For years coffee has had a bad reputation, always playing second fiddle to the anti oxidant richness of tea; but recently the merits of coffee have been gaining notoriety.

Since my days as a Starbucks barista, I have been 100% a coffee girl; yes, I drink tea and I enjoy it, but as far as my morning caffeine delivery, a dark and lovely brew is the only thing that will suffice. Because of the always timely 3 pm caffeine withdrawl headache, I’ve always thought that I was doing something bad to my body by consuming it in, what I perceive as moderate amounts- 2 or 3 cups a day.

Well our day has come coffee lovers, and its here to stay!

A new study says that drinking coffee may lower women’s risk of depression. Women in the study who drank two to three cups of caffeinated coffee a day were 15 percent less likely to develop depression over a 10-year period compared to those who drank one cup of coffee or less per week. I’m not surprised;  if I haven’t had my cuppa by 1:30 in the afternoon I begin to feel sad. But in all seriousness, the new study is just the latest to suggest coffee consumption has a great many health benefits. Earlier work has found an association between drinking coffee and a reduced risk of breast cancer, prostate cancer and stroke.

Women who drink five or more cups of coffee a day are 57 percent less likely to develop estrogen receptor-negative breast cancer than women who drink less than a cup a day, according to a study published this month in the journal Breast Cancer Research.

And the benefit that hit home the most for me was that coffee can also improve brain function in mice, according to a 2010 study in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease. In that study, researchers gave caffeinated coffee to mice that were engineered to develop Alzheimer’s disease. The mice that were given coffee either had the disease progression slow, or the disease never developed at all. The finding suggests coffee could be a treatment for people with Alzheimer’s disease. Having lost my grandmother to this devastating disease, I vowed to do whatever possible to reduce my risk; and who knew my daily coffee was helping me on quest!

As with most things, moderation is key; 1 to 3 cups of coffee a day is enough to reap the benefits without experiencing jitters and all around caffeine induced scattered-ness.

So now we can drink, coffee, to our health!