Gun Vending Machine

A Gun Vending Machine. Photo-shopped or not?

Caffeine effects Men greater than Women

A strong cup of coffee has a greater effect on men than women, research shows.

In a study on 668 healthy volunteers, an espresso pepped up men after just 10 minutes. Women also became more alert after the beverage, but less so.

The University of Barcelona researchers say some of this effect might be psychological because decaffeinated coffee also worked to some extent.

Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology & Biological Psychiatry reports the work.

The volunteers were asked to drink either a classic espresso containing 100mg of caffeine or a decaffeinated espresso containing 5mg of caffeine.

Then the researchers looked for changes in alertness over the following minutes and hours.

Both men and women saw an improvement in their activity levels after drinking the classic espresso and these effects began after as little as 10 minutes.

According to the investigators, 45 minutes is the time needed for maximum caffeine concentration to be reached in the blood, but levels reach half this concentration after just a few minutes. And the effect appeared to be greater in the men.

The decaf coffee had a similar, but weaker effect and tended to be more potent in the women rather than in the men.

Lead researcher Ana Adan said: "Numerous studies have demonstrated the stimulant effects of caffeine, but none of these have looked at their effects in terms of the consumer's gender."

Anna Denny of the British Nutrition Foundation said: "This study provides an interesting insight into how the effects of specific foods and nutrients may differ between men and women.

"Research into 'gene-nutrient' interactions is moving forward quickly and we are finding out more about how our genetic make-up affects our requirements for certain foods and nutrients, and how our bodies react to these. In the future this could allow scientists to formulate dietary recommendations based on our genetic make up, as well as our age and body size."

Dr Euan Paul of the British Coffee Association said: "This new scientific study demonstrates interesting differences in the positive effects that caffeine may have on alertness between men and women, an area that has not been heavily researched in previous scientific investigations. We welcome further research to investigate with greater certainty any differences in the stimulant effects of caffeine that may be experienced between gender groups."

Mars Drinks O2

Mars Drinks have won a five year agreement to deliver KLIX and FLAVIA drink vending solutions to O2 in the UK.

Mars Drinks has just won a five year contract to provide its KLIX® drinks vending machines and FLAVIA® drink machines to O2’s regional and local offices throughout the UK. In total over 100 Mars Drinks machines will be installed across O2’s UK sites, delivering over three million drinks to O2’s employees every year.

“Ensuring our people are motivated and happy at work is vital for us as a company,” explains Sara Burton, National Facilities Manager at O2.

Ian McGrady, Sales Director at Mars Drinks, commented, “Knowing that your employer cares enough to provide services on-site to meet your needs is a powerful thing. Working with such a proactive, innovative and people-focused company as O2 has been a great experience for us.”

To ensure O2 employees immediately get maximum benefit from their new drink vending machines, Mars Drinks teams will visit each site during the first month after installation. Feedback collated from these events will then be shared with all O2 employees.

The five year agreement includes 59 KLIX machines and 50 FLAVIA drink stations. Mars Drinks also provides approximately 25 FLAVIA machines to O2 retail stores for customers to use.

To find out more about how Mars Drinks can help your organisation with drink vending systems, call 0800 0323 444 or visit the Mars Drinks website

Types of Coffee Drink

There are many drinks of coffee but here is a list of the best well known ones.

Algerian Coffee
Central European type of brewed coffee (not espresso) of any roast or origin with egg liquor

Arab Coffee
Similar to Turkish coffee , but normally flavoured with cardamom

Café au Lait
French version of Caffè Latte , with coffee and milk poured simultaneously in a cup.

Cafe con Leche
Spanish for Caffè Latte

Caffè Americano
Similar to Lungo , hot water is added to a regular size espresso to obtain a coffee with less strength.

Caffè freddo
(Iced Espresso)
Chilled, sweetened espresso served in a tall glass, possibly on ice.

Caffè Latte
(syn. Latte, Caffelatte)
Espresso mixed with steamed milk; usually a breakfast drink. Typically made with more milk than a cappuccino , with little or no froth on top. In Italy, the coffee in a caffè' latte is made out of a stovetop machine, rather than an espresso machine.

