Victor Vescovo is ready to make history. Its 12.37pm on Saturday August 24, 2019, and the 53-year-old Texan is about to attempt to pilot his bespoke submersible to the bottom of the Molloy Deep, a nodal basin (one that is unaffected by tidal movements) 5,550 metres deep, located in the Fram Strait, between the Arctic Ocean and the Norwegian and Greenland Seas. To arrive here, 48 crew members and passengers on the research vessel DSSV Pressure Drop have sailed 17 hours from the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard into the open expanse of the Arctic Ocean. By diving down to the seabed, Vescovo hopes to become the first person in history not only to touch down on the bottom of the Arctic Ocean, but to have explored the deepest point of all five of the Earths oceans.

The Five Deeps expedition got under way in December 2018, when Vescovo took his submersible, called Limiting Factor, to the 8,376m depths of the Atlantic Oceans Puerto Rico Trench. Since then he has made contact with the Antarctic Oceans 7,433m South Sandwich Trench, the Indian Oceans 7,192m Java Trench, and the Pacific Oceans 10,925m Mariana Trench, en route to his last stop at the top of the world.

This final Five Deeps dive is the culmination of over four years of planning. It is an odyssey that has seen Pressure Drop cover 46,262 nautical miles, employing hundreds of research scientists, expedition staff, engineers and ships crew at a cost of millions of dollars a bill footed by Vescovo, who operates a private equity firm when he isnt venturing to the Earths most remote places. The success of the project depends on this final dive. Vescovo has a three-day window before a storm is set to arrive over the Molloy, bringing with it three-metre waves and 40-knot winds. Miss this opportunity, and he will have to wait another year. Today, dive day, the wind chill factor contributes to an air temperature of -8C, and the water temperature is just 0.4C. It is, as a crew member remarks, as cold as water gets before it freezes. Before Vescovo even begins his descent to the bottom of the ocean, the pressure is immense.

Limiting Factor a titanium machine that resembles more a squashed milk carton with two eye-like portals than a traditional cylindrical submarine has been manoeuvred into position by a huge metal A-frame launcher, and is now suspended securely over the back of the ship, awaiting its lone passenger. With safety and systems checks completed, Vescovo emerges on to the aft main deck, dressed in blue overalls with a cream cardigan visible at the neck. A patch on his chest reads "Vescovo"; on his right arm are the Texas and US flags. His metallic blonde hair is tucked beneath a black beanie, and his grey beard is split by a sharp-toothed smile. He moves around the deck, shaking hands. Last one, he repeats to each crew member. It is easy to picture him, in a parallel life, preparing to blast off into the far reaches of space.

Vescovos submersible is the first to be designed for repeat visits to such depths. On the darkness of the ocean floor, this 11.7-tonne vessel, 4.5 metres long, will be his single link with the world above. Should anything go wrong, there will be no escape. More than 5,000 metres below the surface of the ocean, there are no footsteps to follow in, no safety ropes for guidance. This final dive must be undertaken alone.

With the submersible ready to launch, Vescovo clambers onboard. Before he climbs inside, he holds up an index finger "one", representing the last dive standing between him and history. He disappears inside the shiny white hull. Hatch secured, Limiting Factor is lowered into the iron-green ocean, a current buffeting its sides. A swimmer, encased in a thick, Arctic-proof wetsuit, balances on top of the vehicle, disconnecting safety lines before diving into the ocean and swimming to a waiting Zodiac boat. With all eyes watching, the submersible begins to sink beneath the swell, its hull disappearing, an orange flag waving above the surface to indicate its position. Soon there is only a brief patch of oxidised teal ocean where the sub once was. Then that too washes away, as submersible and pilot sink into the depths.

Reeve Jolliffe and Enrico Sacchetti

Vescovo operated his first vehicle in 1969, when he was just three years old. Stealing away from his parents at the family home in Dallas, Texas, he climbed into the front seat of their car, put it into neutral, and rolled on to a nearby highway. What happened next was, he says, a really bad accident. Miraculously, no one else was hurt, but the three-year-old Vescovo was crushed inside the car. He spent six weeks in intensive care, his skull was fractured in three places, and he required 100 stitches. Although he slowly recovered, he still does not have any feeling in the side of his right hand. My dad said the Lord saved me, he says. But I just thought Id been lucky. I realised then that we were all living on borrowed time.

Were talking inside Vescovos generous cabin on board Pressure Drop. On the walls are half a dozen photographs of waves by French photographer Pierre Carreau. The bookshelves hold a selection of sci-fi titles; both Pressure Drop and Limiting Factor take their names from sentient spaceships in Iain M Bankss Culture series.

Growing up, a sci-fi obsessed Vescovo had hoped to graduate from purloined cars to fighter jets. A failed eye test put the brakes on that plan, so he made a detour into aerospace design at Stanford. But it wasnt for him. I could do it but I wasnt that good at it, Vescovo shrugs. He switched to a double major in economics and political sciences, and has continued detouring ever since. He has worked in finance on Wall Street and in Saudi Arabia, management consultancy in Dallas, and at a dotcom era startup in San Francisco. He served as a reserve intelligence officer in the US Navy from 1993 to 2013, supporting combat operations in Serbia from the Nato HQ in Naples, Italy, as well as rear-area HQs in South Korea and the Persian Gulf.

In 2002, he finally settled in private equity, amassing enough money to fund a climbing hobby that took him to the Seven Summits the highest mountains of each continent followed by expeditions to both poles. Having thus completed the Adventurers Grand Slam, Vescovo alighted on the idea of diving thanks to the influence of another affluent businessman with a thirst for adventure. Richard Branson had been talking about his plans for Virgin Oceanic, a commercial project designed to take customers to the deepest parts of the five oceans, since 2009; he saw it as the last great challenge for humans. Although the Virgin project was mothballed in 2014 due to difficulties in developing the necessary technology, Vescovo knew he had found his next mission.

Reeve Jolliffe and Enrico Sacchetti

Branson chose a technology that was going to be based on carbon fibre. It was a little out there, Vescovo says. But I couldnt believe no one had ever tried it that no person had ever been to the bottom of four of our oceans. It was obviously possible, because James Cameron did it in the Mariana Trench in 2012. I thought, how hard could that be?

