health bytes

Caffeine can slow the growth of brain tumor cells according to researchers led by Kang Sang-soo of Gyeongsang National University and C. Justin Lee of the Korea Institute of Science and Technology in Seoul, South Korea.

The research team, comprising scientists from Seoul National University, Gyeongsang National University, and Emory University in Atlanta, said that animal test results showed regular caffeine found in coffee and green tea to have "strongly repressed the growth of inositol trisphosphate receptor (IP3R) closely linked to glioblastoma, which is the most common and aggressive type of primary brain tumour found in humans," adding that calcium plays a primary role in spreading glioblastoma tumour cells in humans, and that IP3R directly contributes to the amount of calcium released.

The Nestlé Research Center has announced in The Journal of Nutrition that its researchers have discovered that adding milk to instant coffee "does not reduce the bioavailability of antioxidants."

Drinking instant coffee with or without milk produced the same uptake levels of coffee’s antioxidants, including caffeic acid, ferulic acid and isoferulic acid, according to the findings, which are based on a study of nine participants.

"Up until now there has been very little known about how proteins, especially from milk, influence the bioavailability and efficacy of coffee antioxidants," said Mathieu Renouf, lead researcher from Nestlé Research Center in Lausanne. "Our study is the first to show that coffee antioxidants are just as bioavailable in coffee with milk as they are in black coffee."