11 ms·

So, I've got a highly speculative hypothesis that BIG COFFEE will have a similar tobacco-like health event in the future. These are my semi-conspiratorial circu

So, I've got a highly speculative hypothesis that BIG COFFEE will have a similar tobacco-like health event in the future. These are my semi-conspiratorial circumstantial evidences: 1. It's basically burnt bean water. Roasted is just a marketing term. 2. The constant rate of "New Study Finds Coffee Improves [insert health benefit]" articles 3. The incredibly powerful forces (industrial, corporate, personal) that would hold back such an event I'm not willing to defend this hypothesis, but I would love some steel-manning

aYsY4dDQ2NrcNzA 6y ago
> It's basically burnt bean water. Roasted is just a marketing term. So, does that make toast “basically burnt bread”?
- danesparza 6y ago
  I think you know the answer is "yes".
- xwdv 6y ago
  Steaks are just basically burnt meat.
  - a_t48 6y ago
    Ideally they aren't
    - wombatpm 6y ago
      Knock the horns off and make sure it doesn’t moo was how my grandfather ordered his steak
- Teever 6y ago
  I know an acquaintance who refers to bread as raw toast.
- SilasX 6y ago
  And they're both pointless, fallacious (non-)insights. Argument from inflammatory reframing? It doesn't change the facts on the ground. If you like the taste and/or psychoactive effects of coffee, relative to the cost, drink it! The fact that you can call it burnt bean water shouldn't matter to that.
- dendrite9 6y ago
  I think it means toast is "basically burnt seed mush" I'd be curious about the coffee studies compared to how people consume coffee. So many people seem to drink theirs with a lot of cream and sugar.
  - filoeleven 6y ago
    Burnt rotted seed mush, even! The yeast fermentation step is essentially a controlled spoilage. And the result remains delicious.
danesparza 6y ago
The margins on burnt bean water are insane. Even when accounting for paying a 'fair wage' to workers in a foreign country.
- ta988 6y ago
  We see that most stimulants, legal or not. They don't lead to fair wage for producers unfortunately.
- smegger001 6y ago
  depends entirely on where you buy it walk into any gas staton/truck stop and you will get hot coffee for around a $1.00-$2.00 its drip coffee with half&half / nondairy creamer and sugar/assorted non-sugar sweeteners. buying beans and grinding them yourself your coffee is cheaper still. as long as you avoid starbuck/dutch bros *genaric espresso stands or Keurig cups the price is pretty damn low.
d26900 6y ago
> The constant rate of "New Study Finds Coffee Improves [insert health benefit]" articles Yep, this has become so inflationary, but it doesn't mean that studies and findings are invalidated per se. If multiple (independent) findings come to the conclusion X, then the correlation becomes stronger and stronger. When the correlation is strong (multiple findings conclude X), then you can be reasonably certain that X is likely. Or am I wrong with this?
- DenisM 6y ago
  > Or am I wrong with this? Some percentage of studies will produce random (erroneous) results, so if one cherry-picks favorable outcomes and buries the rest an impression can be created to suit any narrative. Are they cherry-picked? I don't know. What I do know is that there is a strong demand for positive studies both the dealers to sell more stuff and from the addicts to justify their addiction.
  - d26900 6y ago
    Then how would you decide whether a finding/study is valid or not? What is your modus operandi in that case? Is there an algorithm for this (for selecting good studies or for finding the truth)?
    - DenisM 6y ago
      Meta-studies are most useful since someone proficient in the art has taken the trouble to find and analyze all relevant papers. Often times they also publish the method they used to discover and discard papers in addition to the analysis, specifically to avoid selection bias. Studies published in reputable scientific journals like Nature are usually not bogus, especially if they were already replicated. However applying the results to everyday life is tricky - one certainly must not assign more meaning to them than the authors did, but also probably even less than that. Remember the mantra: the experiment shows only what the experiment shows, not the great opportunities you want it to show. Note that "nutritional science" is not a hard science, their track record is abysmal. The nearest hard science we have to that is microbiology. As a rule, all observational studies are junk - too many hidden variables, etc. There are some exceptions to it, but you will be best served by just assuming junk. If you're not willing to discard a particular observational study at least check if the study controls for obvious hidden variables - wealth, age, sex, health level, etc. For example there were "studies" that showed red wine correlates with good health, and the coverage was that we should all drink red wine. But guess what - rich people drink red wine and live longer because rich. Controlled for wealth, the effect disappears.
