15 ms·
Consumption of a dark roast coffee blend reduces DNA damage in humans
- 1_over_n 8y ago"Funding This study has been supported by Tchibo GmbH, Hamburg, Germany." Tchibo is a German chain of coffee retailers and cafés known for its range of non-coffee products that change weekly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tchibo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tchibo Number of locations 700 shops (Germany) 300 (rest of world) They might want to make some in-store claims about Dark Roast...
- tachyonbeam 8y agoI'm generally sceptical of all studies about coffee for this very reason. There's a lot of bullshit studies around food and supplements funded with people with strongly vested interests in selling more product. It's a real problem. For any given supplement, you can often find multiple studies supporting its use and multiple studies saying it's harmful. When it comes to coffee specifically, if you listen to the studies about coffee, it's some panacea full of anti-oxidants. However, it's a stimulant, it increases cortisol (stress hormone). Stimulants generally makes the body prioritize immediate energy spending over regeneration/healing. There's been a study claiming that caffeine decreases neurogenesis, which should negatively impact both long-term memory and mood.
- slothtrop 8y ago> There's been a study claiming that caffeine decreases neurogenesis, which should negatively impact both long-term memory and mood. How much caffeine was required for this effect and how long did it last?
- maxxxxx 8y agoIt's the same with studies about alcohol. They seem to always fish for some positive effect and ignore all negative effects.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- rubicon33 8y agoTo some extent isn't that expected? Let's face it - who would spend the money to fund a study on a substance that's been around for hundreds (thousands?) of years? Probably if you're going to spend the money to investigate it, you expect some kind of return. So sadly, all these studies end up being funded by people with an interest in a positive outcome. The bigger question to me is, does that immediately invalidate their results?
- swsieber 8y agoIt depends on the ratio of studies funded vs studies published. I wouldn't be surprised if around 90-95% of special interest funded studies that aim for a p value of <5% aren't published.
- laingc 8y ago> I wouldn't be surprised if around 90-95% of special interest funded studies that aim for a p value of <5% aren't published. This is true of the majority of publicly-funded research, too.
- eggy 8y agoYes, I agree, and expect people, companies or whatever to act in their own self-interest, so no implication it is rigged because it may be self-serving. However, I am more suspicious of the study, and studies in general after the recent wave that uncovered an epidemic of unsound statistical methods being used in studies across multiple disciplines. Unfortunately, I am not proficient enough in statistics to vet these things out for myself most of the time, so I remain skeptical, and similarly cliche with the Edgar Allen Poe quote: “You are young yet, my friend,” replied my host, “but the time will arrive when you will learn to judge for yourself of what is going on in the world, without trusting to the gossip of others. Believe nothing you hear, and only one half that you see."
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- andy_ppp 8y agoCompletely - you could also say that reducing DNA damage might actually also decrease immune system surveillance that might be happening causing worse than expected outcomes. Imagine if a lot of cells that might have killed themselves stay alive because of drinking coffee might actually turn out to be a bad thing. We just don't know enough to say for sure and these sort of studies are wildly difficult to get mortality figures from. We still aren't even sure what general diet is fully optimal long term let alone if one constituent can give actual life expectancy benefits.
- AstralStorm 8y agoSo far mortality and morbidity figures say "meh". It is relatively easy to find good quality observational studies with decent power on this exact subject, they're just not sexy so they do not get quoted in pop science magazines.
- Florin_Andrei 8y ago> However, it's a stimulant, it increases cortisol (stress hormone). Stimulants generally makes the body prioritize immediate energy spending over regeneration/healing. There's been a study claiming that caffeine decreases neurogenesis, which should negatively impact both long-term memory and mood. All true. Now, by the same token, I am wondering about the effects of decaf. You know, all the alleged "good stuff", none of the sympathetic-nervous-system-stimulation.
