A study conducted by researchers at the Harvard University School of Public Health, Cambridge, Mass., reports that the coffee you drink every day may actually help fight gallstones. Men who drank four or five cups a day had a 45 percent lower risk. Decaffeinated coffee did not produce similar results, and caffeinated tea and soft drinks showed no therapeutic effects. The researchers say the caffeine in coffee causes contractions in the gallbladder and lowers cholesterol in bile, which can form painful gallstones. If you sit for more than five hours in a plane, train or automobile, risk of developing blood clots in your legs increases.
Blood clots can produce pain and swelling in the legs.
If a clot breaks away, it could result in a deadly pulmonary embolism. Researchers at the Pasteur Hospital, Nice, France, studied 160 consecutive cases of deep vein blood clots and discovered that 25 percent of the people involved had recently completed trips longer than five hours. Findings of the study were published in the February 1999 issue of Chest - The Cardiopulmonary and Cardiac Care Journal . Researchers suspect lack of movement and dehydration, both aspects of long travel, can cause the clots. To reduce risk of potential blood clots during a long trip, take short, periodic walks around the plane or train.