Coffee has a high level of caffeine
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Some medical experts tell us to cut down on the amount of coffee that we drink but new research has found that drinking the stuff could actually do us some good
The study, carried out by the Harvard Medical School, found that women who drink two or more cups of coffee a day are less likely to get depressed.
The study did not show a clear reason why it might have this effect, but it is thought that the caffeine may alter the brain’s chemistry, as decaffeinated coffee did not have the same effect.
The results from this study adds weight to another study that found lower suicide rates among coffee drinkers.
The researchers admitted that it is too early to recommend for people to consume more coffee to alter their mood as drinking too much caffeine could have an undesired effect and cause anxiety.
Professor Bertil Fredholm, an expert in pharmacology and physiology at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute, said, ‘This fits nicely with a lot of the previous work and what we know about caffeine and the brain. It blocks adenosine, which produces a similar effect to increasing dopamine production. And it’s becoming increasingly clear that the dopamine-rich areas of the brain are much more important in depression that previously thought.’
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