trianglem 6y ago
People also roast chestnuts and cashews over a fire. Marshmallows are also roasted. It’s seems like a term originating in common parlance and not specifically a marketing term. I seriously doubt coffee is carcinogenic (if that’s what you’re suggesting) besides the baseline grilled/roasted food danger to the stomach/small intestines.
- nikkwong 6y ago
  That baseline danger is not negligible. You could read forever on the negative health implications of PAHs, invite you to do a google search. Does that mean the carcinogenicity makes coffee a net unhealthy beverage despite all of its health promoting qualities? Current studies would suggest no. Does carcinogenicity of other consumed roasted foods make them “net unhealthy” rather than not consuming them at all? As per current data, certainly for all types of meat, probably for all other types of roasted or smoked foods, obviously dependent on the amount of roasting/smoking involved.
albertgoeswoof 6y ago
none of those are even close to "evidence" You could say all of them about almost anything. Here's an example: Listening to music: 1. it's just vibrations 2. constant rate of studies "listening to music improves mental health", "fetuses get smarter with music" etc. 3. the incredibly powerful forces behind music and keeping you listening to music Therefore we'll hear that music is terrible for us soon.
- DavidPiper 6y ago
  In a way this has already happened though? We know excessive consumption (can't think of a better word off hand) of loud noises leads to hearing loss, tinnitus, etc. Certainly not the same as "music is terrible for us", but more of an "everything in moderation" kind of argument.
  - pixl97 6y ago
    Eh, I can listen to music for 16 hours a day without hearing damage if it's not too loud. So what exactly would that mean? Like dont drink 212F coffee because it would boil your throat?
  - ClumsyPilot 6y ago
    Thats like saying bananas are bad for you because if you eat them exclusively, you will get diabetes
  - dylan604 6y ago
    Also, 9 out of 10 radio stations say that listening to this song is good for you. Then again, all 9 of those stations are owned by the same evilCorp.
burundi_coffee 6y ago
> It's basically burnt bean water. Roasted is just a marketing term. I take offense to this line. Roasting is a very complex thing, you have to adjust the roasting curves to each coffee individually for optimal results, to get the best out of it. There's more coffee than you might think. Search for Specialty Coffee and the Specialty Coffee Association. You may also watch some of James Hoffmann's videos on youtube. He's the World Barista Champion of 2007 and has his own roasting company. Coffee doesn't have to be bitter or taste burnt, it can be fruity and sweet. There are more tastes to be found in coffee than in wine. In addition to that, the community is not filled with as many snobs as the wine community and there's a lot of science being done on all kinds of things (for example by the Coffee Excellence Center in Switzerland).
- fartcannon 6y ago
  That's all really neat, but same went for tobacco. Highly elaborate and detailed methods for ingesting poison. I think alcohol is next, before coffee. But we shall see!
  - DavidPiper 6y ago
    I think the cat's already out of the bag with alcohol. At this point the issue is probably more that people just like cats.
  - grawprog 6y ago
    >I think alcohol is next, I doubt it. There's a reason why it was considered an 'essential item' in a lot of places during the pandemic, why the soviets gave out vodka rations etc. Alcohol's a useful tool for keeping a population compliant and sedated, people love it, it's super easy to make, hence why in many places the production and distribution of it tends to be highly regulated, otherwise just about anyone could do it, it's big business and in a lot of places, it brings massive tax revenues through sales so...I doubt it's going anywhere any time soon. I mean what are they gonna do, ban yeast and sugar? Ban leaving fruit sitting too long? You can't really ever stop the production of alcohol. It just kind of happens naturally. It's not really possible to just ban the process of fermentation...
Ekaros 6y ago
Also it's very good question of what type of coffee we are talking about. Black? Espresso? Or the sugar laden version with various various milk substitutes?
samstave 6y ago
Lets wait and see what today's Big Vaccine will show in a few years (Vaccinating 100% of the earths population wherein they are trying to push vaccine passports now (several countries in EU are beta-testing the digital passports as I type - with the help of IBM (in Denmark))) --- I am not "anti-vax" -- but this shit is unprecedented. --- When my youngest was getting her shots, she weighed like 20 pounds and they wanted to give her SIX shots at once... When my middle got the Chicken pox vax a few days before we went to chicago, and she got the fn chicken pox and instead of enjoying chicago, she had to sit in a calamine bath and we had to stay an extra week as she couldn't fly. She was 3 years old. So - I told the DR NO FN WAY you are giving a 20-pound child SIX FN shots at once. She looked incredulous. I said NO - she can have ONE shot per week. After every vax, she was lathargic for the next few days. So yeah Big Vax Babba Yaga is coming
