those who
drank coffee Online showed 214.6 cases for
every 100,000 people, according to a report
in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Although
the facts are impressive, students such
as Joyti Chaud, a sociology major at Cal
State Long Beach, are still skeptical about
the merit of such studies.
"I
drink two to three cups a coffee a day when
I'm in school, it helps to keep me up, but
I don't think that I will drink more coffee
than I did before," Chaud said "When
you look at studies such as these you just
don't know how accurate it is. For example,
milk has been heavily marketed as helping
your bones and other things, but that is
all debatable. So it won't persuade me too
much at all."
According
to the National Cancer Institute's Web site,
liver cancer is a disease in which malignant
or cancerous cells form in the tissues of
the liver. The liver has many important
functions, such as filtering harmful substances
from the blood, making bile to help digest
fats from food and storing glycogen (sugar),
which the body uses for energy.
An
article in USA Today mentioned that the
caffeine inside of coffee has been shown
in other studies to "prompt mental
alertness" in some people and cause
nervousness in others. But other studies
have said that caffeine can aggravate the
symptoms of menopause and may even cause
miscarriages.
"I
drink about a cup a day to wake me up in
the morning and help me stay awake at night,"
Robert Hamamoto, graphic design major, said
"I seriously wouldn't doubt that drinking
excessive amounts of coffee can cause miscarriages.
I know that caffeine can mess up a person's
body, if they are consuming too much of
it."
The
article goes on to say that The American
Cancer Society estimates that 18,920 new
cases of liver cancer were diagnosed last
year and around 14,270 people died of liver
cancer.
In
the article in USA Today Dr. R. Palmer Beasley,
of the University of Texas M.D. Anderson
Cancer Center in Houston, commented optimistically
on the newly released study.
"It's
an excellent, interesting and provocative
study and their conclusions seem justified,"
Beasley said. "It will provoke a lot
of new work here."
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