Could coffee be a colon cancer killer?

In addition to waking you up in the morning and helping you to feel human again, coffee appears to lower your risk for colon cancer. And the more you drink, the better the protection it offers. Because the protective effect does not come from the caffeine, it doesn’t matter whether you drink caffeinated or decaf — or a combination of the two. Lead study author Dr. Gad Rennert, director of the Clalit National Israeli Cancer Control Center in Haifa, Israel, who conducted the study suspects the protection comes from antioxidant ingredients that are released in the coffee during the roasting process. The results:

  • Drinking one to two cups of coffee a day was linked to a 26 percent reduced risk of colon cancer.
  • Drinking more than 2.5 cups of coffee a day was linked to a 50 percent reduced risk of colon cancer.
  • The reduced risk for colon cancer held no matter what type of coffee was consumed.

One caveat: The findings do not prove that coffee lowers the risk of colon cancer, but rather that there is an association between the two. Still, the association is quite strong.