Cappuccino
Espresso with foamed milk - 1 part espresso, 1 part steamed milk, 1 part froth. Often topped with cocoa powder or cinnamon.

Cappuccino Chiaro
Cappuccino prepared with more milk than usual.

Cappuccino Freddo
Cappuccino served over ice

Cappuccino Scuro
Cappuccino prepared with less milk than usual.

Caribbean coffee
(syn. Cuban coffee, Jamaican coffee, Hawaii coffee )
Brewed coffee (not espresso) of any roast or origin with rum

Con Panna
Like " macchiato ", but whipped cream substitutes steamed milk.

Corretto
Espresso with a touch of grappa, cognac, sambuca, or other spirit.

Dark cappuccino
See Cappuccino scuro

Demi-tasse
Espresso served in regular size cup (French)

Doppio
Double espresso (twice the amount of coffee and twice the amount of water. Basically, two shots of espresso in one cup).

Dry cappuccino
See Cappuccino scuro

Erlängter
German for Lungo

Espresso Romano
Espresso with a lemon peel on the side.

Espresso
Small amount of dark, rich coffee.

Flat White
An espresso-based drink common in New Zealand and Australia with whipped steamed milk.

Frappé
Espresso or strong coffee blended with equal amount of icecream

Galão
Portuguese for Caffè Latte .

Grande
Large cup of coffee, cappuccino or caffè latte

Greek coffee
Similar to Turkish coffee , but from Greece .

Grosser Brauner
German for Caffè Latte .

Iced cappuccino
See Cappuccino freddo

Irish coffee
Brewed coffee (not espresso) of any roast or origin with (Irish) whiskey

Kapuziner
German for cappuccino

Koffie verkeerd
Dutch for Caffè Latte

Latte
See Caffè Latte

Latte Macchiato
Steamed milk with a shot of espresso coffee, served in a tall glass rather than a cup.

Latteccino
Mixture between latte and cappuccino

Light Cappuccino
See Cappuccino chiaro

Lungo
An espresso made with more water than usual by prolonging the extraction of a regular espresso.

Macchiato
Espresso with a spoonful of steamed milk on top. Macchiato comes from the Italian word that means "stained". In America macchiato often is made with large amounts of milk, which means that in many shops a true macchiato is listed as an "espresso macchiato"

Moccha (Mocca)
Either regular coffee from the Moccha region in Yemen, or to resemble the taste of this coffee, regular coffee with a bit of chocolate flavour.

Mochaccino
Cappuccino made with chocolate milk

Ristretto
More concentrated espresso - made using the same amount of coffee but less water.

Schlagobers
German for coffee with whipped cream.

Turkish Coffee
Non-filtered very strong sweet coffee, often flavoured with cinnamon, cloves or nutmeg.

Viennese Coffee
(Wiener Melange)
Brewed coffee (not espresso) of any roast or origin topped with whipped cream. In Austria simply called Melange.

Wet cappuccino
See Cappuccino chiaro

Coffee is good or bad?

Coffee's good for you. Coffee's bad for you. You've seen the studies and heard the comments. So, which is it, really? That's still up in the air. It seems that coffee, like most things in life, is fine in moderation. It only becomes a problem when people can't seem to wrap their minds around the idea of what moderation actually means. Some studies even say the more you drink the better, and almost all studies have shown that there are many more benefits than dangers to a lot of coffee drinking. There are some interesting facts about coffee, though, that we bet you didn't know. Here are just a few of them:

Health Benefits:

• Coffee can lift your mood, make you happier, and make you feel better. It alleviates depression.
• Have a headache? Drink a cup of coffee. It's been shown to help people get rid of their headaches.
• People who drink coffee have less colon cancer than people who don't. That's a big deal, especially if you have a family history of cancer.
• Parkinson's disease has also been shown to be reduced by drinking coffee.
• Coffee drinkers have lower rates of Type II diabetes, and that's an especially important finding since diabetes is becoming more prevalent today.
• Gallstones and cirrhosis of the liver – both lowered by drinking coffee.
• Coffee can protect your teeth from cavities.
• If you have asthma, drinking coffee can help manage your condition and might help you stop an attack if you don't have your medication available.
• One of the biggest benefits? People who smoke or drink alcohol get protective benefits from drinking coffee and have lower rates of liver problems and heart disease.

