Coffee now good for you. Cigarettes still bad for you.

Since I’ve been a little kid I’ve heard it preached as gospel that coffee is bad for you — or at least doesn’t help you in any way other than making you jittery. After his heart attack, my great-grandfather seemed more upset that the doctors told him no more coffee than he’d been about the heart attack itself. But I could never understand what, exactly, about it is bad for you. How can something with no calories raise blood pressure and cause a whole host of other problems?

Turns out it doesn’t. Previously doctors pulled a Jim Jarmusch and lumped coffee and cigarettes together, along with their effects. As the LA Times reports, “negative studies often failed to tease apart the effects of coffee and

those of smoking because so many coffee drinkers were also smokers.”

Caffeinated coffee does not raise blood pressure in people who drink it more than once a week. Nor does it raise the risk of a stroke or heart disease.

Then there are the health benefits that non-coffee drinkers miss out on — researchers said moderate coffee consumption lowers the risk for diabetes, decreases risk for liver cancer and protects liver against cirrhosis and may even reduce the risk of stroke.

Somewhere my great-grandfather (who did not smoke) is rolling in his grave.

(Image via Flickr: Cafe Mama)