And now for some good news

by Sanjida O'Connell

Coffee increases alertness and athletic performance, and may even help to fight cancer and Alzheimer's. But don't overdose on it.

Coffee should be black as hell, strong as death and sweet as love, runs a Turkish proverb. But few imbibers realise that the caffeine within is also the world’s most popular drug.

“Caffeine is the most frequently self-administered drug in use worldwide today,” says James Bibb, an assistant professor of psychiatry at UT Southwestern Medical Centre in Dallas, Texas. Bibb is one of the authors of a study, just published in the science journal Nature, which shows that coffee affects the brain in a similar way to cocaine.

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