``Intake of coffee can reduce incidence of asthma, prevent heart attacks and improve the working of brain,'' claim K J Raju and M Sudha in the quality control division of the Coffee Board.

Despite being frequently associated with chronic and malignant diseases, most of the investigations have failed to implicate coffee as a health hazard, they say in the article ``Coffee: its effect on health and allied activities,'' in the Planters Chronicle, a periodical brought out by the United Planters Association of South India.

Coffee and caffeine have long been ``wrongly'' suspected of causing illness like myocardial infraction, arrhythmias, hypertension, fibrocystic breast disease, various cancers and birth defects, they say.

A recent study carried out in Italy has proved that bronchial asthmawas less frequent among coffee drinkers than among non-drinkers.

``The study also indicated that among moderate drinkers, the more coffee imbibed, the greater the benefit,'' they say.

Incidence of asthma was lower among individuals who drank three or more cups of coffee a day than among those who took two cups and was lower among the latter category compared to those who consumed only one cup per day, the article says. The researchers say that theophyline - the most popular medication to treat asthma - is a close relative of caffeine.

Caffeine, the primary ingredient in coffee, neutralises those endogenous enzymes which cause vascular congestion leading to heart attack and a study made at Vienna Medical School suggested that coffee helped to combat heart attacks by inhibiting formation of thrombosis (clots in blood vessels), the article says.

Disputing the idea that coffee might be a cancer risk, the article says that information collected by researchers at the American Cancer Society, did notsuggest a recommendation against the moderate use of coffee. Caffeine was not a risk factor in human cancer, they said, quoting the information.

The researchers, quoting an extensive study done on over 3,300 women with fibrocystic breast disease, said that there was hardly any relationship between caffeine consumption and pregnancy adversities. On the contrary, the article says, intake of coffee stimulates the central nervous system and improves mental performance by increasing the rate of speed at which the brain processes data.