Initially, Vescovo thought hed just buy Camerons sub, refurbish it, and dive in it to the bottom of the oceans. But he judged Camerons tech to be out of date, requiring too many costly upgrades. Deciding that what he really needed was his own craft, he reached out to Patrick Lahey, president of Florida-based Triton Submarines.

Born in Ottawa, Canada, in 1962, Lahey has been diving since 1975 and has almost 40 years of commercial underwater experience. He co-founded Triton in 2008. When Vescovo got in touch about building a deep-sea vehicle that could reach the bottom of five oceans, he saw it as a chance to realise a long-held ambition. Its something we always wanted to do, he says.

Their first meeting took place in May 2015, when Vescovo flew to the Bahamas to attend a dive with Lahey and Tritons principal design engineer, John Ramsay. Vescovo outlined his desire for a submersible that could simply go down and come back up again; anything else was superfluous. I said: The design needs to be the AK-47 principle. It needs to be functional and reliable, and work. Dont go off the reservation with bells and whistles. Make it simple and reliable, Vescovo says.

As far as Triton was concerned, this initial brief was a little too simple. His original concept was a steel sphere with no windows, Lahey says. We werent interested in building that. For Triton, the submersible (officially designated the Triton 36,000/2) had to have commercial applications so that further models might be sold after Vescovos dives. For this to happen, it would need two seats (to accommodate a pilot and a scientist), a manipulator arm and, crucially, windows instead of the system of external cameras and internal screens Vescovo initially proposed. The whole point of a human-manned submersible is that its a visual tool, Lahey says. Theres no way you can duplicate our sense of sight. When youre down there looking out that window, its like youre hardwired to your eyeballs. You drink information in in a different way. Theres an immediacy to it, and an effectiveness. Eventually Vescovo agreed, and signed Triton up to design his one-of-a-kind machine.

Reeve Jolliffe and Enrico Sacchetti

As principal design engineer, Ramsay, a 39-year-old from north Lincolnshire, was tasked with bringing Vescovos vision to life starting with the windows. Every submersible contains a pressure hull in which the pilot is encased. In this instance, the most protective shape was a spherical control centre, with the wiring, mechanics and foam buoyancy aids stored outside in the main body of the vessel. The difficulty Ramsay and his team faced was that, if you punch a hole in this sphere for windows, you create an uneven shape, which is at risk of buckling under oceanic pressure. And at 11,000 metres, Vescovos deepest dive, that could be fatal. Windows are a monstrous design exercise, Ramsay says. Making sure they dont pop the viewports out, or collapse in, is a literal balancing act of stresses.

He opted for a unique solution: three 200mm-thick conical windows made from acrylic. To accommodate the immense 110.3 megapascal pressures acting on the window surface at 11,000 metres, the windows taper, with a degree of empty space between them and the sides of the window casing. This means that, by a depth of 6,000m, the windows have been forced inward 7mm due to outside pressure. Without this ability to move, stress would collect at certain points, potentially causing fractures that would compromise the subs integrity.

Another consideration was the shape of the submersible. Most are organised lengthways, with a narrow viewing portal and the pilots sphere at the front of a long tube, but this limits the vehicles movement to left and right. On commercial or oil industry dives, this doesnt matter so much, but in the mostly un-plunged depths of the five oceans, it was important that Vescovos sub had as much manoeuvrability as possible, both to aid navigation around uncharted terrain and to offer the best viewing opportunities of sea floor flora and fauna.

To that end, Ramsay searched for shapes that were streamlined in both directions, eventually taking inspiration from rugby balls and bullet trains. We spun the sub 90 degrees and had it totally symmetrical, he says. That means you can get amazing manoeuvrability and maintain that elliptical shape. When youre on a vertical dive site its easy to shift side to side and up and down, as its streamlined in those directions.

Triton outfitted Limiting Factor with ten thrusters, allowing it to move up and down, to port and starboard, forward and back. But even the thrusters presented a new challenge. The biggest fear of any submersible pilot is nets or ropes getting sucked into the thrusters, Ramsay explains. Usually, youd have a rescue sub that could get down with a manipulator arm and cut you free; with the Limiting Factor thats impossible. By the time you're past 6,000 metres, no one is going to rescue you. Get tangled on a bit of fishing net hooked on some rocks and you have no chance.

The solution was simple but elegant. The submersible already had external battery packs which could be separated from the body by an explosive bolt (one that can be electrically actuated to break), in case it needed to shed weight quickly to return to the surface. The thrusters would be attached by the same type of bolt. Should the sub become entangled, all Vescovo would need to do is activate the eject mechanism, and the thrusters would separate and float away, casting the vessel free.

Reeve Jolliffe and Enrico Sacchetti

As for the interior components, designers can usually borrow off-the-shelf parts from the oil and gas industry. But their subs rarely dive deeper than 6,000 metres, meaning Ramsay and Tritons principal electrical design engineer, Tom Blades, had to look further. When it came to one particular element needed for the pressure-tolerant motor controllers, a device used to control the speed and torque of the subs motor, Blades and his team had to test each component manually. They found that the quality differed even in parts from the same manufacturer, depending on the factory they came from. The manufacturer had no way of differentiating them, he says. We could tell a slight difference in the shade of green. We had to buy twice as many, manually look at the colour, then put them all though individual testing before we built the circuit boards.

Another niggle was background noise interrupting communications between Limiting Factor and Pressure Drop. At 11,000 metres, an audio signal takes seven seconds to travel one way, meaning Vescovo was frequently waiting upwards of 15 seconds for a reply and thats without interference. To demonstrate the problem, Blades pulls out his phone and plays a recording. Heard loud and clear over the airwaves, instead of Vescovos messages, is the hunting sonar of a school of whales. The solution? Install a filtering circuit, or try again when the oceanic traffic has died down.

[Designing subs] is great, because there arent many people doing it, Ramsay says. Think how many generations cars have been through, everything is so refined. You sit in a car any car and you know where the steering wheel is going to be, you know where the three pedals are going to be, where the gear stick and door handles are going to be. You dont have to look. A sub is totally different; there are no set rules.