- killjoywashere 8y agoYou know how coffee is decaffinated, right? Edit to address Florin_Andrei's critique: last I checked, the organic solvent processes predominant. Just a gestalt, but I suspect there are some adducts produced and the separation, though evaporative, is still imperfect. Just something to keep in mind.
- Florin_Andrei 8y agoI mean I can read this just like anybody with an internet connection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decaffeination#Decaffeination_processes_for_coffee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decaffeination#Decaffeination_... but you'd have to be more specific as to what your concerns are.
- coldtea 8y agoDoes it have "all the alleged good stuff"? Most of the alleged good effects are in caffeine itself... If you just want antioxidants (which are themselves oversold too) just eat some berries or something...
- Florin_Andrei 8y ago> Most of the alleged good effects are in caffeine itself... I vaguely doubt that. I mean, this could be tested. Three groups: cold turkey controls, crappy tasting instant coffee group (or even just give them a caffeine pill or something), and full-aroma real coffee group. Groups 2 and 3 get the same amount of caffeine. Now compare the outcomes. That would be very interesting.
- carimura 8y agoya they're mostly red herrings. don't forget the impact on our sleep cycles which every day prove to be critically important to our longevity. for a pretty strong and compelling case for sleep (and against anything that gets in its way) -- check out "Why We Sleep" by Matthew Walker.
- SubiculumCode 8y agoRoasting aka burning the beans seems like it would be a cause of cancer, similar to research about cancer causing agents in the burnt aspects of meat, etc.
- _Schizotypy 8y agoI think the cancerous agents in burnt meat are caused by extremely high temps, higher than would be reached in coffee roasting. High temps in coffee roasting could cause the undesirable effect of caffeine break down.
- SubiculumCode 8y agoI often see charring on beans. Starbuck's beans are notoriously over-roasted.
- stevenhuang 8y ago> you can often find multiple studies supporting its use and multiple studies saying it's harmful. While true and I get your point, there isn't anything inherently wrong with that. We should expect and welcome research with the awareness of vested interests. Afterall it's not surprising for a substance to be beneficial in certain ways yet harmful in other ways. Research from opposing groups will help identify all interesting attributes of a substance. Until we learn all there is to learn, you should approach these papers more as additional clues pointing to a certain direction and not anything conclusive about the substance in question.
- Myrmornis 8y agoI work for a biotech company that publishes peer-reviewed science. We use scientific publishing for marketing purposes, to influence the regulatory environment in our favor, and to look better than our competitors. Some of it is done to a very high standard. But in general, doing science with such predefined strategic objectives results in a corpus of scientific output that is hard to interpret. Essentially this sort of stuff pollutes the scientific literature and we should be ashamed that as a society we can't even let the technical content of the scientific literature be free from corporate interests.
- skookumchuck 8y ago> free from corporate interests That won't help. All research is subject to the bias of the researchers. For example, many researchers have been caught fabricating results so they'll get famous. And just because someone is being funded by the government hardly means the government doesn't have a biased interest in the result. Everyone running the government has an agenda that isn't exactly altruistic.
- hnnh44 8y agoThis is funny. Just a while back there was an article posted about how studies SHOULD start out with defined objectives. The argument was that academics are so desperate to publish positive results that they'll draw any positive conclusion, even if it wasn't what the study started out trying to accomplish.
- SketchySeaBeast 8y agoI'm already addicted to your foul dark energy swill, you don't need to sell it to me twice!
- gammateam 8y agoYeaaaaaaah but who else would do the study Cmon use your head here Whether its the sugar company or the coffee company, who else would do the study just so some college conspiracy theorists dont make a netflix documentary NOBODY Its okay to acknowledge the conflict of interest thats literally what the disclaimer is for, but lets not pretend like a more objective version of this study would have ever happened
- ironcan 8y ago> but lets not pretend like a more objective version of this study would have ever happened Precisely, because a more objective version would have found no effect whatsoever.
- gHosts 8y agohttp://www.ico.org/promotion_e.asp http://www.ico.org/promotion_e.asp Hmm. This is why climate change deniers can get a foot in the door.... ....the door has been jammed open by skewed commercial interests for decades.