Other Uses:

• Coffee can be used to dye paper and fabrics. If you put the beans in hot water their color will start to come out. You can use that water to dye fibers.
• If you need a good facial scrub, you can coarsely grind some coffee beans and use them to scrub your face. They have great exfoliating properties.
• If you've been preparing food and your hands smell like it, rub some coffee beans between your hands for a few seconds; you can also suck on a coffee bean to freshen and clean your breath, no matter what you've been eating.
• Have a garden? Coffee makes great compost if you don't use it in excess, and sprinkling coffee grounds and orange peels around plants will keep cats from bothering the plants or using the garden as their personal litter box.
• Greasy pans can be cleaned with the left over ground beans that you used to exfoliate and scrub your face.
• You can also use coffee beans, placed in a bowl in your refrigerator, to get rid of food smells that might accumulate in there.
• These are just a few of the many uses for coffee. Drink it for your health, and use it for all kinds of other things. Coffee has lots of great uses! Experimenting with it can give you even more great ideas about how to use your coffee to improve your life in a lot of ways. It's not just for drinking anymore.

Ants Nest in Cup of Coffee

Check out this cool coffee cup and saucer with ants painted on! You could play a great prank on somebody!

Coffee Prevents Mouth Cancer?

The Daily Express reported that “one cup of coffee a day could halve the risk of dangerous cancers affecting the mouth and gullet”.

It said that a Japanese study found that just one cup a day gave drinkers a reduced chance of getting tumours compared with those who hardly ever drank it. The researchers believe that it could “minimise” some of the risks from alcohol and tobacco, the main causes of mouth and oesophageal cancers.

This well-conducted research followed more than 40,000 people for over 13 years to see which of them got cancer of the mouth and oesophagus. The accumulated evidence from this study and the other studies quoted by the researchers seems to indicate that some component in coffee does have a protective effect, at least in Japan.

However, this needs to be put into perspective. The study found that 157 people in the study developed these specific cancers, which is a rate of about four in every 1,000. Knowing this figure – the absolute rate of cancer – is important in this type of study because the apparently large relative reduction in risk of developing these cancers (in this case 49%) is equivalent to only a few people per 1,000 getting possible protection.

As the researchers confirm, the best advice to help reduce the risk of developing these cancers is to reduce or stop drinking alcohol and to stop smoking.


Where did the story come from?
Dr Toru Naganuma and colleagues from the Department of Public Health and Forensic Medicine at the Tohoku University School of Medicine in Japan carried out the research. The work was funded by grants from the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. The study was published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, a peer-reviewed medical journal.


What kind of scientific study was this?
This was an analysis of data from a prospective cohort study known as The Miyagi Cohort Study.

The researchers were interested in investigating the link between coffee consumption and the risk of oral, pharyngeal and oesophageal cancers (together known as mouth and oesophagus cancer). They say that previous case-control studies had suggested that caffeine provides some protection against these cancers, but with inconsistent results. The researchers wanted to see if this was also true in better-designed, prospective studies. In addition, alcohol and tobacco both increase risk, while a high intake of fruit and vegetable may decrease the risk. So the researchers were also interested in how these risk factors interact with one another.

In this large study, all 51,921 residents (25,279 men and 26,642 women) aged between 40–64 years old and living in 14 out of 62 geographical areas in northeastern Japan, were enrolled on April 1 1990. From June through August 1990 they completed questionnaires on various health habits. Usable questionnaires were returned by 47,605 residents (22,836 men and 24,769 women) - a high response rate of 91.7%.

