Sign up for our Eat, But Better: Mediterranean Style newsletter, an eight-part series that guides you in a delicious expert-backed eating lifestyle that's good for your health.
(CNN) Prefer your coffee black? Then you probably like dark, bitter chocolate, according to new research identifying a genetic basis for those preferences.
If that's you, then congratulations -- you are the lucky genetic winner of a trait that may offer you a boost toward good health, according to caffeine researcher Marilyn Cornelis, an associate professor of preventive medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
"I tell people my cup of tea is coffee research," Cornelis said. "It's a hot topic."
Why hot? Because studies find moderate amounts of black coffee -- between 3 and 5 cups daily -- has been shown to lower the risk of certain diseases, including Parkinson's, heart diseases, Type 2 diabetes and several types of cancer.
But those benefits are likely to be more pronounced if the coffee is free of all of the milks, sugars and other fattening flavorings we tend to add.