- vertexFarm 8y agoIt's also a typical horseshit vague claim that almost certainly is the result of p-hacking ludicrous meta-studies and other nasty practices. Same as those damn red wine studies that come out all the time touting its health benefits. There's an astounding number of pure trash studies out there. No, drinking burnt coffee isn't going to defend anyone's DNA. This is patently absurd. Come on y'all, don't vote for this kind of stuff. Shame.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- rv-de 8y agoThank you! What a ridiculous study. Also the list of authors is a bit interesting. Nothing shocking - but interesting.
- fromthestart 8y agoCould someone please explain to me how funding could lead to biased results? Is it disbursed conditionally? Is it the desire for future grants? If it's just bribery, are all of these scientists just selling out constantly?
- fromthestart 8y agoToo late to edit but I ask this question in earnest. I have trouble with the notion that we should be immediately skeptical, without reviewing methodology, of any study with industry funding. Some 70% of research funding comes from private entities.[1] That said, given the current sorry state of "science" (p value abuse, publish or perish, replicability crisis) it wouldn't surprise me if funding related bias really is a common problem. 1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funding_of_science https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funding_of_science
- pergadad 8y agoI can't access the full text but from the summary it looks as if blood was taken only once. So the difference between one and the other group was not measured before-after and then the change compared, rather a simple comparison was made between the groups at the end. If that's true the whole thing is just bollocks - run it often enough and you'll find a group with this effect.
- ramblerman 8y agoI feel this is an instance of "hate the game not the player". Funding of scientific research should always be good, even if the stakeholders are hoping for a favorable outcome. By it's definition science is merely uncovering the truth and can't be swayed. The reality however where we don't trust the results (especially around nutrition), the issues with replication of studies, and wrong usage of p-values is the real problem. Perhaps we need to mandate replication studies... I'm not sure what the solution is - but I don't feel blaming the industry is the right approach either. Science has the problem here.
- godelmachine 8y agoWow, this sounds like the alcohol industry funding research publications which emphasize that consumption of 2 glasses of wine daily is beneficial to health. Thanks for pointing it out.
- nabla9 8y agoQuick googling indicates that tea has similar effect https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24585444 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24585444 (very small study but effect size is good), another study is https://academic.oup.com/jn/article/138/8/1567S/4750818 https://academic.oup.com/jn/article/138/8/1567S/4750818 What are the common ingredients in coffee and tea except caffeine? EDIT: It seems like black tea also, although I can't make sense of the biological jargon. https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jf010875c https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jf010875c
- wonderwonder 8y agoBoth contain tannins. I am not suggesting that these are the cause of the benefits observed in the study.
- noobly 8y agoBeer contains tannins also. Not that I need any extra excuse..
- Florin_Andrei 8y agoOld school leather may be infused with tannins. Should I start licking those boots now?
- bduerst 8y agoSteep them in some hot water and serve with cream.
- gojomo 8y agoWhy couldn't caffeine be the main mechanism-of-action? It's a diuretic, so those treated with coffee likely drank more total liquids during the study, and perhaps flushed more older/damaged cell material.
- Florin_Andrei 8y ago
- new_guy 8y ago>Our results indicate that regular consumption of a dark roast coffee blend has a beneficial protective effect on human DNA integrity in both, men and women. What they established was that drinking water damages DNA. When they drank coffee there wasn't as much damage. It's a stretch to say that coffee is providing a protective effect though. Without denigrating anyone, it's a bad study. What was the chemical breakdown of the water? Was it tap water? Distilled? Bottled? Spring? etc. A better designed study would have groups drinking different kinds of water. Was the fact that the water was boiled (in the coffee) providing the protective effect? i.e removing toxins etc, did the kettle they use have a filter that processed the water, whereas the water was drunk straight from a tap etc. Coffee is great though!
