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The coffee plant Coffea arabica is cultivated worldwide and is, of course, a source of the wildly popular beverage. In spite of its name, C. arabica actually comes from Ethiopia and is thought to have been introduced into Arabia before the 1400s, Java before 1700, and the West Indies and Central and South America in the 1700s (Morton, J.F. "Major Medicinal Plants." Springfield, Ill.: Thomas, 1977).
Extracts of the coffee plant have been shown to exhibit antioxidant activity. Two recent studies, for example, point to the antioxidant properties of roasted C. arabica. In one, researchers prepared coffee model systems from combinations of compounds, including chlorogenic acid, sucrose, and cellulose. Tests revealed that antioxidant activity exhibited a positive, nonlinear relationship with the level of chlorogenic acid, a known antioxidant, after roasting (J. Agric. Food Chem. 2002;50:3751-6).
In the other study, C. arabica and C. robusta (C. canephora) revealed potent activity against the hydroxyl radical in an in vitro assay, and ex vivo in ...