5 ms·

What the author didn't mention, and I haven't seen mentioned in these comments, are the extremely beneficial health effects of coffee (not caffeine, decaf has s

What the author didn't mention, and I haven't seen mentioned in these comments, are the extremely beneficial health effects of coffee (not caffeine, decaf has shown the same benefits). Most significantly, studies have shown that coffee reduces overall mortality rates significantly, with the reduced chance of dying from any cause increasing with coffee consumption (up to a point). >Compared with nonconsumers, participants in the highest quartile of coffee consumption had statistically significantly lower all-cause mortality (men: HR, 0.88 [95% CI, 0.82 to 0.95]; P for trend < 0.001; women: HR, 0.93 [CI, 0.87 to 0.98]; P for trend = 0.009). Inverse associations were also observed for digestive disease mortality for men (HR, 0.41 [CI, 0.32 to 0.54]; P for trend < 0.001) and women (HR, 0.60 [CI, 0.46 to 0.78]; P for trend < 0.001). Among women, there was a statistically significant inverse association of coffee drinking with circulatory disease mortality (HR, 0.78 [CI, 0.68 to 0.90]; P for trend < 0.001) and cerebrovascular disease mortality (HR, 0.70 [CI, 0.55 to 0.90]; P for trend = 0.002) and a positive association with ovarian cancer mortality (HR, 1.31 [CI, 1.07 to 1.61]; P for trend = 0.015). In the EPIC Biomarkers subcohort, higher coffee consumption was associated with lower serum alkaline phosphatase; alanine aminotransferase; aspartate aminotransferase; γ-glutamyltransferase; and, in women, C-reactive protein, lipoprotein(a), and glycated hemoglobin levels. http://annals.org/aim/article/2643435/coffee-drinking-mortality-10-european-countries-multinational-cohort-study http://annals.org/aim/article/2643435/coffee-drinking-mortal... In addition, according to other studies, coffee prevents and/or reverses liver damage due to alcohol consumption. One study suggested an extremely significant (44%) reduction in occurrences of cirrhosis among those who drink 2 cups of coffee a day. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coffee-liver-cirrhosis-idUSKCN0VR2JN http://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coffee-liver-cirrho... When considering whether or not to give up your morning coffee, consider the good with the bad.