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- Retra 8y agoCoffee contains water. If water is harmful, coffee will be just as harmful unless it has protective effects. In any case, you can't say they "established that drinking water damages DNA" and then go on to argue that they should establish it with another study about water.
- cbhl 8y agoIt's not clear to me that the control group drank 500ml of boiled water. If they're drinking cold tap water, it could be that the act of boiling the water yields the desired effect. If they're drinking bottled water (and if the instructions said "drink 500ml of water", this would be my first inclination) then maybe the DNA damage is being caused by plastic that's leaching into the water as opposed to any preventative effect in coffee.
- devereaux 8y agoIf it's the plastic, then we need follow up studies comparing people drinking coffee in plastic cup vs paper cups vs other non plastic non paper glassware!
- dannykwells 8y agoIf we had even 1 honest meta-analysis for every 10 trials like this, well, we'd know more than we do now. Small trials with inconsistent/poor designs are the bane of medical science. That said, I drink dark roast so this study must be true.
- nabla9 8y agoHere is nice meta study of coffee and cancer risk (dna damage and cancer are probably linked). https://www.nature.com/articles/srep33711 https://www.nature.com/articles/srep33711 > coffee intake was associated with reduced risk of oral, pharynx, liver, colon, prostate, endometrial cancer and melanoma and increased lung cancer risk. (Heh. Smokers drink nearly twice as much coffee as non-smokers. Smoking increases caffeine metabolism. I think this explains the lung cancer risk)
- jimmy1 8y agoTo your parenthetical comment: May be unrelated, but totally anecdotal, smokers tend to drink a very light roast that is easily drinkable like a folgers or maxwell house, maybe a coffee shop light roast, like a Dunkin. I don't think smokers are downing cups of Starbucks dark blend and if they are god help their stomachs.
- c22 8y agoAnecdotally, I knew a smoker once who liked tea.
- RandomInteger4 8y agoDark roasts are easier on the stomach than light roasts as the roasting process reduces the acidity of the resultant brew.
- sp332 8y agoLighter roasts have more caffeine, because the roasting process damages the caffeine molecule.
- devereaux 8y agoOdd days: research shows coffee is good for you Even days: research shows coffee is bad for you
- Symmetry 8y agoIt's both good and bad for you depending on which health indicators you look at. People tend to treat "Coffee prevents cancer" and "Coffee raises blood pressure" as if they contradicted each other but really they don't. The whole thing is very dose dependant too. Correlationally life expectancy maxes out at around 3 cups per day but I doubt that's the causal maximum.
- ilaksh 8y agoI don't buy it. I love coffee and caffeine in general but it's just a stimulant. I personally believe the net effect is to make your body work harder to get through the day. I think it's bad unless you were funded by the coffee industry.
- slothtrop 8y agoEven if being a stimulant were its only property, what makes it decidedly bad? Researchers understand it as a stimulant as it is, they're not evaluating its worth "despite" being a stimulant. If consumption in small doses poses a net harm for that reason, there ought to be stronger consensus, which is lacking.
- slothtrop 8y agoI mean more often than not, news touts the good side. What's thought to be negative anymore, aside from cafesol which can be filtered?
- emptybits 8y agoI'm surprised (horrified?) that a control group's DNA deteriorates significantly enough in such a short trial to use as a comparison. #entropy
- snazz 8y agoThe study is likely useless since eight weeks total does not constitute long-term effects. You’d need to do this with a larger sample size over years to get reliable data.
- rhema 8y ago8 weeks is not unusual for a study like this (randomized and controlled). Almost no study where researchers tell participants what to do will be longer. Epidemiological studies, of which there are many on coffee, do have more subjects over years, but rely on self-reported data.
- pergadad 8y agoCentral Europe. Maybe they took the 50 or so older people still living in the Tschernobyl exclusion Zone?
- asifjamil 8y agoThe first thing I notice is that both the first and last authors of this paper are industry-affiliated. Not to say there's anything inherently problematic with that, but at least raises an eyebrow about the motivation behind this study.
