Gout - considered one of the worst types of pain that human beings can experience but researchers may just have found that drinking large amounts of coffee can cut the risk of this illness by about half.

Gout is a form of arthritis where a compound, uric acid, accumulates and causes inflammation in joints and long thought of as the preserve of port-swigging gluttons of a by-gone age, but 1 to 2 out of 1000 men aged over 40 years are diagnosed with gout each year.

How coffee works in guarding against gout remains unclear. Researchers do not believe that caffeine has a protective effect as decaffeinated coffee was linked to a reduced risk of gout, while regular tea had no impact on risk. They suggest that another component of coffee, an antioxidant called chlorogenic acid, might somehow lower levels of uric acid in the blood.