- djakaitis 6y ago
  Your post claims you are not anti-vax and all it states is how anti-vaccine you are.
  - samstave 6y ago
    Reading comprehension: I said I am not anti BAC, but I’m not going to let them put 6 vaccines in my daughters 20 pound body all at once
    - michaelcampbell 6y ago
      > Reading comprehension: I said I am not anti BAC, No, you did not. Yes, reading comprehension is important. You said, literally quoted: "I am not "anti-vax" -- but this shit is unprecedented."
- javagram 6y ago
  “ I am not "anti-vax" -- but this shit is unprecedented.” I’d suggest you hit up Wikipedia and learn about medical history. The smallpox (eradicated worldwide) and polio (eradicated in all but a couple countries) vaccine pages might help you learn that a worldwide vaccination campaign to stop a dangerous disease isn’t unprecedented. “ I said NO - she can have ONE shot per week. After every vax, she was lathargic for the next few days.” So you made her lethargic for 6 times a few days instead of a few days for just one time. Congrats on that? The people who follow the recommended vaccine schedule don’t have any problems, according to scientific studies. Your concerns appear to be based on FUD you read on the internet or imagined yourself.
S_A_P 6y ago
I don’t think there is anywhere near the anecdotal evidence to support this. Even when big tobacco was in full swing people knew smoking was correlated with cancer/lung disease/etc. I felt noticeably healthier when I quit smoking years ago. I’ve quit coffee and aside from caffeine withdrawal little difference in how I felt. What negative health effects do you propose are caused by coffee?
- CodeWriter23 6y ago
  You asked for proposals, and that’s how I present this. Not as a fact. But it seems to me looking into acrylimides as it relates to coffee roasting processes and the finished product is not an entirely absurd line of scientific inquiry. And they can have my coffee when they pry it from my cold dead hands.
  - ricardobayes 6y ago
    I don't eat processed meat and excercise daily. I like my odds even with coffee. I was briefly involved in a personalized cancer medicine company and talked to the prof there. He said if you don't smoke, avoid bacon and walk/run a few times a week you have essentially done everything you could. The bacon thing made me curious and it turned out almost all processed meat has nitrite (nitrosamine) added, which is a carcinogenic element. So much so they in fact used it to induce cancer reliably in lab rats. As to why food industry uses it - it is still better than botulism. As of 2021 we still don't have effective meat preservatives. "Rats fed dimethylurea and 0.3% sodium nitrite for 36 days developed tumours of CNS, heart, thymus, kidney or thyroid in all animals (Sander, 1970)." http://www.inchem.org/documents/jecfa/jecmono/v05je15.htm http://www.inchem.org/documents/jecfa/jecmono/v05je15.htm
- vinger 6y ago
  After quitting caffeine I can now fall asleep fairly quickly everynight. For 20% it could be negative.
  - yahnu 6y ago
    It could be dosage and timing. Coffee also affects my sleep but I need it to fight off my depression to some extent. So I have found one cup (250ml) early in the morning doesn't affect my sleep. I have also found, I can have one more cup on the days I go running! (Physical exercise has something to do with caffeine efect on body) I have a personal rule of no caffeine after 4PM. It helps with sleep! (6 hours before sleep is the idea) I wasn't aware of these things until few years ago but now I do and I hope this helps someone!
eloff 6y ago
The problem with this idea seems to be that lots of studies show health benefits to drinking coffee. Now maybe it's just a correlation and not an actual benefit - but you'd be hard pressed to say it has negative health effects because the correlation goes in the opposite direction.
anonisko 6y ago
You're forgetting a big one. It's a cognitive stimulant that increases worker productivity. So not only does the coffee industry have an obvious, direct incentive to promote the benefits and downplay any long term negatives, but EVERY corporate entity and even our government has an indirect incentive to downplay any negatives. A company or society that hypes up it's young worker population on caffeine will likely out-compete organizations of humans that don't, even if major health problems show up later in life.
- grecy 6y ago
  And an even bigger one - coffee is extremely lucrative, so there are enormous amounts of money in play to make sure it stays legal/popular/'healthy'.
  - nicoburns 6y ago
    Tobacco is/was also extremely lucrative. I don't think that's enough to protect it. But it's effect on societal productivity likely is.
