Good News for Coffee Drinkers

This week’s New England Journal of Medicine reported a study of 5, 148,760 person-years that showed “coffee consumption was inversely associated with total and cause-specific mortality.” Drink up!

Noninvasive testing for paternity in pregnancy

A recent letter in the NEJM describes a noninvasive test to determine paternity in pregnancy. (N Engl J Med 366; 18 May 3, 2012 page 1743.) 5% of raped women become pregnant, but whether the rape or consensual intercourse caused the pregnancy is often uncertain. 80% of unintended pregnancies are terminated before 10 weeks, making it likely many rape victims terminate pregnancies before testing for paternity. The invasive tests carry a risk of miscarriage, but here the authors report a maternal blood test that in correctly determined paternity in all 30 cases studied.