New research in Sweden shows that coffee drinkers enjoy a reduced risk of ER-negative breast cancer. ER-negative breast cancer patients do not express the protein to which the female hormone estrogen binds and have twice the risk for developing a second breast cancer as women with HR-positive tumors.

The group from Karolinska Institutet explained that, “There is often conflicting information about the beneficial effects of coffee — when we compared our results to that of a German study we discovered that their data showed the same trend, but the relationship was much weaker. We suggest that this may have something to do with the way the coffee was prepared, or the type of bean preferred. It is unlikely that the protective effect is due to phytoestrogens present in coffee since there was no reduction in the incidence of ER-positive cancer in this study.” via Science Daily

Earlier this year scientists made the case that coffee’s antioxidant benefits are tied to the roasting process and the ‘Maillard reaction’. This research cites dark roast coffee and espresso as being a greater source of antioxidant benefits due to longer roasting.

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