The last hurdle was testing at depth. To do this, the team travelled to the Krylov State Research Centre in St Petersburg, Russia the only facility in the world capable of replicating full oceanic pressure in early 2018. The pressure hull was placed in the facilitys DK-1000 hydraulic pressure test tank, where it was exposed to pressure in the region of 60,000 tonnes 1.2 times the pressure at the maximum possible diving depth of the Mariana Trench. During testing, the pressure hull was filled with water, with a pipe allowing water to come out as they increased the pressure, explains Ramsay. They do this because if the sub hull imploded during testing, the amount of energy released would be enough to destroy the entire facility.

The submersible was given a pressure rating of 116.7 megapascals, essentially certifying it to an unlimited diving capacity (a commercial sub might have a rating of 17 megapascals). Finally, after almost four years of work, Limiting Factor was ready to go.

Reeve Jolliffe and Enrico Sacchetti

Before the Molloy dive, Vescovo gives a tour of the finished sub. The pilots sphere measures 1.76 cubic metres. There are two seats, with the viewing portals at knee height. At chest height, a row of ten spun-carbon-fibre oxygen tanks allow for four days oxygen for two people, should the worst happen. The craft is controlled via a joystick, not unlike a helicopter. Behind us is an array of switches controlling everything from lights to comms to air temperature. To help Vescovo get to grips with the sub prior to launch, Lahey built a simulator on which he would practice in his garage in Dallas. By the time he got into the real vehicle, he knew exactly where everything was, and what the procedures were.

Vescovos first action on a descent is to use ballast pumps to make the sub negatively buoyant. Depending on the depth of the dive, he may then spend up to the next three hours sinking to the ocean floor. On one dive, he watched the Netflix film Outlaw King on his phone to pass the time, alongside the usual system checks and radio updates with Pressure Drop every 15 minutes. Around 200 metres from the bottom, Vescovo ejects a series of 5kg weights to become neutrally buoyant and so control the final stage of his descent. With Limiting Factor safely on the bottom, Vescovo will spend the next two to four hours using the manipulator arm to take rock samples, then travel around the ocean floor, videoing as much biological, geological and cartographical information as he can. To return to the world above, he ejects a series of 10kg weights, which makes the sub buoyant enough to return to the surface.

Despite his dives lasting up to 12 hours, Vescovo says he never gets claustrophobic: I like diving solo. On the Mariana Trench dive, he even took time to use some advice imparted by James Cameron. I got my tunafish sandwich, sat back in my chair with my feet up, drinking my Coke, and just looked out the portal, Vescovo says. I was just drifting at the bottom of the ocean, thinking This is so cool.

To Vescovos surprise, the depths of the ocean were far from empty, eerie deserts. The Southern Ocean was a darn grocery store, he says, describing seeing krill, micro-shrimps, jellyfish and plankton; and, on the Mariana Trench dive, human contamination in the form of a three- to four-inch scrap of either plastic or fabric with a printed "S" on it. As Vescovo did not retrieve this, he cannot be sure what it was, but he remains adamant that it was not, as widely reported, a carrier bag floating around at 11,000 metres.

Over the course of the expedition, Vescovo has become increasingly interested in science, occasionally carrying out subsequent explorations alongside Alan Jamieson, a marine ecologist at Newcastle University, and Heather Stewart, a marine geologist at the British Geological Survey. Together, they have found multiple new species of fish, which are analysed in Pressure Drops wet and dry labs. Vescovo says that invisible micro-plastics are the real, pernicious danger to humankind the micro and nano-plastics that will get into the very smallest bases of the food chain.

The mission hasnt always been plain sailing. The two most dangerous things that can happen inside a submersible at depth are a leak or a fire. Either situation is, Vescovo says, the stuff of nightmares. Vescovo and Lahey were on an early test dive in the Bahamas, cruising at about 5,000 metres, when they smelled smoke. They were two hours from the surface. Wed just powered up the manipulator and it must have burned out some insulation in one of the circuit boards, Vescovo says. Patrick and I just looked at each other, both thinking, What do we do? We turned off the offending circuit, and thankfully the problem went away. Although confident the danger had passed, Vescovo and Lahey followed protocol and immediately began their ascent.

All hell broke loose [in the Pressure Drop control room], says Rob McCallum, founding partner of EYOS Expeditions, and the man responsible for running the logistical side of the Five Deeps operation. It became apparent about halfway through the ascent that it was just a popped fuse. For a submersible, a fire inside is the worst scenario. Even a popped fuse in an oxygen-rich environment can be a real problem; look at the Space Shuttle Challenger. It was an early warning, and exactly what test dives are for. To Vescovo, it hammered home that, despite rigorous testing, there is always room for error.

You know the maths, but you do have in the back of your mind, What if its wrong? he says. Even though we tested it, what if theres something different in the real ocean? You just dont know. Youre watching the depth tick down 7,000, 8,000, 9,000 metres, and you know how much pressure is out there. Youre just hoping you dont spring a leak or something.

Reeve Jolliffe and Enrico Sacchetti

Each dive has presented its own unique problems. The second voyage, to the Antarctics South Sandwich Trench, required a gruelling 30-day journey from Montevideo, Uruguay to Cape Town, South Africa, with a few days allowance for the dive in the middle. Despite an extra level of caution around icebergs, the dive was successful.

On the Mariana Trench dive, the sheer length of time it took Vescovo to travel 11,000 metres down meant the ships crew were often working around the clock. Theres no time to rest the crew, or swap them out, McCallum says. After 10 days of doing a deep dive every second day, people are shot.

But the first dive, in the Atlantics Puerto Rico Trench was undoubtedly the most difficult. The first dive was different, because it was the final step in a gruelling series of sea trials, says McCallum. As the team was preparing to tick off the first dive, the submersible experienced systems failure three days in a row. It was our first real test out of a trial situation, and it was ugly. It got to the point where Victor sat in my office and said: Either it works tomorrow or Im scrapping the whole thing.

On the fourth day, McCallum briefed the team. I said: We dont want miracles, were not going to give you a big rah-rah, yay team speech. But weve had four months of practising, you all know what to do, so go out there and do it. No more, no less. And they did.

