New research says habitual coffee-drinking may protect against some diseases

By SORA SONG

Brewing Debate: Science has flip-flopped on the dangers of caffeine.

Wake up and smell the coffee? Most of us wouldn't have it any other way. The U.S. is, after all, the largest coffee importer in the world, bringing in 3.1 billion pounds of beans a year, according to the National Coffee Association. That's just about enough to satisfy the 109 million Americans who drink 8 billion gallons of the brew — enough to fill the Central Park reservoir eight times — every year.
Anything we like so much must be bad for us, right? Conventional wisdom has always advised against drinking too much coffee. As early as 1679, French doctors cautioned that it led to exhaustion, paralysis, even impotence. To date, some 20,000 scientific studies have been conducted on the most familiar ingredient in coffee — caffeine, which researchers have linked to everything from hypertension and bone loss to high cholesterol and stress.

Here's a fresh look at the good and the bad of what's in your mug.

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