THANK YOU GOD

This is the best news since chocolate is good for you!

Coffee seems to inhibit MS! At least it did for lab mice that were given an equivalent of 6-8 cups per day. Caffeine Could Stave Off Multiple Sclerosis, Forbes, June 29, 2008.

That is gigantic news in my world. The Wheeled Wonder's -- sorry, this Folgers IV bag keeps getting in the way -- I say, the Wheeled Wonder's body is comprised of 98.9 percent coffee. That's black coffee, Texas tea. So this item came across the wires here at Wonder Central like the espresso shot heard round the world.

In the laboratory, coffee prevented the immune system's attacking T-cells from attaching to the central nervous system.

It prevented the molecule adenosine, one of the four building blocks of DNA, from binding to the adenosine receptor at the cellular level. When adenosine cannot bind to receptors at the cellular level, this in turn prevents T-cells from reaching the central nervous system and setting off the events that lead to the animal version of MS.

i.e., no myelin pizza party for the T-cells. (Incidentally, my wife sometimes purrs that I have the animal version of MS, but here is not the place to kiss and tell.)

As ever with these studies, the results are only preliminary. Researchers must determine if the conclusions translate to humans. Then, since adenosine is used everywhere else in the body, a localized treatment must be devised.

I hear their message: hold your horses. Yes, yes, they have to say that. Meanwhile, most of my horses have already bolted the chute.

So, in the same vein as the vitamin D treatment I'm supposed to wait on but researched for myself and now supplement daily, I've got one thing to say --

Fire up that pot, Rosie, and make it a wicked one!

Those are my fireworks -- celebrate a merry Fourth!