In the 1990 questionnaire, the researchers asked about 36 types of food and four drinks, including coffee. They grouped the responses to the coffee questions into five groups: people who never drank coffee; people who occasionally drank coffee; people who drank one to two cups of coffee per day; three to four cups per day; and five or more cups per day. The researchers did not ask about the type of coffee used, the method of brewing, or the temperature of the beverage. The volume of a typical cup of coffee was estimated to be 150 ml.

These patient details were then linked to corresponding data from the Miyagi Prefecture Cancer Registry, one of the oldest and most accurate population-based cancer registries in Japan. By doing this, the researchers were able to find out who had died from cancer, and the type of cancer they had died from.

Recognised statistical techniques were then used to assess the significance of the associations found, which took into account (adjusted for) all the other cancer risk factors that had been collected. They adjusted for age, sex, body mass index, alcohol consumption, cigarette smoking, consumption of vegetables and fruits and green tea consumption. Because only a small number of people developed new cancers, the researchers chose to combine all people who drank one or more cups of coffee into a single group.

During the study period, 2,207 subjects (1,051 men and 1,156 women: 5.7% of the total) were not followed-up, mainly because they moved out of the area.


What were the results of the study?

Over the 13.6-year study period, there were 157 cases of mouth and oesophagus cancer. These occurred mostly in men (135 men and 22 women). The risk of developing mouth and oesophagus cancers was ‘inversely associated’ with coffee consumption, meaning that people who drank more coffee had a lower risk of these cancers.

The researchers report the adjusted hazard ratio (HR) of these cancers, which measure the strength of this association when adjusted for other risk factors. People who drank one cup or more of coffee per day reduced their risk by around half compared with those who did not drink coffee at all (HR 0.51, 95% confidence interval 0.33 to 0.77). This was a statistically significant reduction.

This inverse association was consistent regardless of sex or cancer site, and present whether or not the person drank or smoked at the beginning of the study.


What interpretations did the researchers draw from these results?

The researchers conclude that “coffee consumption was associated with a lower risk of oral, pharyngeal, and oesophageal cancers, even in the group at high risk of these cancers”.


What does the NHS Knowledge Service make of this study?

This is a well-conducted piece of research. In their write-up, the researchers make points about the interpretation of their results:

• They describe further the inconsistency in the other studies that have been published on the subject. They say that of the 12 published case-control studies, four also supported an inverse association; two actually showed an increased cancer risk (especially for hot coffee); and the other six showed no association. Two cohort studies had similar contradictory findings, with one smaller study finding no association with coffee, while the other showed an inverse association. They have explanations for why these differences occurred and maintain that theirs was the largest and longest running study and is likely to be the least biased as they adjusted for other risk factors. The fact that the reduced risk for these cancers was seen in the groups thought to be at high risk, such as smokers and drinkers, supports the claim that coffee is having an independent, separate effect from these other risk factors. Observational studies of this type can never completely eliminate the possibility of bias, and it is still possible that coffee drinkers were healthier in ways that were not measured by the researchers. For example, they may have been more physically active.
  

• The characteristics of the volunteers at the start of the study were subtly different. Subjects with higher coffee consumption tended to be younger and less overweight. Coffee drinking was also associated with higher rates of smoking, lower vegetable consumption, and lower green tea consumption by both men and women. All these were adjusted for in the analysis, but it is unclear whether their effect was fully removed by the adjustments.

• This study was done in Japan where the methods of brewing coffee, the components of coffee and the other dietary influences on cancer, may be different to the UK.

The incidence of these types of cancer is relatively low. This means that any difference between the groups can appear large when the hazard ratio is quoted. In this case, reducing the risk of developing this disease by 49% might seem impressive. However, it is equivalent to a reduction of a few people per 1,000 in this uncommon group of cancers.

The accumulated evidence from this study and the other studies quoted by these researchers seems to indicate that some component in coffee does have a protective effect, at least in Japan. More studies will be required to determine what this component might be, and whether the apparent protective effect occurs in countries with other dietary patterns.

As the researchers confirm, the best advice to help reduce the risk of developing these cancers is to reduce or stop drinking alcohol and to stop smoking.