Studies are growing about the benefits of drinking coffee, with this latest one reporting the reduced risks of aggressive prostate cancer in men by as much as 60 percent compared to those who drank no coffee at all.

Researchers tracked the health of some 50,000 men who documented their intake of coffee every four years over the course of the two-decade-long study funded by the National Institutes of Health.

Men who drank six or more cups of Joe every day (about 5 percent of the male patients surveyed) enjoyed a 60 percent drop in advanced cancer risks, but the benefits fell sharply based on how much a man drank. Drinking half as much coffee every day, about three cups, cut a man's risks of aggressive prostate cancer by only 20 percent.

Don't buy a bigger coffee pot of the office just yet, however. A recent report on coffee consumption, this time conducted in Europe, found higher intakes of caffeine may be responsible for ventricular arrhythmias, abnormal rapid heart rhythms originating in the lower ventricles of the heart.

Science Daily December 8, 2009

Wall Street Journal Health Blog December 8, 2009