- chiefalchemist 8y ago"The study comprised two periods of 4 weeks: a preconditioning period, with daily consumption of at least 500 ml water but no coffee, nor tea, nor any other caffeine-containing product. During the subsequent intervention period the coffee group consumed 500 ml of freshly brewed dark roast coffee blend per day, the control group consumed water instead." Apparently, it's caffeine, or perhaps hot beverages (as it doesn't seem like the control drank their water heated). The information that would help me is an answer to the question: Why?
- hahamrfunnyguy 8y agoGood. I will continue drinking French Roast then.
- fbn79 8y agoWhat about https://www.reuters.com/article/us-california-lawsuit-coffee/cancer-warnings-to-be-served-up-with-coffee-in-california-idUSKBN1I930H https://www.reuters.com/article/us-california-lawsuit-coffee...
- Dowwie 8y agoCoffee remains one of the few things you can buy the best of, in the world, for less than $100usd and enjoy for several days. http://store.georgehowellcoffee.com/coffees/limited-roasts http://store.georgehowellcoffee.com/coffees/limited-roasts Only grind what you are going to brew immediately. Use a conical Burr grinder. Technivorm coffee machine else bonavida.
- perseusprime11 8y agoI have a simple rule in my life: Anything that is addictive is harmful to us. Coffee falls in that bucket.
- blacksmith_tb 8y agoWatch out for carrots[1]. Lots of non-addictive things are also harmful, of course, but I suppose that doesn't by itself invalidate your principle. In the case of coffee and tea it seems possible that the benefits outweigh the harm. 1: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.3109/00048679609062670 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.3109/000486796090626...
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- brokensegue 8y agosimple rules aren't always good
- bluebeard25 8y agoYou're going to need a bigger bucket then. The problem with simple rules is it removes all nuance. For example, when smoked tobacco is extremely addictive and therefore harmful according to you. But then you would ignore all the other practical, medicinal uses that tobacco has when used with wound dressing and pain relief. Of course that's not a perfect comparison to coffee and caffeine, but just because you've got people hard-addicted to Starbucks lattes and espresso doesn't mean caffeine is flat-out harmful to us all.
- eof 8y ago> consumed 500 ml of freshly brewed dark roast coffee blend per day, half a liter per day of coffee is a lot! I wonder if they controlled for caffeine some highlights from my reading: - 372mg caffeine per day - water-only group specifically avoided caffeine - coffee/caffeine group had to abstain from all caffeine for 4 weeks before study (baseline to 300+mg a day is a LOT for someone with no tolerance) - they base their claim of the 'darkness' of the roast mattering on other similar studies, with less pronounced results, that used lighter roasts. "Among several previous studies of the effects of coffee consumption on DNA damage, only two were randomised controlled trials, with DNA breakage rather than oxidative modification of DNA bases analysed [23]. Bakuradze et al. [14] also studied the effects of coffee C21 consumption, after 4 weeks of intervention, and found a decrease of DNA strand breaks by 27% in comparison to the control group with water consumption (p<0.001). Misik et al. [22] studied a much shorter intervention period (5 days) and a different coffee type and used isolated lymphocytes. In comparison to C21, the coffee had an approximately twofold content of caffeoyl quinic acids and trigonelline and about half of N-methylpyridinium. Therefore, the coffee used by Misik et al. is a light/ medium roast type while we used here a dark roast blend. We assume that the different degree of roasting accounts for the different outcome observed. "
- tracker1 8y agoIt's 2-3 typical cups of coffee... 2 in the morning and one later in the day. Now, if it's laced with a ton of sugar or "sugar free" sweetener that metabolizes like sugar, that's different.
- gojomo 8y agoTo what extent are "DNA strand breaks", as measured in a blood sample, correlated with other health outcomes? Caffeine is a diuretic. The coffee group likely consumed more total liquids in the course of the treatment. So the mechanism might be simply more flushing of damaged cells – possibly beneficial, but not unique to coffee. It's odd for the headline to highlight "dark roast" when lighter roasts weren't tested, for comparison.
