Posted on: August 18, 2006
Beverage Benefits
Drink milk, coffee and tea to cure what ails you
By Deborah Douglas
CTW Features
Image courtesy Alecsandro Andrade de Melo
Got PMS? Get Milk
Women stressed out by PMS should milk it for all it’s worth.
Instead of giving in to monthly stress on relationships and interference with everyday activities, consuming a diet rich in calcium and vitamin D significantly lowers the risk of developing premenstrual syndrome, reports the Archives of Internal Medicine.
Up to 20 percent of women suffer from PMS, says lead study author Dr. Elizabeth Bertone-Johnson of the University of Massachusetts. Her team studied 1,057 women ages 27 to 44 who reported suffering from PMS over a 10-year period. They also studied 1,968 women who had no PMS in that same period.
“We observed a significantly lower risk of developing PMS in women with high intakes of vitamin D and calcium from food sources, equivalent to about four servings per day of skim or low-fat milk, fortified orange juice or low-fat dairy foods such as yogurt,” the study says.
A Java a Day
In the lingering debate over coffee drinking comes good news: It’s packed with antioxidants, and it’s the No. 1 source of the cancer-fighting, heart healthy substance.
“Americans get more of their antioxidants from coffee than any other dietary source. Nothing else comes close,” says Dr. Joe Vinson, a chemistry professor at the University of Scranton. Benefits come from caffeinated and decaffeinated kinds, he says.
But drinking a lot of coffee doesn’t translate to more antioxidant benefits because researchers are fuzzy on how it’s absorbed into the body, Vinson says. Sticking to one or two cups a day is about right, he says. Noncoffee drinkers can get similar benefits from black tea.
Other sources of antioxidants include:
• Cabbage
• Chocolate
• Cranberries
• Grapefruit
• Greenpeppers
• Milk
• Nuts
• Seeds
• Tea
• Tomatoes
• Watermelo