Women who enjoy drinking coffee may be lowering their risk of suffering a stroke, new US research suggests.

Women who drank five to seven cups of coffee a week were 12 percent less likely to have a stroke than those who downed just one cup a month, the study among 83,000 women reveals.

According to the German experts on stroke prevention in Berlin, the benefit does not appear to come from caffeine, since those who drank tea and other caffeinated drinks did not experience the same reduction in stroke risk, says Professor Martin Grond of the German Stroke Society.

It seems the health benefits of coffee come from antioxidants in the beverage, which lower inflammation and improve blood vessel function.

Taking into consideration other factors, like cigarette and alcohol consumption, researchers find that healthy women who drank two to three cups of normal caffeinated coffee a day had, on average, a 19 percent lower risk of any kind of stroke than women who drank less than one cup a month. Drinking four or more cups a day lowered the risk by 20 percent.

(Agencies via China Daily April 16, 2009)