    - grecy 6y ago
      As far as I'm aware Tobacco is still extremely profitable, despite being horrendously bad for health. If it were introduced today there's absolutely no doubt it wouldn't be allowed. I'd say that means it is being protected.
      - foolinaround 6y ago
        it is'nt protected per se, more like it got grand-fathered in. inertia and all that.
        grecy 6y ago
        > it is'nt protected per se ...and you can guarantee a TON of people were absolutely certain the same was true about sugar not so long ago....
dehrmann 6y ago
I doubt that it's a major issue because humans have been drinking coffee for a long time, but not all humans, and we've discovered a lot of the things that are problematic for health, things like tobacco, asbestos, and leaded gas. Humans have been eating charred things for a long time, and while they seem to be somewhat carcinogenic, it also doesn't seem to be a big deal.
- yeetman21 6y ago
  The natives also smoked tobacco for a long time, not saying coffee is good/bad just providing a counter example
  - teilo 6y ago
    The natural-cured tobacco that the natives smoked has almost no resemblance to cigarettes. The real problems began with sugar curing.
billions 6y ago
Coffee increases heart rate. Heart failure is a leading cause of death and caffeine could be a contributor at scale.
- babblefrog 6y ago
  Exercise increases heart rate. That’s why I stay away from it. I still drink coffee though.
simonsarris 6y ago
The list of countries by coffee consumption shows some of the healthiest countries in the world. Obviously you could be suspicious of all the studies that show coffee associated with decreased mortality because of Big Coffee's influence, but you'd need remotely plausible way to show any harm at all here. Sugar and tobacco are very different in that regard. People knew in the 1700s that there was an association between tobacco and mouth cancer, and shortness of breath had been observed forever. Once cigarettes made tobacco widely accessible it became even more apparent, though not proven. (Sugar is less obvious but there are lots of anecdotes in history about overconsumption, like Napoleon's wife who had nearly no teeth because of sucking on sugar cane as a child.)
AshWolfy 6y ago
The thing is cigarettes were known to be harmful for a century before anything was done. In 1867 a report found smoking associated with cancer and lung disease. cigarettes were popularly known as coffin nails. At this point several centuries in, we would know if coffee was having a significant impact on our health
- hilbert42 6y ago
  This is all too often true for many things. Take asbestos for instance, the timescale with it wasn't just a century but about two millennia! The ancient Romans knew about its dangers, as those in asbestos mines were well known to suffer from what was then called wasting disease. Move on about 1900 years to the late 19th Century and early 20th Century when the British Admiralty and others commissioned multiple reports into ships' boilermakers, etc. who were commonly found to suffer asbestosis or mesothelioma from the dust from the lagging on steam pipes and boiler insulation. Despite these damning reports citing clearcut evidence of asbestos causing life-threatening disease, they were all but ignored as asbestos was considered too useful - it outweighed human health considerations. Keep in mind that most of these reports were commissioned by governments - and unlike commercial interests with a vested interest in making money - governments are supposed to act in the interests of their citizenry but they didn't. If governments don't give a damn then there's precious little hope until public pressure eventually forces them to act, which, all too often, is long after considerable harm has ourred to many individuals. It's quite tragic really that those supposedly in charge of our governance can be so callous so often.
pkaye 6y ago
There was actually a lawsuit won in California that roasted coffee has carcinogenic compound however the state regulators quashed it. I'm surprised people don't continue to make a bigger deal about this. Why did the judge agree that it needs a warning? https://www.winespectator.com/articles/coffee-no-longer-requires-cancer-warning-in-california https://www.winespectator.com/articles/coffee-no-longer-requ...
- kaba0 6y ago
  Pretty much everything has carcinogenic compounds, that doesn’t mean all that much. Coffee has been consumed for multiple decades by a large percentage of the world’s population. Any significant negative effect would be trivial to identify.
ycombinete 6y ago
I’m with you man. My experience of caffeine is that it is one hell of a drug. From its effects on sleep (a vital process), to its control over our mood.
- kaba0 6y ago
  Exercising also releases hormones that greatly effect basically every human function/behavior. That in itself doesn’t mean it is bad/good.
  - ycombinete 6y ago
    Perhaps I could have been clearer. It’s bad effects on sleep and it’s bad effects on mood*