- rossdavidh 8y agoHypothesis: they tested both dark and light roasts, the light roast showed no effect or a bad one, hence this study. Just an hypothesis, I have no data to back that up.
- flyGuyOnTheSly 8y agoStopped drinking coffee months ago and I have never felt better. Anxiety is down. Sleeplessness is down. General mood is up. Best of all, I no longer get headaches due to Caffeine withdrawal.
- stochastic_monk 8y agoWhen I’m not drinking coffee, I’m less forgetful and think more clearly. I’m less anxious and better in tune with my body. I also feel more myself. But I love coffee and am usually consuming it. Thank you for sharing your experience. I’ll need to try taking a break soon.
- flyGuyOnTheSly 8y agoYou're welcome! The taste of coffee is pretty tough to resist, I'll admit! They do make decaffeinated coffee, although I've never tried it myself.
- uniformlyrandom 8y agoI have switched to decaf espresso (for pretty much the same reasons as outlined above). It does not taste as good, but it is close enough - so it is a satisfactory substitute for regular espresso.
- ianai 8y agoI’ve had some success by mixing in a minute amount of baking soda into the coffee immediately before brewing. Probably works best for French press. Literally the smallest amount I could get between my thumb and finger. Ie 1 mg might be more.
- rocgf 8y agoApparently, decaf still contains about 25% of the normal level of caffeine. I read this in the "Why we sleep" book by Matthew Walker, but haven't double checked. Basically, that would mean that drinking decaf is not really the same as not drinking coffee.
- rossdavidh 8y agoI drink coffee nearly every day; I am reading this in a coffeeshop. But, p = 0.028? Come on. If you tested for a few dozen things, you would expect to find at least one that had a p-value like that. Was this pre-registered to look at only DNA damage, via this metric? Or did they look at 100 different things to find one with p=0.028? Of course, if they pre-registered and their theory was that it would reduce DNA damage as measured in this way, that would be a bit different, but from this article it's hard to say. Now, back to drinking my mocha latte.
- longerthoughts 8y agoIt's a little annoying if they're cherry-picking but does it really impact the validity of the results? If anything, I'd think they'd have a greater incentive to skew results if they were specifically testing a theory about DNA damage.
- exolymph 8y agoYes, p-hacking and related techniques do impact the validity of the results. More on that here: https://info.umkc.edu/drbanderson/p-hacking-and-the-problem-of-multiple-comparisons/ https://info.umkc.edu/drbanderson/p-hacking-and-the-problem-...
- darkpuma 8y ago> "It's a little annoying if they're cherry-picking but does it really impact the validity of the results?" Yes, that's a well known method of p-hacking.
- samatman 8y agoThe Relevant Xkcd is actually an excellent guide to why this is a problem: https://xkcd.com/882/ https://xkcd.com/882/
- pergadad 8y ago"I want to prove that it's good for something, but I don't care what it's good for" is not really a good research question. Then you'll measure 100 things and only publish the one that makes your intervention look good and possibly ignore all the ones that make it look bad. It's also rather useless if you don't at least have some idea of the mechanism. Coffee has lots of different parts, so what part of it is useful - is it the caffeine? The tannins? ...? And how does it have this effect? Is it even the coffee or just that the coffee group took 5 minutes of rest to drink their brew and that is really the effect?
- Aloha 8y agoI'm willing to bet there is another study that coffee causes some sort of cancer (last I saw it was linked with colon cancer). I'll still drink my coffee, and tea, and probably continue to consume nicotine in one of many forms. Life is too short to worry about maybe, probably is something you should likely worry about - that why I stopped inhaling burning things to feed my nicotine addiction, while cancer isnt all that likely, COPD, heart failure, and others issues sure as hell are.