There was applause, cheers, hugs and tears when Vescovo radioed to say he had finally made it to the bottom of his first ocean. He came up at sunset, you had this big orange sky, and he surfaced right on dusk with the lights on under the water, McCallum says. It was a magic day.

Ahead of his final Five Deeps dive in the Molloy Deep, Vescovo is feeling confident. One can never be complacent diving 5,000-plus metres, but by this point we have refined our launch and recovery procedures, diving protocols, and emergency procedures, and are confident that things will go smoothly, he says.

Reeve Jolliffe and Enrico Sacchetti

Back in the Arctic Ocean, at 3.34pm three hours after Vescovo started his descent word arrives from Limiting Factor that sub and pilot have safely touched down at the bottom of the Molloy Deep. There are cheers and claps in the control room. Vescovo and his team have made history. But there is still the small matter of returning to the surface.

Limiting Factor surfaces 150m away from Pressure Drop, just before 8.40pm. The ship adjusts its course, launching the Zodiac and a 28ft protector RHIB boat as all hands make ready to receive the submersible, a flat white shape buffeted by the waves. The swimmer climbs aboard and attaches the safety lines, then Limiting Factor is winched out of the water, up to the back of the mothership's aft main deck in a fluid reverse of the launch some eight hours earlier.

The cockpit opens, and Vescovos hand emerges, five fingers splayed: five dives completed. He may be one of 416 people to have completed the Seven Summits and one of 12 Americans to have climbed the Summits and skied to the two poles but he has just become the only person in the world to have dived to the bottom of the five oceans. As he climbs down, the Zodiac lets off flares while the ship blows its horn in celebration. Vescovo hugs the crew members one by one.

Later, when the initial celebration has died down and he has had time to decompress and shower, he sits alone in the ships galley with a large plate of spaghetti and a Diet Coke. On the walls are vintage film posters for Mystery Submarine and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Surrounded by them, and considering what he has just done, Vescovo is in a reflective mood.

I dont know why I want to do this. Why did Shackleton have a compulsion to go the South Pole? Some people want to go to the blank spaces on the map, its just something deep inside of us, he says. I remember reading Jules Vernes The Mysterious Island when I was a little kid. I kept going back and looking at the map. The scenes of exploration sang to me, and they still resonate with me. As I grew up I never lost that. Im still that kid that always loved looking at maps and going there.

Atlantic Productions is making a five part series for Discovery Channel called Expedition Deep Ocean which will air later this year.

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Inside the daring mission to reach the bottom of all Earth's oceans - Wired.co.uk

Dawn MacKeen

CNA/THE NEW YORK TIMES Weve come a long way from the cans of Folgers that filled our grandparents cupboards, with our oat milk lattes, cold brews and Frappuccinos.

Some of us are still very utilitarian about the drink while others perform elaborate rituals. The fourth most popular beverage in the country, coffee is steeped into our culture.

Just the right amount can improve our mood; too much may make us feel anxious and jittery.

IS COFFEE GOOD FOR ME?

Yes. In moderation, coffee seems to be good for most people thats three to five cups, or up to 400 milligrammes of caffeine.

The evidence is pretty consistent that coffee is associated with a lower risk of mortality, said Erikka Loftfield, a research fellow at the National Cancer Institute who has studied the beverage.

For years, coffee was believed to be a possible carcinogen, but the 2015 Dietary Guidelines helped to change perception. For the first time, moderate coffee drinking was included as part of a healthy diet.

When researchers controlled for lifestyle factors, like how many heavy coffee drinkers also smoked, the data tipped in coffees favour. A large 2017 review on coffee consumption and human health in the British Medical Journal also found that most of the time, coffee was associated with a benefit, rather than a harm.

In examining more than 200 reviews of previous studies, the authors observed that moderate coffee drinkers had less cardiovascular disease, and premature death from all causes, including heart attacks and stroke, than those skipping the beverage.

In addition, experts say some of the strongest protective effects may be with Type 2 diabetes, Parkinsons disease, and liver conditions such as cirrhosis, liver cancer and chronic liver disease.

For example, having about five cups of coffee a day, instead of none, is correlated with a 30 per cent decreased risk of Type 2 diabetes, according to a meta-analysis of 30 studies.

The potential benefit from coffee might be from the polyphenols, which are plant compounds that have antioxidant properties, according to Dr Giuseppe Grosso, an assistant professor in human nutrition at University of Catania in Italy and the lead author of an umbrella review in the Annual Review of Nutrition.

However, coffee isnt for everyone. There are concerns about over consumption. This is especially true for expecting mothers because the safety of caffeine during pregnancy is unclear.

While the research into coffees impact on health is ongoing, most of the work in this field is observational.

We dont know for sure if coffee is the cause of the health benefits, said Jonathan Fallowfield, a professor at the University of Edinburgh, and co-author of the British Medical Journal review.

These findings could be due to other factors of behaviours present in coffee drinkers.

DOES THE WAY COFFEE IS PREPARED MATTER?

Yes. Do you prefer a dark or light roast? Coarse grinding or fine? Arabica or robusta?

All of these different aspects affect the taste, but also affect the compounds within the coffees, said Neal Freedman, a senior investigator with the National Cancer Institute. But its not clear at all how these different levels of compounds may be related to health.

Roasting, for example, reduces the amount of chlorogenic acids, but other antioxidant compounds are formed. Espresso has the highest concentration of many compounds because it has less water than drip coffee.

A study in JAMA Internal Medicine examined the coffee habits of nearly 500,000 people in the United Kingdom (UK) and found that it didnt matter if they drank one cup or chain-drank eight regular or decaf or whether they were fast metabolisers of coffee or slow. They were linked to a lower risk of death from all causes, except with instant coffee, the evidence was weaker.

The way you prepare your cup of joe may influence your cholesterol levels, too. The one coffee we know not suitable to be drinking is the boiled coffee, said Marilyn C Cornelis, an assistant professor in preventive medicine at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and co-author of the JAMA Internal Medicine study.

