“Just a cup a day” is a phrase I hear frequently from patients when I ask them if they drink coffee.  People take comfort in this phrase-they even take pride in it.  They have a concept that “just a cup a day” means that they are not like their friends, who drink thermos-fulls a day, and that they are safe from any disease-producing effects.  Any recommendation of cutting down coffee consumption and it is as if the patient has been asked to strike down their own kin, or to stuff their favorite pet.  The truth is there are pros and cons to the drink—rather you will experience the pros or the cons may depend greatly on who your parents were, as I will discuss later in this article...read more...