- brenfrow 8y agoI wonder if they took fast vs slow metabolizers into account. It seems to be healthy only with the fast metabolizers gene: https://drwillcole.com/caffeine-one-thing-standing-optimal-health/ https://drwillcole.com/caffeine-one-thing-standing-optimal-h... If you’re a slow caffeine metabolizer: 1. Increased risk of high blood pressure (hypertension). 2. Increased risk of heart attack. 3. Higher chance of digestive disorders. 4. More stress and measurable cortisol spikes. If you're a fast metobolizer: 1. Longer life. 2. Faster metabolism. 3. Better memory and mood. 4. Lower cancer risk. 5. Better blood sugar + insulin balance. I'm most assuredly a slow metabolizer since caffeine makes me feel terrible.
- atorodius 8y agoI'm a bit confused by the linked article. The only link to a study I found was to [1] published Advances in Psychiatric Treatment. The other study quoted is for some specific effects the article mentions. Any idea where the link between CYP1A2 and caffein comes from? [1] https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/advances-in-psychiatric-treatment/article/neuropsychiatric-effects-of-caffeine/7C884B2106D772F02DA114C1B75D4EBF https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/advances-in-psychiat...
- m3kw9 8y agoAmongst other effects not stated in this study
- kempbellt 8y agoYeah, this is bullshit. 100 people were a part of this "controlled" study. Please don't be one of those people that runs around telling people this. This is nothing more than biased surveying by a weak company in attempt to create self-promoting propaganda. Thank you @1_over_n for doing the research
- nabla9 8y ago100 people can be enough. Single number like N is not going to tell much. People should learn the basics of statistics before they start to have opinions.
- _underfl0w_ 8y ago...or the basis of where funding comes from? I think you missed what the parent was alluding to.
- kempbellt 8y agoIn what world would 100 people be enough to represent anything accurately enough to make a generalized claim like this? All I know from the article is that there were 50 women and 50 men involved. It says nothing of age, fitness, dietary regimen, etc. Based on the "statistics" provided, I could equally make the claim that "drinking a warm drink reduces DNA damage". Also, please don't generalize "people" in your backhanded comment. I recommend that you study up on critical reasoning. Maybe then you would come to understanding that most "statistics" are unintentionally (or intentionally) biased, and are therefore bullshit, and not to be taken at face value.
- nabla9 8y agoI criticized your backhanded N = 100 comment because it's silly. Your comment "In what world would 100 people be enough" shows your disbelief in basic statistics. In typical well conducted study N=100 participants is close to the minimum sample size when the population is large. No statistician says that N = 100 is not enough to represent things accurately without knowing other parameters and the design of the study. With large enough effect size N=1 is more than enough and. N = 1800 is enough even if the population size is infinite in the optimal case.
- Angostura 8y ago... and increases problems with X,Y,Z I wouldn't be surprised to learn, before anyone thinks about taking this as health advice.
- lvs 8y agoGarbage! Figure 2: The coffee-treated group is anomalously higher in the quantified metric BEFORE the treatment. This is entirely an artifact of stratifying the treatment vs. control group prior to wash-out. The only significant difference is between all groups and the PRE-treatment coffee group.
- Rafuino 8y agoWhile the research may be compromised by a conflict of interest, I still have a legit question. Trader Joe's discontinued my favorite dark roast coffee (Fair Trade Organic Guatemalan) and nothing I've found has come close to the taste and cost. http://www.traderjoesreviews.com/product/trader-joes-fair-trade-organic-guatemalan-coffee-reviews/ http://www.traderjoesreviews.com/product/trader-joes-fair-tr... Does anyone have a suggestion for me that's ~$10-$12 per pound?
- occamschainsaw 8y agoHave you tried Peet’s Big Bang? It’s medium roast but definitely has the flavor of darker roasts.
- Rafuino 8y agoHaven't, no, but I'll swing by and see if I can try a cup. Thanks for the suggestion
- rdlecler1 8y agoAs a stimulant coffee could be placing stress on the body leading cells with damaged DNA to act more aberrantly and subsequenttly rejected by the body.