Examples of this include the plunge-happy French press, Scandinavian coffee, or Greek and Turkish coffee the kind commonly consumed in the Middle East. (When poured, the unfiltered grounds settle on the tiny cups bottom like sludge. To peek into the future, elders in the region have a tradition of reading the sediment of an overturned cup, like a crystal ball.) However, the oil in boiled coffee has cafestol and kahweol, compounds called diterpenes. They are shown to raise LDL, the bad cholesterol, and slightly lower HDL, whats known as the good kind.

If you filter the coffee, then its no issue at all, said Rob van Dam, a professor at Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health at National University of Singapore. For people with cholesterol issues, its better to switch to other types of coffee. Hes been studying coffee for two decades. (And, yes, hes had a lot of coffee in that time.)

However, other researchers say not to throw out the boiled coffee just yet. The clinical significance of such small increases in cholesterol may be questionable, given that its not associated with an increase in cardiovascular deaths.

Many consumers have also swapped loose grounds for coffee pods.

While there are environmental concerns with single use pods, researchers believe them to hold the same benefits as, say, drip coffee. The latter applies to cold brew, too, but more research is needed.

DO ALL KINDS OF COFFEE HAVE THE SAME AMOUNT OF CAFFEINE?

No. Espresso has the highest concentration of caffeine, packing about 70 milligrammes into a one-ounce shot, but is consumed in less quantities.

By comparison, a typical 12-ounce serving of drip coffee has 200 milligrammes of caffeine, more than instants 140. And, yes, brewed decaf has caffeine, too eight milligrammes which can add up.

When buying coffee, you never really know what youre going to get. At one Florida coffee house, over a six-day period, the same 16-ounce breakfast blend fluctuated from 259 milligrammes all the way up to 564 which goes beyond federal recommendations.

But for some of us, knowing how much caffeine is in our coffee can be especially important. Youve probably noticed it before. How a friend can pound quadruple espresso shots at 10pm and sleep afterward, while you cant have any past noon, or youll be watching Seinfeld reruns until dawn.

Some of us have a polymorphism, a genetic variant that slows our metabolism for caffeine. Its these individuals that Dr Grosso recommends limit their refills.

They take a coffee, and then they have the second and the third, and they still have the caffeine of the first, he said.

You can even find out whether you are a fast or slow metaboliser through a variety of direct-to-consumer testing services.

IS COFFEE ADDICTIVE?

Evidence suggests there can be a reliance on the drink, and tolerance builds over time.

Withdrawal symptoms include a headache, fatigue, irritability, difficulty concentrating, and depressed mood.

Indeed, caffeine is a psychoactive drug, and coffee is its biggest dietary source. About a half-hour after sipping a cup of joe, the caffeine kicks in, and is quickly absorbed.

Blood vessels constrict. Blood pressure increases. A moderate amount of caffeine can wake you up, boost your mood, energy, alertness, concentration and even athletic performance. On average, it takes four to six hours to metabolise half the caffeine.

For those knocking back more than 400 milligrams of caffeine a day, theres not enough evidence to assess the safety, according to the Dietary Guidelines.

Higher doses can lead to caffeine intoxication, with its shakiness, nervousness, and irregular heartbeat. Caffeine is also linked with delaying the time it takes for you fall asleep, how long you stay there, and the reported quality of that shut eye.

I think that caffeine is so common and so ingrained in our culture, and daily habits, that we often dont think about it as a potential source of problems, said Mary M Sweeney, an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioural sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Cutting down coffee may help with gastroesophageal reflux, too.

A new study found that women drinking caffeinated beverages coffee, tea, or soda were associated with a small but increased risk of symptoms, like heartburn.

The studys authors predicted fewer symptoms when substituting two servings of the drinks with water.

Current available research hasnt determined what amount of caffeine can be safely consumed during pregnancy, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

Caffeine does cross the placenta so some doctors may recommend pregnant women stay below 200 milligrammes of coffee daily. Extremely high doses of caffeine can be fatal.

But researchers said thats more likely to occur accidentally with caffeine powder or pills. You dont see a lot of people going into the emergency room because they accidentally drank too much coffee, said Dr van Dam.

WHAT IS A COFFEE BEAN?

Inside the red fruit of coffea lie two coffee beans. Green in colour, the duo spoon together, the rich brown hue to appear only after roasting.

In fact, they arent beans at all. Its like a cherry, you pick off the tree, said Patrick Brown, a professor of plant sciences at University of California, Davis.

Unlike the cherry, though, the seed is the prize, and the flesh is discarded.

In addition to caffeine, coffee is a dark brew of a thousand chemical compounds that could have potential therapeutic effects on the body. One key component, chlorogenic acid, is a polyphenol found in many fruits and vegetables. Coffee is also a good dietary source of vitamin B3, magnesium and potassium.

People often see coffee just as a vehicle for caffeine, but, of course, its a very complex plant beverage, said Dr van Dam.

With coffees estimated 124 species, most of flavours remain untapped; and perhaps will be forever, with an estimated 60 per cent under threat of extinction, largely from climate change, disease, pests and deforestation.

What fills our mugs at cafes, the office, and on road trips are from two species: Arabica and canephora, known as robusta. Arabica fills specialty cafes, and costs more than robusta, which fuels instant coffees and some espressos. For all of the pomp swirling around arabica, the fact remains it is an extremely homogeneous little seed.

Almost all of the worlds arabica coffee progeny traces itself back a few plants from Ethiopia, coffees birthplace, or Yemen.

DOES ADDING MILK OR SUGAR CANCEL OUT BENEFITS?

Doctors dont know. One 2015 study found that those adding sugar, cream or milk had the same associated benefit as those who preferred it black. But the coffee industry has exploded since the 90s when the older adults in the study filled out their dietary history. It was only about a tablespoon of cream or milk, and a teaspoon of sugar, said the studys lead author, Dr Loftfield, with the National Cancer Institute. This is very different, potentially, than some of these coffee beverages you see on the market today. Sweet coffee and tea are the fourth largest source of sugar in the diets of adults, according to the October survey from the USDA. That includes dessert-like beverages, like Dunkin Donuts 860-calorie creamy frozen coconut caramel coffee drink, with 17 grammes of saturated fat, and 129 grammes of total sugars. Experts said some of these drinks bear little relation to the two-calorie cup of black coffee of the past, worrying health officials.

