Great News for a Monday Morning: Link Found Between Coffee and Prostate Cancer Prevention

Here's some news to savor as your sip your coffee this morning: Harvard researchers have found an intriguing link between coffee and the prevention of an aggressive type of prostate cancer.

The findings, which were presented at the Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research Conference, revealed a strong inverse association between coffee consumption and the risk of lethal and advanced prostate cancers.

A press release on the study quoted Kathryn M. Wilson, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard, as saying "Coffee has effects on insulin and glucose metabolism as well as sex hormone levels, all of which play a role in prostate cancer. It was plausible there may be an association between coffee and prostate cancer."

Interestingly, coffee's best-known ingredientt - caffeine - is not the key factor in this association. Researchers are unsure exactly which components are most important, as coffee contains many biologically active compounds, such as antioxidants and minerals.

The study found that men who drank the most coffee has a 60 percent lower risk of aggressive prostate cancer than men who did not drink any coffee at all.