Yesterday I did a horrible thing. I wrote about a new study that suggested drinking too much coffee could maybe increase a person’s risk of osteoarthritis, arthropathy, and obesity. I’ve just been in knots about it ever since the story was published, and so to make it up to you—to myself really—I’m bringing you good sciency news about coffee.
A brand new study finds that coffee is beneficial in the fight against Parkinson’s disease. If this feel like déjà vu, don’t worry, this isn’t a glitch in the Matrix; in the past two years alone, we have written about three different studies that found a link between coffee consumption and some sort of lowered risk or earlier detection of the disease, but none of them had urate! As reported by Yahoo!, a new study from researchers at Harvard Medical School published in the Journal of Parkinson’s Disease found that urate, a compound found in coffee, possesses neuroprotective properties, similar to those of caffeine discovered in previous research. This, according to lead researcher Dr. Rachit Bakshi, lends credence to “the possibility of [coffee-via-caffeine-and-urate’s] disease-slowing potential.”
To support their conclusion, the researchers interviewed 566 individuals—369 with Parkinson’s and 197 without—and measured their caffeine and urate levels. After adjusting for age, sex, and body mass index, the researchers found “the likelihood of developing the condition decreased significantly” as coffee consumption increased. Per Yahoo, “compared to those who who drank the least coffee, the prevalence of Parkinson’s was over 70% lower in those who drank the most.” Now that’s news you can brew.
We can all now breathe a big sigh of relief with coffee’s positive effects now balance out the negative. With my sins absolved I can finally enjoy a nice cuppa again. I just couldn’t look my coffee in the face knowing I had betrayed it so.
Zac Cadwalader is the managing editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas. Read more Zac Cadwalader on Sprudge.
Top image via Bello Propello/Adobe Stock
