A new large, prospective population-based study confirms an inverse relationship between coffee consumption and liver cancer risk. The study also found that higher levels of gamma-glutamyltransferase (GGT) in the blood were associated with an increased risk of developing the disease.

With prices of gourmet coffee approaching sticker-shock levels, scientists in Illinois are reporting development of a method to “fingerprint” coffee to detect when corn has been mixed in to short-change customers. Their study is in the Aug. 8 issue of ACS’s Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, a bi-weekly journal.

High uric acid levels in the blood are a precursor of gout, the most common inflammatory arthritis in adult men. It is believed that coffee and tea consumption may affect uric acid levels but only one study has been conducted to date.

Coffee is a habit for more than 50 percent of Americans, who drink, on average, 2 cups per day. This widely consumed beverage is regularly investigated and debated for its impact on health conditions from breast cancer to heart disease. Coffee or its components have been linked to lower insulin and uric acid levels on a short-term basis or cross-sectionally.These and other mechanisms suggest that coffee consumption may affect risk of gout, prevalent inflammatory arthritis in adult males.