It's not just caffeine! Coffee, the most popular drink in the world after water, is a functional plant whose seeds produce a beverage that provides health benefits.

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Coffee consumption continues to rise despite criticism against caffeine. Few people seem to know that coffee has just 1-2% of caffeine and many other substances in larger amounts, which may be more important than caffeine to the human organism. Nowadays it's possible to affirm that caffeine is a substance safe enough for consumers, without margin of error, even in high doses. A maximum limit is around 500 mg daily of caffeine, which is equivalent to a half-liter of coffee made from Arabica coffee and drunk in four doses along the day. Regular consumers can develop tolerance in taking even larger amounts. Normal caffeine consumption doesn't alter blood pressure, catecholamines plasma levels, cholesterol, blood glucose and urine production. Regular caffeine consumption is not linked with infarct of myocardium, cancer in the inferior genitourinary tract, kidney or pancreas, neither with miscarriage or birth defects. fibrocystic breast disease, cardiac arrhythmias, hypertension or peptic ulcer of stomach (www.positivelycoffee.org / www.coffeescience.org).

Coffee has many other bioactive compounds such as chlorogenic acids (7-10%) and its roast dependent derivates quinides, caffeic acid) as well as vitamin PP (niacin), melanoidins and diterpenes (cafestol, kaweol) and hundreds of volatiles, which cause its pleasurable smell.

Coffee has a large variety of minerals (3-5%) such as potassium, magnesium, calcium, sodium, iron, manganese, etc. Additionally, coffee contains amino acids (2%); lipids (10-20%); and sugars (35-55%). Moreover, coffee also has 0.5% of niacin (PP vitamin or Pelagra Preventing from the vitamin B-complex) derived from trigonelline. The chlorogenic acids are poliphenolic compounds with proven powerful antioxidant activity, like flavonoids from wine. Roasting has a marked effect on the final composition of coffee. Concerning the chlorogenic acids, after proper roasting, many cyclic compounds--lactones--are formed. This brand new group of compounds seems to have additional health properties. Only caffeine is thermo-stable, that is, isn't destroyed by excessive coffee roasting. The other substances, as amino acids, sugars, lipids, niacin and chlorogenic acids, are preserved, made up or destroyed during the coffee-roasting process. Very dark roasted coffee has less healthy compounds than lighter roasted coffee.

All of the compounds found in properly roasted coffee seem to explain the ever increasing number of reports that coffee can prevent adult diabetes, Parkinson/ Alzheimer's, cancer, gout, obesity, alcoholism/cirrhosis and depression/suicide, among many other good effects to human health. This explains why millions of people enjoy drinking coffee on a daily basis, and why this healthy habit is replacing junk food and artificial beverages among the youth. The ever-increasing news about coffee and health is slowly turning coffee into a hero compared with the villain caffeine from the past. Fast food consumption in the U.S. has risen by 500% during the last three decades, while the number of children who are obese has tripled. With cola being the only caffeine-containing beverages allowed to kids, it seems that the growth in popularity of fast food is largely responsible for the obesity epidemic in America.

Ongoing studies at schools in Brazil are showing higher rates of participation in school breakfast programs with coffee and milk and are associated in the long-term with improved student functioning, lower incidence of childhood obesity, depressive feelings and alcohol consumption among youth. It is tempting to raise the hypothesis that if every youth started drinking a cup of coffee with milk instead of artificial beverages (sodas, energetics, colas, etc.) they would be more alert, increase memory capacity, strength thinking and mood, not to mention the calories that will be cut off thus preventing obesity and diabetes that has been growing within this range of age. All these brand news are known as the Coffee Paradox as it is far more important than the French Paradox (www.coffeeishealth.org).

New and healthy formulations of coffee can bring even better and more positive news to coffee producers and consumers worldwide.

Dr. Darcy Roberto Lima is a professor of Clinical Pharmacology & History of Medicine at Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and co-author of the book Coffee, The Revolutionary Drink For Pleasure And Health. He can be contacted at [e-mail].