Because many of my friends and family still devote too much of their workdays drinking copious amounts of coffee, I've been keeping tabs lately on the health benefits of sipping black water, a mixed bag often leaning to the good.

This latest study -- coffee reducing a fractional amount of bodily DNA damage -- also swings toward the positive, although, I suspect, there's little chance that it wouldn't: One of the six scientific institutions involved in the study is the Nestle Research Center, located in Lausanne, Switzerland.

For the record, 38 patients were assigned to drink 27 ounces of either paper-filtered coffee or water every day for five days. Although researchers found no great changes to antioxidant levels in the blood among coffee drinkers, they did notice a measurable decline in DNA damage (12.3 percent fewer oxidized purines were formed).

If drinking 27 ounces of coffee daily sounds like a lot to some of you, a recent study I posted about coffee consumption and shrinking type 2 diabetes risks pointed out that 8 percent of the Native Americans patients who participated actually drank 12 or more cups each day, and enjoyed the greatest benefits too. That still impresses and scares me...

Mutation Research/Fundamental and Molecular Mechanisms of Mutagenesis August 13, 2010

NutraIngredients.com September 7, 2010