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Live longer - drink more coffee!
They did not know that they were being prescient. They were just a group of musicians, talented to the hilt, who brought joy and entertainment to their numerous fans in the 70s with their scintillating upbeat version of Afrobeat. The Osibisa's hallmark was heavy percussion and a dancehall stomping rhythm. When they sang ‘there is a lot of coffee in Brazil', it quickly caught on, moving up the musical charts. The song underscored the group's talents but it also hinted at their eventual breakup, a fate which most talented groups in the music world dread.
When the Osibisa celebrated Brazilian coffee, they did not have the inkling that 25 years on, a research institute, the Archives of Internal Medicine in Washington, would discover that, apart from the pleasure it gave to the palates of its drinkers, coffee could prolong life.
A new research finding which is reported to have been endorsed by the United States' government says that coffee could prolong life and prevent or cure a plethora of diseases like diabetes, high blood pressure, stroke and other heart-related diseases.
According to the report, one Mark Pereira from the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis and his colleagues tried to find out if there was any relationship between good health and the consumption of coffee and how this relationship manifested in people of different ages, colour and weight. The research also tried to find out if the caffeine component of coffee was responsible for the anti-diabetic effect and the ability to protect body cells from infections.
The research team analysed data from 28,812 women enrolled in the Iowa Women's Health Study which went on for 11years between 1984 and 1997 and concluded that coffee, consumed by millions of people around the world, could also cure a variety of cancers, including that of the colon, which is said to be the leading cause of death among African men.
With the endorsement of government of the United States, this study is expected to be a different document, of crass commercialism in the hands of businessmen. And it can be imagined what copywriters in the advertising world would do with these claims about the curative effects of coffee. Manufacturers of coffee the world over would, in the light of these new claims, turn coffee into a wonder drink for a people under pressure from various debilities. It is expected that coffee will become a money-spinner for its manufacturers as they take coffee, especially its decaffeinated variant, into a higher notch.
In Nigeria, it may be salient to pursue the implication of this research. An earlier research finding had put the average life span of the Nigerian at 47; can coffee prolong this? Can the consumption of coffee improve on this veritable death sentence on Nigerians, with the stark reality of the life-shortening variables that fill up the Nigerian socio-economic space? How many Nigerians can afford to drink coffee on a daily basis for the sake of longevity? Indeed, how many Nigerians can afford to feed themselves or their families three times a day? In Nigeria's peculiar socio-economic environment, is longevity really desirable?
The conclusion of the research, about coffee being life-friendly, a protector against life-threatening diseases is cant to most Nigerians who are oppressed by the continuous rise of food prices, loss of Jobs, the drudgery of a life of poverty and hunger. What may prolong their lives would be a buoyant economy that provides jobs for the teeming population of youths and stable polity that would not terminate young lives during violent elections.
Apart from the defect that the research was carried out only on women, the samples of 28,812 may not offer enough ground to build a solid conclusion upon in terms of deciding whether or not to increase the intake of coffee. In any case, when all is said and done, the saying that it is not how long but how well does a veritable damage to the import of the research, especially to the Nigerian in the street. If coffee can prolong life, can it make life worth living?
The coffee the unsung Nigerian - who toils day and night so that he can at least live for that day - needs is good governance. With the abundant resources Nigeria possesses, its citizens do not need to toil so hard in order to survive. A good government which understands that provision of the basic necessities will prolong the lives of its citizens is what Nigerians need for now. Until that happens, it is not certain if the man in the street would be able to say: "Can I have a cup of coffee, please?"
www.tribune.com.ng
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