When you talk about a drink that has that load of unhealthy fats and that much sugar, cant possibly be a healthy beverage on balance, Dr Jim Krieger, a clinical professor of medicine and health services at the University of Washington. That amount of sugar alone is astronomical compared to the current recommendations of US Dietary Guidelines of 50 grammes of sugar a day.

The concern is heightened, experts said, especially because an estimated 43 per cent of teens are now drinking coffee nearly doubling since 2003 according to the research firm Kantar, driven partly by sweet drinks.

SHOULD I START POUNDING DOWN MORE COFFEE?

Depends on your goals in life. If you are enjoying the drink in moderation, doctors say continue onward, and savour those sips. And for those patients with a sensitivity to the beverage, Dr Sophie Balzora, a gastroenterologist, weighs the benefits and risks very carefully. The clinical associate professor of medicine at NYU School of Medicine understands its cultural significance, and knows to tread lightly. As she put it, Robbing people of their coffee seems cruel.

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Is coffee good for you? It depends on the kind of coffee and the quantity - Borneo Bulletin Online

Forty-fivemillion Americansdiet every year, and though they might see short-term success,90 percent of those people regain the weight they lost. Thats because dieting, at least as weve been doing it,doesnt work.

Were made to believe that diets fail because welack willpower or discipline. But the odds are stacked against a person trying to lose weight through dietary restriction. Recent research has shown that our bodies have a set weight range largely determined by genetics, and a2013 study found that if you dip below your natural weight, your brain triggers changes in metabolism and energy output to get you back to normal and prevent further weight loss.

Fixating on appearance and weight also affects our well-being. A 2015 articlepublished in the journal Social and Personality Psychology Compass indicates that many of the poor health outcomes associated with obesitycould instead be traced to the stigma against bigger-bodied people and the stress it causes.

In short, what ails us isnt weightits our obsession with it, according toChristy Harrison, a registered dietitian nutritionistand New York Times contributor. In herbook,Anti-Diet: Reclaim Your Time, Money, Well-Being, and Happiness, which came out in December, Harrison proposes that the solution isnt weight lossits burning diet culture to the ground.Were trained to believe that being thin means youre healthy and being fat means the opposite, Harrison says, when you can actually be healthy at any size.

Weight bias explains much if not all of the excess health risks in people with larger bodies, Harrison says. Framing peoples body size as an [obesity] epidemic is weight stigma.

The overzealous pursuit of thinnessunder the guise of a visual indication of healthhas an unfortunate byproduct: the foods, lifestyles, and body types that dont fit into thisnarrow paradigm are demonized, Harrison argues. When a low-carb diet or a juice cleanse is dubbed clean eating, the natural assumption is that other ways of eating are dirty. Before-and-after photos celebrate weight lossbut also imply that a bigger body is a problem to be solved or a project to be worked on. Complimenting someone on looking thin suggests that something was wrong with their body before. Harrison also notes that our physical spaces reflect these ideals, like how bus and airplane seats only accommodate people of a certain size. Clothing stores often dont carry sizes that accommodate larger bodies, andif they do,the options are typically few.

The way [wellness and diet culture] conceives of health is bound up in healthism: the belief that health is a moral obligation, and that people who are healthy deserve more respect and resources than people who are unhealthy, Harrison writes. Healthism is both a way of seeing the world that places health at the apex and a form of discriminating on the basis of health.

Anti-Diet explains that discrimination itself can leadto a wide array ofnegativephysical and mental health outcomes: a2015 study from Obesity Reviewsfound that repeated weight loss and gain can lead to blood pressure and heart problems. A2009 study in Obesityfound that people who had experiencedweight stigma in the past year were twice as likely to have a mood or anxiety disorderand 50 percent more likely to have a substance-use disorder than those who had not.

Institutional fatphobia can also affect the quality of health care thatlarger-bodied people receive, Harrison explains. Women with high BMIsabove 55are almost 20 percent less likely to get gynecological cancer screeningsand have to deal with disrespectful treatment, unsolicited weight-loss advice, and inappropriately sized medical equipment in the doctors office, a 2006 studyfound. That kind of treatment leads larger-bodied people to avoid spaces where they can expect to be stigmatized, like doctors offices or gyms, according to research from theUniversity of Nevada and theUniversity of New South Wales. While there is a correlation between higher BMI and health outcomes like hypertension or heart disease, high weight alone doesnt necessarily cause poor healththere are other risk factors to take into account.

It is possible to change what and how you eat without becoming a part of diet culture yourself. Instead of going keto, quitting sugar, or committing to Whole30, Harrison suggests her readers try something a little simpler:intuitive eating, which basically means eating what you want without stress, shame, or restrictionbut with careful attention to how your body feels. (If youre looking for a how-to guide on the approach,check out Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Reschs1995 book.)

Diet culture convinces us that honoring our hunger, seeking satisfaction, and feeling full will send us down the road to perdition. It tells us our instinctsarebad and wrong, Harrison writes. We have the capacity to get back to a place where our relationships with food are as simple as they were when we were babieswhere hunger and pleasure are nothing to be ashamed of, and where fullness is a signal that we can take our minds off food for a while.

Anti-Diet offers a much-needed unbrainwashing for anyone feeling stress, stigma, or shame about their appearance, diet, or activity levels. Even the socially conscious reader will have an ahamoment when Harrison debunks something they have accepted as truth. Though some of the more nuanced concepts are tricky to absorb, like the ways in which diet culture infiltrates progressive movements like food activism, Anti-Diet is an approachable read for anyone ready to untangle their eating habits from their self-worth.

Buy the Book

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This Dietitian Wants to Burn Diet Culture to the Ground - Outside

The One Meal A Day (OMAD) diet is an extreme version of time-restricted eating, like intermittent fasting. However, unlike intermittent fasting which usually allows a four or eight-hour eating window, the OMAD diet has a one-hour eating window. So you fast for the other 23 hours of the day.

Although various forms of intermittent fasting have been shown to be an effective way to shed pounds, the OMAD diet is not recommended by nutritionists and can even be dangerous for people with certain health problems. Here's what you need to know.