- akinhwan 8y agoHey guys Pub Med Labs developer here. Check out this very same fascinating article in the new Labs site and please give us your feedback! Much appreciated. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pubmed/30448878-consumption-of-a-dark-roast-coffee-blend-reduces-dna-damage-in-humans-results-from-a-4-week-randomised-controlled-study/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pubmed/30448878-consumptio...
- aheyau 8y agoThe increased white space and font size make it much easier to read. Responsive layout for mobile phones. Overall a much better experience. Thanks!
- airstrike 8y agoIt looks like the future. Thanks for the hard work on this. Great job!
- tokai 8y agoLooks good. Could you move the doi towards the top? I would rather not scroll for it.
- ccnafr 8y agoToo bad dark roast coffee also triggers a bunch of digestive tract ailments. Other than stomach ulcer, hemorrhoids, and all the bowl irritations, dark roast coffee is just fine. Noooooooooooooooot.
- digitalice 8y agohhhhhhmmmmmmmm 4 weeks only?
- worldstarhiphop 8y agoCoffee tastes terrible unless you add cream and/or sugar. Why would anyone think it's healthy?
- max76 8y agoI really hate bad science, and this is an example. Springer Science+Business Media (the publisher) does not transfer copyright of the paper from the author to the publisher like many other journals. This begs the question, why isn't this article open access? The primary author, Dorothea Schipp, is a statistics consultant in small town Germany [0] not associated with a University and the blood work was done in Slovakia. No PHDs or MDs among them. [1]. Digging deeper into their research method [2] the study looked at DNA breakage over a four month period in blood sampling for a coffee and non-coffee/caffeine group. I have a few questions about this, mainly around how effective the time period and method for determining total DNA stability. How many individual cell gnomes were measured in the before/after? What's the random variance for genome variability among cells in the same body? I suspect the variance is high enough to explain their unbelievably low p. My guess is that the statistician is having fun with p-hacking [3] while collecting some funding from industry. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosenthal-Bielatal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosenthal-Bielatal [1]https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00394-018-1863-2 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00394-018-1863-2 [2] https://www.mdlinx.com/journal-summaries/coffee-comet-assay-human-intervention-study/2018/11/20/7549520/ https://www.mdlinx.com/journal-summaries/coffee-comet-assay-... [3] http://psychology.wikia.com/wiki/P-hacking http://psychology.wikia.com/wiki/P-hacking
- rv-de 8y agoAlso the study was ordered by Tchibo - a producer of dark roast coffee. What a coincidence. So naturally they didn't have an interest in finding that (assuming that the result is valid at all - which I doubt) tea with caffeine (or maybe just caffeine pills) has the same effect. Also why did they use a blend on earth? This study doesn't make sense on so many levels. But nobody diggs into it so it's successfully feeding the nutrition misinformation circle jerk.
- pergadad 8y agoAs you have access to the paper - do they take blood only once and compare the groups or do they they take 2+ times and compare the change? With such a small sample the first option would be very dubious.
- sebbo 8y ago
- franchb 8y agoCan't see any evidence with "n=50"...
- sudhakarrayav 8y agoI grew skeptical the moment I read "single-blind" test. So, the researchers know which group is what and that could involuntarily lead them to pick for what they are leaning to find (given it is funded by a coffee company)
- gregorymichael 8y agoIf this is true, my DNA is so healthy.
- nukemandan 8y agoAll I can say... "Is Most Published Research Wrong?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42QuXLucH3Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42QuXLucH3Q TL;DR: Likely yes. Spinning statistics is not that hard, even with the best of intentions.
- speakeron 8y agoWhile I'm always happy to hear good news about coffee (although as an espresso aficionado, I'd be hard pressed to consume half a litre a day), given the obvious difference between coffee and water, I don't see how this can be a 'single-blind' study.