Coffee: The new energy drink

Good news, coffee drinkers, said Bill Hendrick in WebMD Health News. According to a new study, “coffee might literally be a brew that promotes health.” It turns out that caffeine dulls the pain from exercising, potentially allowing people to work out for longer periods of time. The results were true for both habitual coffee drinkers and those who generally avoid caffeine.

Many runners already “swear by the dark magic beans,” said Mark Will-Weber in Examiner.com. Coffee wakes you up for the morning run, and “keeps you perky for mile after mile.” Too much coffee, of course, can mess with athletes’ insides, causing “the sudden urge for bathroom breaks”—not good for races. Still, the study does give new meaning to the slogan “America runs on Dunkin’.”

If you’re running to lose weight, that “large high-calorie coffee drink” could negate your hourlong run, said Nanci Hellmich in the Lousiville Courier-Journal. In another recent study, women who exercised three hours a week lost less weight than those who exercised for one or two hours, possibly because the three-hour women rewarded their exercise with more calories. So drink coffee if you must, but steer clear of the mochas.

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