jraby3 9y ago
For a more complete list of all the health benefits of coffee, and separately of caffeine: http://nutritionstrategy.com/coffee-good-or-bad/ http://nutritionstrategy.com/coffee-good-or-bad/
- e40 9y ago
  Coffee is full of antioxidants That is one of my pet peeves. There is no proof that antioxidants are good for humans. Years ago I read an article by a researcher that traced the origin of the idea to... nowhere. There was never any research that indicated they are good for us. It's one of those things that was injected into a news cycle and was picked up and repeated over and over again.
  - 52-6F-62 9y ago
    I can't speak to antioxidants specifically, but this is a pet peeve of mine as well. My girlfriend can attest to my going on tirades when a miscellaneous holistic "health expert" shows up on morning talk shows to inform daytime tv viewers that if they put an onion under their bed and only eat foods that don't contain the colour white that they'll reduce the "toxins" in their house and their body. (fictional example) Those mysterious boogeyman toxins... gotta reduce those toxins. Oh and you're selling a supplement that will take care of all of that for me so that I don't have to walk my pocketful of okra around the block three times before soaking it in a bath of cold milk I must change every day if I want to stay healthy. I'll stop now, but I could go on...
cvsh 9y ago
I wonder if some of this is due to a subtle intervening variable like conscious or subconscious (i.e. fidgeting) decisions to exercise more accumulated over time because of increased energy, rather than caffeine per se.
- MichaelBurge 9y ago
  If that were true, decaf wouldn't show the same effect because it wouldn't give you increased energy. (I don't drink decaf)
  - devotedtoneu 9y ago
    Well decaf does contain caffeine, just less of it.
    - viridian 9y ago
      Typically less than a twentieth of it with most modern caffeine methods.
- epmaybe 9y ago
  In epidemiological studies we refer to these variables as confoundimg variables. There's another term as well that I can't seem to remember. When you try and correlate one specific variable, like coffee, to trends like mortality, you must control for every other variable. Socioeconomic factors like income generally cause confounding of your results. For example, there was a recent paper that showed that women with gum disease were at higher risk for certain cancers. Is it a wide stretch to believe that people with gum disease may be of lower socioeconomic status, and also probably not take care of their diets and health anyways? Can someone link the PDF? My login for the acp journal article the parent linked to describing the health correlations won't work for some reason. I want to see how they controlled for some of these factors. Edit: I found the full PDF through my institution. They note that their study may contain confounds, and note possible ones that they tried to control for. The paper isn't perfect, but I applaud the authors for being as thorough as they could. That being said, this sort of article is bound to go viral as soon as possible, with many misleading headlines.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
6d6b73 9y ago
Coffee industry is huge, so it's not hard to imagine that at least some of the research is fake. Also, I'm not aware of any research that explains WHY coffee has the supposed health benefits.
- bitexploder 9y ago
  I like it and it doesn't seem to cause cancer, so it has those two things going for it.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
JTenerife 9y ago
Where there're sponsors there're studies. Don't trust those. Not saying that they're scientifcly wrong, but similar studies have been made for red wine and dark chocolate. Also, there was / is the green tea trend. You need to take all effects of a substance into account when judging the health benefits. If you want to do something good for your health, drink herbal tea. But why do most of the people prefer coffee or green / black tea? Or drink red wine or eat lots of dark chocolate. Because those are stimulants.
- 6d6b73 9y ago
  And they are physically addicting
- ApolloFortyNine 9y ago
  Woah woah woah. Did I miss the bandwagon for hating green / black tea? How are those bad? Is it just the caffiene?
  - 6d6b73 9y ago
    45mg for black tea and 25mg for green tea
rpiguy 9y ago
I have read these studies and often wonder if it is not the coffee itself, but rather what you aren't doing when you are drinking coffee. For example, coffee suppresses the appetite so maybe you snack less and that is driving the difference in the two study groups. Or people on the non-coffee drinking group have Coke-Cola instead. I feel very badly for my Grandparents, who were told not to drink coffee because it was "bad" for them. They all stopped drinking coffee in the early 90s and subsequently put on a ton of weight and then suffered all the related health problems (diabetes, heart failure). I often wonder if they stuck with coffee instead of giving it up would they have been in better health.
mcculley 9y ago
I'm the original author. I did mention that there may be health benefits to caffeine. You make a good point that it may be coffee and not caffeine that people find beneficial. Nevertheless, as I mentioned in the post, I'm skeptical of reports of the benefits of consuming something as most such reports come from entities trying to sell you something or people who want to rationalize their own consumption. I'll try to update the post later to clarify.
- tertius 9y ago
  > I'm skeptical of reports of the benefits of consuming something as most such reports You should be skeptical. But skepticism shouldn't drive you to claim something like "most reports".
  - mcculley 9y ago
    I'm not sure what you mean. I never said "most reports" other than saying "most such reports" have implicit bias. Would you dispute that? Most articles I come across about the health benefits of coffee/caffeine seem to just be reporting the same popular science tropes without any scholarly backing.
corpMaverick 9y ago
Regardless. My morning coffee may not make my life longer but it makes it more enjoyable.
squids 9y ago
Not so fast, if you're under 55 years old and drink more than 4 cups a day then this study found that it is pretty bad for you. >A study of more than 40,000 individuals found a statistically significant 21% increased mortality in those drinking more than 28 cups of coffee a week and death from all causes, with a greater than 50% increased mortality risk in both men and women younger than 55 years of age. https://www.elsevier.com/connect/how-much-coffee-is-healthy-it-depends-on-your-age https://www.elsevier.com/connect/how-much-coffee-is-healthy-...

jraby3 9y ago

For a more complete list of all the health benefits of coffee, and separately of caffeine: http://nutritionstrategy.com/coffee-good-or-bad/ http://nutritionstrategy.com/coffee-good-or-bad/

e40 9y ago
Coffee is full of antioxidants That is one of my pet peeves. There is no proof that antioxidants are good for humans. Years ago I read an article by a researcher that traced the origin of the idea to... nowhere. There was never any research that indicated they are good for us. It's one of those things that was injected into a news cycle and was picked up and repeated over and over again.
- 52-6F-62 9y ago
  I can't speak to antioxidants specifically, but this is a pet peeve of mine as well. My girlfriend can attest to my going on tirades when a miscellaneous holistic "health expert" shows up on morning talk shows to inform daytime tv viewers that if they put an onion under their bed and only eat foods that don't contain the colour white that they'll reduce the "toxins" in their house and their body. (fictional example) Those mysterious boogeyman toxins... gotta reduce those toxins. Oh and you're selling a supplement that will take care of all of that for me so that I don't have to walk my pocketful of okra around the block three times before soaking it in a bath of cold milk I must change every day if I want to stay healthy. I'll stop now, but I could go on...

cvsh 9y ago

I wonder if some of this is due to a subtle intervening variable like conscious or subconscious (i.e. fidgeting) decisions to exercise more accumulated over time because of increased energy, rather than caffeine per se.

