Another Secret to Longevity Unveiled: Greek Coffee
The people of the Greek island Ikaria are a phenomenon as they live on average 10 years longer than people in the rest of, also highly ranked, Western Europe and longer than anywhere else in the world.
It was previously speculated that the pure wine is the secret, or the mediterranean diet. Those are probably contributing factors, but the most direct link was now found in the crucial health of the heart, which is linear to the consumption of greek coffee. To protect your heart in this way, you just need a decent coffee grinder that can produce the very fine powder needed to boil the delicious speciality known as Greek coffee, or also turkish coffee.
Published in the SAGE journal Vascular Medicine, a recent study examined the link between the islanders' coffee-drinking habits and the functioning of their endothelium - the layer of cells lining blood vessels. Researchers chose this focus due to the association between poor endothelial functioning and heart disease.
In all, the researchers found a direct correlation between the amount of boiled Greek coffee consumed and the individual's flow-mediated dilation. In other words, the more they drank, the healthier their vessel walls. This trend did not exist as far as other types of coffee were concerned.
Gerasimos Siasos, the researcher who oversaw the project, cautions that only 142 individuals were surveyed in this initial study - implying that more advanced studies are urgently needed.
"Importantly, given the widespread use of coffee beverages across the world and the fact that even small health effects of coffee could have a large impact on public health," Siasos states, "further studies are needed to document the exact beneficial mechanisms of coffee in vascular integrity.
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