The OMAD diet does not restrict the types of food or how many calories you can eat during that one-hour eating window. However, you should aim to consume the recommended amount of calories for your height, weight, age, and gender.

"Generally speaking, if only eating one time per day, one should consume the amount of calories required to meet their daily energy needs in that meal," says Kelsey Hampton, CSSD, a registered dietician and certified specialist in sports dietetics.

"Most adults should not consume under 1200 calories per day," she says. It sounds obvious, but getting enough calories is extremely important as too little may compromise the immune system and breakdown muscle mass as the body resorts to other ways to maintain energy reserves, says Hampton.

It's important to maintain proper hydration when on the OMAD diet. The diet allows water, coffee, or tea consumption throughout the day, but no other beverages, like low-calorie or diet beverages, are allowed.It's also recommended that you eat your meal at the same time every day to ensure a consistent 23-hour fasting period.

"It would be best to consume this meal following your most active time per day. This will help your body recover from exercise and replace nutrients that may have been lost during activity," says Hampton.

To give you some idea of what a meal on the OMAD diet might look like, here are two examples of a morning and evening meal. Please note, these are merely to illustrate what a healthy meal may look like and is not a recommendation.

Morning meal:

Evening meal:

These examples merely reflect popular breakfast and dinner options but you can vary the foods as you see fit. Just remember, while it may be tempting to eat whatever you want on the OMAD diet, it's recommended that you focus on nutrient-rich foods that ensure you're getting enough vitamins and minerals.

Less extreme versions of intermittent fasting that allow a four or eight-hour eating window have been shown to improve glucose tolerance, increase insulin sensitivity, and aid in weight loss. Yet, eating one unusually large meal can have the opposite effect of dieting in the first place.

One study in the journal Nutrition Reviews from 2015 cautions against extreme versions like the OMAD diet because it can lead to an abnormal increase in appetite and body fat percentage beyond where you were when you started the diet.

"When you eat once a day, you feel weak and sick. When it comes time to eat, one tends to overeat which can lead to a surge of insulin and ultimately feeling unwell," says Melissa Rifkin, a registered dietitian and owner of Melissa Rifkin Nutrition in New York City.

Rifkin warns that the OMAD diet can be dangerous to children, elderly, and people with health conditions like diabetes. These groups need a steady intake of calories to maintain proper health. Also, people who regularly take prescription drugs should steer away from the OMAD diet because most medications require you to eat when taking them.

As for a healthy adult, "it may be safe, but that doesn't mean it is ideal," says Hampton.

Both experts, Hampton and Rifkin, say that there is just not enough research to recommend this diet as a proper weight-loss technique.

"There are healthier ways for people to eat while reaching their goals. Lean protein, plenty of produce and quality fats and carbs can provide a broad spectrum of nutrients and can be tailored in a way to meet many different health and wellness goals," says Hampton.

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What is OMAD diet: Why eating one meal a day isn't recommended by experts - Insider - INSIDER

The first few weeks of a keto diet may come with a spate of flu-like symptoms, including nausea, fatigue and dizziness, according to a new study.

For the study, published today (March 13) in the journal Frontiers in Nutrition, researchers drew from the experiences of 101 people who had started a keto diet and described their symptoms across 43 online forums. Consistent with anecdotal reports of a so-called keto flu thought to strike those who begin this sort of high-fat, moderate-protein, low-carb diet people described their symptoms as peaking within the first seven days of a new keto diet, dwindling over time and ultimately resolving on their own after about four weeks.

"We sought to characterize the nature of keto flu, as there was a disjunct in the amount of popular media reports of its occurrence versus the academic literature," said study co-author Dr. Emmanuelle Bostock, a researcher at the Menzies Institute for Medical Research at the University of Tasmania in Australia. "We found that a number of users of online forums self-reported flu-like symptoms, usually occurring in the first few weeks of commencing the diet."

Related: 7 Tips for Moving Toward a More Plant-Based Diet

The keto diet debuted in the 1920s as a treatment for epilepsy. But more recently, the keto diet has become a health craze, as it's thought to cause weight loss by forcing the body into a state known as ketosis. When the body is in this state, cells draw most of their energy from compounds called ketones, which are derived from fatty acids. Experts are still unsure why this causes weight loss, and studies have broadly failed to demonstrate that the keto diet is more effective than other weight-loss strategies. But the keto diet appears to differ from other diets in an unexpected way: its tendency to induce flu-like symptoms, at least within the first few weeks of someone starting the diet.

"I definitely see clients experiencing the keto flu," said dietitian and nutritionist Ginger Hultin, a spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics who was not involved in the study. "Some people hardly get it, some get some of these symptoms and some get it more severely."

To quantify this phenomenon, Bostock and her colleagues drew from 43 online forums to identify consistent complaints. The researchers found that, within the first few weeks of starting the keto diet, people reported a sudden onset of headaches, stomach pain, nausea and other flu-like symptoms.

The researchers said it's unclear why the keto diet would have this effect, but they suspect it may have something to do with the way the bacteria and other microbes in people's guts change when people start the keto diet.

For example, the keto diet excludes many of the foods that support our gut bacteria, such as starchy vegetables and whole grains, according to Popular Science. Given that many studies have found a connection between the brain and the gut, changes in gut bacteria could potentially result in some of the symptoms of keto flu, Popular Science reported.

What's more, many people who start a keto diet need to make drastic changes to the foods they eat in order to cut out carbs, which could lead the body to experience withdrawal-like symptoms similar to those that occur when people cut out caffeine, according to Healthline.

However, a critical limitation of the new study is that the data came entirely from online conversation threads, without any evidence that the individuals describing their symptoms were on the keto diet, let alone experiencing ketosis. "There needs to be more real clinical studies done, as this was a review of online forums," Hultin told Live Science. But Bostock hopes this preliminary study will lay the groundwork for future explorations of the side effects of the keto diet in well-designed clinical trials.

Originally published on Live Science.

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Keto diet may cause temporary flu-like symptoms. Here's what to expect. - Live Science

No, eating mountains of broccoli or garlic galore will notprotect you from Covid-19. There is no quick-fix for the immune system genetics, age and exercise are all contributing factors and no one single addition to your diet will protect you from infection.