MichaelBurge 9y ago
If that were true, decaf wouldn't show the same effect because it wouldn't give you increased energy. (I don't drink decaf)
- devotedtoneu 9y ago
  Well decaf does contain caffeine, just less of it.
  - viridian 9y ago
    Typically less than a twentieth of it with most modern caffeine methods.
epmaybe 9y ago
In epidemiological studies we refer to these variables as confoundimg variables. There's another term as well that I can't seem to remember. When you try and correlate one specific variable, like coffee, to trends like mortality, you must control for every other variable. Socioeconomic factors like income generally cause confounding of your results. For example, there was a recent paper that showed that women with gum disease were at higher risk for certain cancers. Is it a wide stretch to believe that people with gum disease may be of lower socioeconomic status, and also probably not take care of their diets and health anyways? Can someone link the PDF? My login for the acp journal article the parent linked to describing the health correlations won't work for some reason. I want to see how they controlled for some of these factors. Edit: I found the full PDF through my institution. They note that their study may contain confounds, and note possible ones that they tried to control for. The paper isn't perfect, but I applaud the authors for being as thorough as they could. That being said, this sort of article is bound to go viral as soon as possible, with many misleading headlines.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

6d6b73 9y ago

Coffee industry is huge, so it's not hard to imagine that at least some of the research is fake. Also, I'm not aware of any research that explains WHY coffee has the supposed health benefits.

bitexploder 9y ago
I like it and it doesn't seem to cause cancer, so it has those two things going for it.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

JTenerife 9y ago

Where there're sponsors there're studies. Don't trust those. Not saying that they're scientifcly wrong, but similar studies have been made for red wine and dark chocolate. Also, there was / is the green tea trend. You need to take all effects of a substance into account when judging the health benefits. If you want to do something good for your health, drink herbal tea. But why do most of the people prefer coffee or green / black tea? Or drink red wine or eat lots of dark chocolate. Because those are stimulants.

6d6b73 9y ago
And they are physically addicting
ApolloFortyNine 9y ago
Woah woah woah. Did I miss the bandwagon for hating green / black tea? How are those bad? Is it just the caffiene?
- 6d6b73 9y ago
  45mg for black tea and 25mg for green tea

rpiguy 9y ago

I have read these studies and often wonder if it is not the coffee itself, but rather what you aren't doing when you are drinking coffee. For example, coffee suppresses the appetite so maybe you snack less and that is driving the difference in the two study groups. Or people on the non-coffee drinking group have Coke-Cola instead. I feel very badly for my Grandparents, who were told not to drink coffee because it was "bad" for them. They all stopped drinking coffee in the early 90s and subsequently put on a ton of weight and then suffered all the related health problems (diabetes, heart failure). I often wonder if they stuck with coffee instead of giving it up would they have been in better health.

mcculley 9y ago

I'm the original author. I did mention that there may be health benefits to caffeine. You make a good point that it may be coffee and not caffeine that people find beneficial. Nevertheless, as I mentioned in the post, I'm skeptical of reports of the benefits of consuming something as most such reports come from entities trying to sell you something or people who want to rationalize their own consumption. I'll try to update the post later to clarify.

tertius 9y ago
> I'm skeptical of reports of the benefits of consuming something as most such reports You should be skeptical. But skepticism shouldn't drive you to claim something like "most reports".
- mcculley 9y ago
  I'm not sure what you mean. I never said "most reports" other than saying "most such reports" have implicit bias. Would you dispute that? Most articles I come across about the health benefits of coffee/caffeine seem to just be reporting the same popular science tropes without any scholarly backing.

corpMaverick 9y ago

Regardless. My morning coffee may not make my life longer but it makes it more enjoyable.

squids 9y ago

Not so fast, if you're under 55 years old and drink more than 4 cups a day then this study found that it is pretty bad for you. >A study of more than 40,000 individuals found a statistically significant 21% increased mortality in those drinking more than 28 cups of coffee a week and death from all causes, with a greater than 50% increased mortality risk in both men and women younger than 55 years of age. https://www.elsevier.com/connect/how-much-coffee-is-healthy-it-depends-on-your-age https://www.elsevier.com/connect/how-much-coffee-is-healthy-...