aYsY4dDQ2NrcNzA 6y ago

> It's basically burnt bean water. Roasted is just a marketing term. So, does that make toast “basically burnt bread”?

danesparza 6y ago
I think you know the answer is "yes".
xwdv 6y ago
Steaks are just basically burnt meat.
- a_t48 6y ago
  Ideally they aren't
  - wombatpm 6y ago
    Knock the horns off and make sure it doesn’t moo was how my grandfather ordered his steak
Teever 6y ago
I know an acquaintance who refers to bread as raw toast.
SilasX 6y ago
And they're both pointless, fallacious (non-)insights. Argument from inflammatory reframing? It doesn't change the facts on the ground. If you like the taste and/or psychoactive effects of coffee, relative to the cost, drink it! The fact that you can call it burnt bean water shouldn't matter to that.
dendrite9 6y ago
I think it means toast is "basically burnt seed mush" I'd be curious about the coffee studies compared to how people consume coffee. So many people seem to drink theirs with a lot of cream and sugar.
- filoeleven 6y ago
  Burnt rotted seed mush, even! The yeast fermentation step is essentially a controlled spoilage. And the result remains delicious.

danesparza 6y ago

The margins on burnt bean water are insane. Even when accounting for paying a 'fair wage' to workers in a foreign country.

ta988 6y ago
We see that most stimulants, legal or not. They don't lead to fair wage for producers unfortunately.
smegger001 6y ago
depends entirely on where you buy it walk into any gas staton/truck stop and you will get hot coffee for around a $1.00-$2.00 its drip coffee with half&half / nondairy creamer and sugar/assorted non-sugar sweeteners. buying beans and grinding them yourself your coffee is cheaper still. as long as you avoid starbuck/dutch bros *genaric espresso stands or Keurig cups the price is pretty damn low.

d26900 6y ago

> The constant rate of "New Study Finds Coffee Improves [insert health benefit]" articles Yep, this has become so inflationary, but it doesn't mean that studies and findings are invalidated per se. If multiple (independent) findings come to the conclusion X, then the correlation becomes stronger and stronger. When the correlation is strong (multiple findings conclude X), then you can be reasonably certain that X is likely. Or am I wrong with this?

DenisM 6y ago
> Or am I wrong with this? Some percentage of studies will produce random (erroneous) results, so if one cherry-picks favorable outcomes and buries the rest an impression can be created to suit any narrative. Are they cherry-picked? I don't know. What I do know is that there is a strong demand for positive studies both the dealers to sell more stuff and from the addicts to justify their addiction.
- d26900 6y ago
  Then how would you decide whether a finding/study is valid or not? What is your modus operandi in that case? Is there an algorithm for this (for selecting good studies or for finding the truth)?
  - DenisM 6y ago
    Meta-studies are most useful since someone proficient in the art has taken the trouble to find and analyze all relevant papers. Often times they also publish the method they used to discover and discard papers in addition to the analysis, specifically to avoid selection bias. Studies published in reputable scientific journals like Nature are usually not bogus, especially if they were already replicated. However applying the results to everyday life is tricky - one certainly must not assign more meaning to them than the authors did, but also probably even less than that. Remember the mantra: the experiment shows only what the experiment shows, not the great opportunities you want it to show. Note that "nutritional science" is not a hard science, their track record is abysmal. The nearest hard science we have to that is microbiology. As a rule, all observational studies are junk - too many hidden variables, etc. There are some exceptions to it, but you will be best served by just assuming junk. If you're not willing to discard a particular observational study at least check if the study controls for obvious hidden variables - wealth, age, sex, health level, etc. For example there were "studies" that showed red wine correlates with good health, and the coverage was that we should all drink red wine. But guess what - rich people drink red wine and live longer because rich. Controlled for wealth, the effect disappears.

