Good news for me: According to a Harvard Medical School study, "men who drank the most coffee had a 60 percent lower risk of aggressive prostate cancer than men who did not drink any coffee."
Kathryn M. Wilson, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow at the Channing Laboratory, says the caffeine in coffee doesn't pay a role in reducing the risk of prostate cancer. Instead, coffee's "many biologically active compounds, like antioxidants and minerals," could be responsible.
Using the Health Professionals' Follow-Up Study, the researchers documented the regular and decaffeinated coffee intake of nearly 50,000 men every four years from 1986 to 2006; 4,975 of these men developed prostate cancer over that time. They also examined the cross-sectional association between coffee consumption and levels of circulating hormones in blood samples collected from a subset of men in the cohort.
"Very few lifestyle factors have been consistently associated with prostate cancer risk, especially with risk of aggressive disease, so it would be very exciting if this association is confirmed in other studies," said Wilson. "Our results do suggest there is no reason to stop drinking coffee out of any concern about prostate cancer."
Coffee consumption associated with reduced risk of advanced prostate cancer
