A night out on the town...
too much to drink...
and the morning after needs a few cups of serious coffee.
Double espresso's! That's about as far as your thought processes will take you, but when you sober up and the headache disappears, consider this new finding.
Drinking three or more cups of coffee a day can almost halve the risk of cirrhosis of the liver, according to a Norwegian study, reported Health Media Group Media Watch Services.
The protective effect applies even among alcohol drinkers, whose risk of cirrhosis is much higher.
However, seven or eight cups a day provide no more protection than three (ok...
so who says you can't have some pleasures in life?).
Dr Tverdal, from the Norwegian Institute of Public Health in Oslo, suggests that coffee works by protecting the liver cells, since other studies have shown coffee-drinkers to have lower levels of liver enzymes - an indication of liver damage.
This study agrees with others.
An article published in the Archives of Internal Medicine in June 2006, shows that among more than 125,000 people studied for up to 22 years, coffee drinkers were less likely to be diagnosed with alcoholic cirrhosis.
Was it the caffeine? No say the researchers, because this study noted that tea also contains caffeine and there was no significant decrease in cirrhosis in tea drinkers.
 This doesn't prove that it was coffee that reduced liver damage, and so we don't suggest you go wild, but if coffee can reduce damaging liver enzymes, then it could certainly be working in the right direction and indeed against other "unknown" damaging effects.
It could be the anti-oxidants in coffee as these have been highlighted as "protective" in other plant material.
 So it may be best to use freshly ground coffee to avoid oxidation and possible degradation of the anti-oxidants that are thought to give coffee this healing character.
An automatic coffee machine is simple to use and can turn beans into espresso at the push of a button.
  In a world full of preservatives and other food chemicals, it's nice to know that we have a great excuse to have another cup!