trianglem 6y ago

People also roast chestnuts and cashews over a fire. Marshmallows are also roasted. It’s seems like a term originating in common parlance and not specifically a marketing term. I seriously doubt coffee is carcinogenic (if that’s what you’re suggesting) besides the baseline grilled/roasted food danger to the stomach/small intestines.

nikkwong 6y ago
That baseline danger is not negligible. You could read forever on the negative health implications of PAHs, invite you to do a google search. Does that mean the carcinogenicity makes coffee a net unhealthy beverage despite all of its health promoting qualities? Current studies would suggest no. Does carcinogenicity of other consumed roasted foods make them “net unhealthy” rather than not consuming them at all? As per current data, certainly for all types of meat, probably for all other types of roasted or smoked foods, obviously dependent on the amount of roasting/smoking involved.

albertgoeswoof 6y ago

none of those are even close to "evidence" You could say all of them about almost anything. Here's an example: Listening to music: 1. it's just vibrations 2. constant rate of studies "listening to music improves mental health", "fetuses get smarter with music" etc. 3. the incredibly powerful forces behind music and keeping you listening to music Therefore we'll hear that music is terrible for us soon.

DavidPiper 6y ago
In a way this has already happened though? We know excessive consumption (can't think of a better word off hand) of loud noises leads to hearing loss, tinnitus, etc. Certainly not the same as "music is terrible for us", but more of an "everything in moderation" kind of argument.
- pixl97 6y ago
  Eh, I can listen to music for 16 hours a day without hearing damage if it's not too loud. So what exactly would that mean? Like dont drink 212F coffee because it would boil your throat?
- ClumsyPilot 6y ago
  Thats like saying bananas are bad for you because if you eat them exclusively, you will get diabetes
- dylan604 6y ago
  Also, 9 out of 10 radio stations say that listening to this song is good for you. Then again, all 9 of those stations are owned by the same evilCorp.

burundi_coffee 6y ago

> It's basically burnt bean water. Roasted is just a marketing term. I take offense to this line. Roasting is a very complex thing, you have to adjust the roasting curves to each coffee individually for optimal results, to get the best out of it. There's more coffee than you might think. Search for Specialty Coffee and the Specialty Coffee Association. You may also watch some of James Hoffmann's videos on youtube. He's the World Barista Champion of 2007 and has his own roasting company. Coffee doesn't have to be bitter or taste burnt, it can be fruity and sweet. There are more tastes to be found in coffee than in wine. In addition to that, the community is not filled with as many snobs as the wine community and there's a lot of science being done on all kinds of things (for example by the Coffee Excellence Center in Switzerland).

fartcannon 6y ago
That's all really neat, but same went for tobacco. Highly elaborate and detailed methods for ingesting poison. I think alcohol is next, before coffee. But we shall see!
- DavidPiper 6y ago
  I think the cat's already out of the bag with alcohol. At this point the issue is probably more that people just like cats.
- grawprog 6y ago
  >I think alcohol is next, I doubt it. There's a reason why it was considered an 'essential item' in a lot of places during the pandemic, why the soviets gave out vodka rations etc. Alcohol's a useful tool for keeping a population compliant and sedated, people love it, it's super easy to make, hence why in many places the production and distribution of it tends to be highly regulated, otherwise just about anyone could do it, it's big business and in a lot of places, it brings massive tax revenues through sales so...I doubt it's going anywhere any time soon. I mean what are they gonna do, ban yeast and sugar? Ban leaving fruit sitting too long? You can't really ever stop the production of alcohol. It just kind of happens naturally. It's not really possible to just ban the process of fermentation...

Ekaros 6y ago

Also it's very good question of what type of coffee we are talking about. Black? Espresso? Or the sugar laden version with various various milk substitutes?

samstave 6y ago

Lets wait and see what today's Big Vaccine will show in a few years (Vaccinating 100% of the earths population wherein they are trying to push vaccine passports now (several countries in EU are beta-testing the digital passports as I type - with the help of IBM (in Denmark))) --- I am not "anti-vax" -- but this shit is unprecedented. --- When my youngest was getting her shots, she weighed like 20 pounds and they wanted to give her SIX shots at once... When my middle got the Chicken pox vax a few days before we went to chicago, and she got the fn chicken pox and instead of enjoying chicago, she had to sit in a calamine bath and we had to stay an extra week as she couldn't fly. She was 3 years old. So - I told the DR NO FN WAY you are giving a 20-pound child SIX FN shots at once. She looked incredulous. I said NO - she can have ONE shot per week. After every vax, she was lathargic for the next few days. So yeah Big Vax Babba Yaga is coming

