New research suggests this one thing could decrease the risk of heart disease (Image: Getty)
Wherever you may be reading this – sitting up in bed nibbling a bit of toast (oh, those crumbs between the sheets), at the breakfast table, perhaps at your favourite coffee shop, maybe in the car waiting for your other half to emerge from the supermarket with the shopping… as I say, wherever you are – please accept my warmest congratulations.
“What for?” I hear you ask.
Look at the date at the top of this page. Not the day; not the month – the year.
It’s 2025. Congratulations. You have survived into the second quarter of the 21st century. How many of us expected we’d do that?
Because it’s no small achievement, when you come to think of it. Some of you will have survived the last world war, either as combatants (sadly, a tiny group now) or as civilians who went through be it in London, Liverpool, Manchester, Coventry… perhaps you remember the bombs falling as you huddled in your family’s makeshift shelter through a terrifying night, emerging next morning vaguely astonished you were still alive and in one piece.
Many of you will be much too young to have gone through any of that. But you’re still survivors, all the same: every day’s a risk.
You haven’t become a statistic, a victim of road smash, plane crash, other random accident, or fatal illness. You survived , didn’t you? Many didn’t. Perhaps you’re one of the growing number of those people who’ve beaten a cancer that only a few decades ago would have seen you off.
Yes. You’re a survivor all right, and you should take a bow. Because it’s not all a matter of pure luck. I was struck this week by two reports, both based on lengthy and painstaking research, which offer clues on how to help avoid two of the biggest reapers of our times – heart disease, and the aforementioned Big C.
Let’s start with the ticker. Coffee could be the key to its beating faithfully away well into old age. Research on over 40,000 adults who were tracked for 10 years found that those who start their day with a “cup of Joe” significantly reduce their risk of chronic heart disease. . Day-long coffee drinkers see no equivalent benefit, we’re told.
Which is – for morning coffee aficionados – an extraordinary reduction of 31% in the chances of dying from heart disease. Pass the Nescafé.
The other report showed that exercising in the year before a diagnosis can halve the chance of dying from the disease.
Yup. Another huge study, this time of 30,000 patients, showed that those who took no more than an hour of exercise a week – jogging, even a brisk walk – fared far better than sedentary types.
You may have missed this research; it wasn’t all that widely reported. So I just thought I’d pass it on.
We survivors must stick together.
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OK, here we are again, then – in for winter’s long haul towards spring. The heavy lifting starts here. and New Year celebrations fading memories already; nothing much to look forward to until Easter. And it’s a late one this year – the bank holiday weekend doesn’t fall until almost the end of April (even though Easter eggs are, absurdly, already in the shops).
So we need to look for reasons to be cheerful in what can be the dankest, darkest days of the year. Here are three from me.
Most of us are already back getting more than eight hours of daylight after dipping into a miserable seven-hours-something in mid-December. London hit its eight on January the fourth; Edinburgh gets there on the 22nd. Courage! Our sun’s already on the long march back.
Believe it or not, there are less than two months before the birds start nesting. Only seven weeks to March, when they’ll start building again. It’ll fly by (pun intended).
As soon as this current cold snap ends, watch out for the snowdrops. They could be blooming by the end of the month.
So send us your own cures for winter blues. We’ll publish the best here next week.
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No post-Christmas spare flesh on Richard E Grant, it seems. The ever-slim actor fitted into his costume from the movie Spice World – filmed 28 years ago – without needing to let out a stitch or a button.
It was for his daughter Olivia’s 36th birthday party last week. Grant says she still remembers meeting the Spice Girls on set as one of the best days of her life.
Our Chloe says the same about her encounter with the girls on the set of This Morning. “I’ve never been so excited.”
Fair enough. I suppose if I’d met The Beatles when I was 10 I’d say the same. Sorry, Richard.