But wait! Anumber of foods garlic included have remarkably good antimicrobial properties, and while they should not be scoffed insteadoffollowing measures already advocated by the World Health Organisation (washing hands thoroughly;covering your nose and mouth when coughing or sneezing), it certainly won't hurtto get a few more of these nutrient-richfoods into your daily diet.

The last word in immune-bolstering micronutrients is vitamin C, whichanyone who has been told to up their intake of oranges to fight off a cold will be familiar with. Consider also seeking out foods high in vitamin E, D and A, plus iron, zinc and selenium. And if your local supermarket is running low on fresh produce, frozen fruit and veg is just as beneficial.

Whatever the crisis, eating a healthy balanced diet makes a lot of sense, so get stuck into these.

Broccoli is rich in vitamins A, C and E, as well as containing a number of antioxidants like sulforaphane (meant to be good for heart health and digestion). Readily available all year round, broccoli is perhaps one of the cheapest and easiest ways to get extra vitamins into your diet. Treat it with care, though the more you cook it, the less nutritious it will be. Lightly steam, boil or microwave to lock in its immune-boosting properties.

The best broccoli recipes:

Browse more of our broccoli recipes here.

Red peppers contain three times the amount of vitamin C as citrus; in fact, it might surprise you to know that they are the most vitamin C-dense of any fruit or vegetable, as well as being a great source of beta-cerotene (which the body converts into vitamin A. Interestingly, red peppers have 11 times more beta-cerotene than green peppers, and one and a halftimes more vitamin C.

The best red pepper recipes:

Browse more of our red pepper recipes here.

Blueberries contain anthocyanin, a flavanoid with antioxidant properties that play an essential role in the respiratory tract immune system.

The best blueberry recipes:

Browse more of our blueberryrecipes here.

Rich in vitamin B6, manganese, selenium and vitamin C, garlic has long been regarded as useful for helping tofight infections and viruses. Allicin, the sulphur-containing compound that gives it its distinctive smell and taste, has been proven to have antibacterial affects; crushing and bruising garlic cloves supposedly stimulates the production of allicin, however, cooking the cloves will inevitably inhibit some of its medicinal properties.

The best garlic recipes:

Spinach is rich in flavanoids, cerotenoids, vitamin C and vitamin E, and is believed to supportthe immune system and even help to fight some cancers. Other leafy greens such as cavolo nero, spring greens and kale have similar health benefits.

The best spinach recipes:

Browse more of our spinach recipes here.

The trendy fermented drink known for its benefits to the gut biome is also thought to have antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, anti-carcinogenic and anti-allergenic effects. Consume it regularly as a drink or with breakfast.

The best kefir recipes:

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The best foods to boost your immune system and how to get more of them into your diet - Telegraph.co.uk

Its a frequent sight in diners, restaurants, and family dinner tables the world over. People absentmindedly staring at their phones as they eat. While it makes a certain degree of sense on an entertainment level to browse the web or play an online game while eating, researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have just released a new study that illustrates how technology at the table can diminish our dining experience and undermine nutritional needs.

The study found that participants ate far less in general when using technology while eating, potentially leaving some serious nutritional gaps in their consumption habits.

Researchers monitored the eating behaviors of 119 young adults on two occasions; once while simultaneously playing a video game for 15 minutes, and once without the presence of any technological distractions. Half the participants played the game first while eating, and then ate with no distractions on a second day. The other half ate with no distractions first, and then played the game while eating the second time around.

Participants were asked to play a game called Rapid Visual Information Processing, which is usually used to test the attention and memory skills of people suspected of suffering from Alzheimers or ADD.

Its fairly simple but distracting enough that you have to really be watching it to make sure that you dont miss a number and are mentally keeping track, explains lead study author Carli A. Liguori in a press release. That was a big question for us going into this how do you ensure that the participant is distracted? And the RVIP was a good solution for that.

Before both meals participants were told to fast for a full 10 hours, so theres no way they werent hungry. Then, they were told to eat as many quiches as they wanted while either playing the game for 15 minutes or sitting quietly. Next, 30 minutes after each meal subjects were given an exit survey that asked how many quiches they had been provided and how many they ended up eating. Participants also rated how enjoyable the food was, and how full they felt afterward.

Liguori and her team hypothesized that people would eat more food while playing the game; the idea being they would quickly eat as much as possible so they can get back to playing. Surprisingly, the results revealed that people ate less while playing. Predictably, the participants ability to recall the details of the meal was much worse after playing the game while eating.

However, there were notable fluctuations depending on which condition the person participated in first. While both groups ate less while using technology, those who played the game first before coming back for another meal with no distractions ate far less than participants who ate quietly first.

On that note, the participants who played the game first had an odd reaction when they were served the quiches for a second time. These subjects behaved as if they were encountering the food for the first time.

Food is one of the greatest pleasures we can all enjoy in life, and that last finding really drives home the fact that staring at our phones while eating significantly takes away from this universal human experience.

It really seemed to matter whether they were in that distracted eating group first, Liguori comments. Something about being distracted on their initial visit really seemed to change the amount they consumed during the nondistracted meal. There may be a potent carryover effect between the mechanism of distraction and the novelty of the food served.

Researchers theorize that these fluctuations indicate a fundamental difference between mindless eating and distracted eating. For example, mindless eating would be absentmindedly reaching for a nearby candy without even thinking about it, while distracted eating falls more in line with browsing the internet during dinner.

The studys authors made it a point to note that their findings may have been influenced by any number of factors, such as the foods used, the distraction method, and the incorporation of only college-aged participants. That being said, these results are still noteworthy because they contradict previous studies that had found distracted eating leads to more consumption.

Ultimately, it doesnt matter if distracted eating leads to more or less food consumption. Whether were piling food into our mouths quickly so we can get back to our phones, or too preoccupied to finish our meal, it doesnt exactly paint a happy nutritional picture.

Its becoming an almost universally accepted fact that the average adult spends far too much time on their phone already, theres no reason why we cant disconnect for a few minutes while eating.

The full study can be found here, published in the Journal of Nutrition.

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This is the weird reason your diet is so bad - Ladders