djakaitis 6y ago
Your post claims you are not anti-vax and all it states is how anti-vaccine you are.
- samstave 6y ago
  Reading comprehension: I said I am not anti BAC, but I’m not going to let them put 6 vaccines in my daughters 20 pound body all at once
  - michaelcampbell 6y ago
    > Reading comprehension: I said I am not anti BAC, No, you did not. Yes, reading comprehension is important. You said, literally quoted: "I am not "anti-vax" -- but this shit is unprecedented."
javagram 6y ago
“ I am not "anti-vax" -- but this shit is unprecedented.” I’d suggest you hit up Wikipedia and learn about medical history. The smallpox (eradicated worldwide) and polio (eradicated in all but a couple countries) vaccine pages might help you learn that a worldwide vaccination campaign to stop a dangerous disease isn’t unprecedented. “ I said NO - she can have ONE shot per week. After every vax, she was lathargic for the next few days.” So you made her lethargic for 6 times a few days instead of a few days for just one time. Congrats on that? The people who follow the recommended vaccine schedule don’t have any problems, according to scientific studies. Your concerns appear to be based on FUD you read on the internet or imagined yourself.

S_A_P 6y ago

I don’t think there is anywhere near the anecdotal evidence to support this. Even when big tobacco was in full swing people knew smoking was correlated with cancer/lung disease/etc. I felt noticeably healthier when I quit smoking years ago. I’ve quit coffee and aside from caffeine withdrawal little difference in how I felt. What negative health effects do you propose are caused by coffee?

CodeWriter23 6y ago
You asked for proposals, and that’s how I present this. Not as a fact. But it seems to me looking into acrylimides as it relates to coffee roasting processes and the finished product is not an entirely absurd line of scientific inquiry. And they can have my coffee when they pry it from my cold dead hands.
- ricardobayes 6y ago
  I don't eat processed meat and excercise daily. I like my odds even with coffee. I was briefly involved in a personalized cancer medicine company and talked to the prof there. He said if you don't smoke, avoid bacon and walk/run a few times a week you have essentially done everything you could. The bacon thing made me curious and it turned out almost all processed meat has nitrite (nitrosamine) added, which is a carcinogenic element. So much so they in fact used it to induce cancer reliably in lab rats. As to why food industry uses it - it is still better than botulism. As of 2021 we still don't have effective meat preservatives. "Rats fed dimethylurea and 0.3% sodium nitrite for 36 days developed tumours of CNS, heart, thymus, kidney or thyroid in all animals (Sander, 1970)." http://www.inchem.org/documents/jecfa/jecmono/v05je15.htm http://www.inchem.org/documents/jecfa/jecmono/v05je15.htm
vinger 6y ago
After quitting caffeine I can now fall asleep fairly quickly everynight. For 20% it could be negative.
- yahnu 6y ago
  It could be dosage and timing. Coffee also affects my sleep but I need it to fight off my depression to some extent. So I have found one cup (250ml) early in the morning doesn't affect my sleep. I have also found, I can have one more cup on the days I go running! (Physical exercise has something to do with caffeine efect on body) I have a personal rule of no caffeine after 4PM. It helps with sleep! (6 hours before sleep is the idea) I wasn't aware of these things until few years ago but now I do and I hope this helps someone!

eloff 6y ago

The problem with this idea seems to be that lots of studies show health benefits to drinking coffee. Now maybe it's just a correlation and not an actual benefit - but you'd be hard pressed to say it has negative health effects because the correlation goes in the opposite direction.

anonisko 6y ago

You're forgetting a big one. It's a cognitive stimulant that increases worker productivity. So not only does the coffee industry have an obvious, direct incentive to promote the benefits and downplay any long term negatives, but EVERY corporate entity and even our government has an indirect incentive to downplay any negatives. A company or society that hypes up it's young worker population on caffeine will likely out-compete organizations of humans that don't, even if major health problems show up later in life.

grecy 6y ago
And an even bigger one - coffee is extremely lucrative, so there are enormous amounts of money in play to make sure it stays legal/popular/'healthy'.
- nicoburns 6y ago
  Tobacco is/was also extremely lucrative. I don't think that's enough to protect it. But it's effect on societal productivity likely is.
  - grecy 6y ago
    As far as I'm aware Tobacco is still extremely profitable, despite being horrendously bad for health. If it were introduced today there's absolutely no doubt it wouldn't be allowed. I'd say that means it is being protected.
    - foolinaround 6y ago
      it is'nt protected per se, more like it got grand-fathered in. inertia and all that.
      - grecy 6y ago
        > it is'nt protected per se ...and you can guarantee a TON of people were absolutely certain the same was true about sugar not so long ago....

dehrmann 6y ago

I doubt that it's a major issue because humans have been drinking coffee for a long time, but not all humans, and we've discovered a lot of the things that are problematic for health, things like tobacco, asbestos, and leaded gas. Humans have been eating charred things for a long time, and while they seem to be somewhat carcinogenic, it also doesn't seem to be a big deal.

yeetman21 6y ago
The natives also smoked tobacco for a long time, not saying coffee is good/bad just providing a counter example
- teilo 6y ago
  The natural-cured tobacco that the natives smoked has almost no resemblance to cigarettes. The real problems began with sugar curing.

billions 6y ago

Coffee increases heart rate. Heart failure is a leading cause of death and caffeine could be a contributor at scale.

babblefrog 6y ago
Exercise increases heart rate. That’s why I stay away from it. I still drink coffee though.

simonsarris 6y ago

The list of countries by coffee consumption shows some of the healthiest countries in the world. Obviously you could be suspicious of all the studies that show coffee associated with decreased mortality because of Big Coffee's influence, but you'd need remotely plausible way to show any harm at all here. Sugar and tobacco are very different in that regard. People knew in the 1700s that there was an association between tobacco and mouth cancer, and shortness of breath had been observed forever. Once cigarettes made tobacco widely accessible it became even more apparent, though not proven. (Sugar is less obvious but there are lots of anecdotes in history about overconsumption, like Napoleon's wife who had nearly no teeth because of sucking on sugar cane as a child.)

AshWolfy 6y ago

The thing is cigarettes were known to be harmful for a century before anything was done. In 1867 a report found smoking associated with cancer and lung disease. cigarettes were popularly known as coffin nails. At this point several centuries in, we would know if coffee was having a significant impact on our health

hilbert42 6y ago
This is all too often true for many things. Take asbestos for instance, the timescale with it wasn't just a century but about two millennia! The ancient Romans knew about its dangers, as those in asbestos mines were well known to suffer from what was then called wasting disease. Move on about 1900 years to the late 19th Century and early 20th Century when the British Admiralty and others commissioned multiple reports into ships' boilermakers, etc. who were commonly found to suffer asbestosis or mesothelioma from the dust from the lagging on steam pipes and boiler insulation. Despite these damning reports citing clearcut evidence of asbestos causing life-threatening disease, they were all but ignored as asbestos was considered too useful - it outweighed human health considerations. Keep in mind that most of these reports were commissioned by governments - and unlike commercial interests with a vested interest in making money - governments are supposed to act in the interests of their citizenry but they didn't. If governments don't give a damn then there's precious little hope until public pressure eventually forces them to act, which, all too often, is long after considerable harm has ourred to many individuals. It's quite tragic really that those supposedly in charge of our governance can be so callous so often.

pkaye 6y ago

There was actually a lawsuit won in California that roasted coffee has carcinogenic compound however the state regulators quashed it. I'm surprised people don't continue to make a bigger deal about this. Why did the judge agree that it needs a warning? https://www.winespectator.com/articles/coffee-no-longer-requires-cancer-warning-in-california https://www.winespectator.com/articles/coffee-no-longer-requ...

kaba0 6y ago
Pretty much everything has carcinogenic compounds, that doesn’t mean all that much. Coffee has been consumed for multiple decades by a large percentage of the world’s population. Any significant negative effect would be trivial to identify.

ycombinete 6y ago

I’m with you man. My experience of caffeine is that it is one hell of a drug. From its effects on sleep (a vital process), to its control over our mood.

kaba0 6y ago
Exercising also releases hormones that greatly effect basically every human function/behavior. That in itself doesn’t mean it is bad/good.
- ycombinete 6y ago
  Perhaps I could have been clearer. It’s bad effects on sleep and it’s bad effects on mood*