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>Researchers explore how chronic caffeine consumption potentially impacts brain plasticity Key words: "chronic caffeine consumption" and "potentially". Main t

>Researchers explore how chronic caffeine consumption potentially impacts brain plasticity Key words: "chronic caffeine consumption" and "potentially". Main takeaway: Avoid chronic caffeine consumption to retain proper brain functions. So basically common sense, that excessive use of a psychostimulant will be bad for you.

malf 3y ago
> common sense 75% of people surveyed drink coffee every day?
- scotty79 3y ago
  Everybody breathes 70% of nitrogen mixture. Nitrogen at elevated pressures has narcoleptic effect. It's common sense that even at atmospheric pressure nitrogen also has some narcoleptic effect. That is in fact true, as breathing helium mixture at atmospheric pressure improves reaction times. People don't necessarily do what common sense would say if they have to do something else for other reasons. Caffeine doesn't stimulate you, it just makes you unaware of how tired you are. You are still tired with many of the downsides of being tired like the negative impact on learning. People who drink coffee routinely have to do it to mask how tiring their lives are.
  - mnky9800n 3y ago
    I dunno. I drink coffee because I like to get up in the morning, grind the beans with my hand grinder, boil the water in the kettle, and put everything together in the French press. It's a transition moment that I take for myself from bedtime to day time. I like to have it after lunch to transition from lunch time where I am typically reading a novel back to work where I'm sitting and writing codes. I like to have a coffee at the coffee shop on the weekend because I can go for a walk with my gf and talk about random shit or plan a holiday or something. I'm not convinced my life is especially tiring except for all the drama I seem to create for myself inside my own head. That's a bit tiring. And so far, coffee seems to offer no respite to that self imposed exhaustion.
    - scotty79 3y ago
      Interesting interview with a award winning barista and coffee entrepreneur that says that caffeine ingestion is something that you should be mindful about: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqNrJNhcf5g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqNrJNhcf5g
    - tambourine_man 3y ago
      It’s also delicious, aside from the psychoactive effects. Good coffee, that is.
      - scotty79 3y ago
        Decaf is exactly the same.
        kbelder 3y ago
        I'm going to have to argue that point. The best decaf is just ok. Typical decaf is pretty noticeably bad. I go on decaf stints occasionally, and not opposed to it. I'm grateful it exists. But you do pay for it in taste.
        scotty79 3y ago
        I wonder how it fares in double blind comparisons. Maybe you can tell, maybe not? https://www.huffpost.com/entry/decaf-vs-regular-coffee-taste_n_3430681 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/decaf-vs-regular-coffee-taste...
    - scotty79 3y ago
      You can do all that with decaf beans. Besides turning something into quaint ritual doesn't alter purely biological impact in any way. You could describe in very close terms lighting a joint every day after coming back home. Or drinking a beer, but it doesn't make you any less high or drunk. Caffeine strongly dysregulates nervous system and sleep patterns. Surprising thing for many people is that after stopping caffeine a lot of nervous drama inside your head might simply fade away.
  - jona-f 3y ago
    Hey, i wasn't aware of nitrogen's narcotic effects. That led me down to this hilarious madness: "Hydreliox is an exotic breathing gas mixture of hydrogen, helium, and oxygen" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydreliox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydreliox Still, comparing breathing air with drinking coffee is one hell of a bad analogy. Ironically you did succeed in showing the ambiguity of common sense by your own lack thereof.
fbhabbed 3y ago
Basically everyone who consumes caffeine is a chronic user. Everyone I know of drinks it daily, and skipping one day is very unpleasant until your brain gets used to lack of it again (a couple miserable days).
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  >Basically everyone who consumes caffeine is a chronic user. Everyone I know of drinks it daily There goes HN with the health quackery again. Citation needed other than your opinion on you circle of acquaintances. Drinking 300mg vs 50mg of caffeine a day are not the same, and lumping everyone under chronic just because you have a strong opinion on the topic is silly. In this case they define chronic as someone who consumes over 200mg per day but the article and paper itself is very weak as they did not accurately measure subject's caffeine intake, they just went on subject's self reported data("I drank a coffee and a red bull") and built estimations on that which is weak science as there's not a fixed amount of cafeine in a cup of coffee but can vary wildly.
  - morsch 3y ago
    "Among those drinking coffee daily, almost 80 percent drank two or more cups while at home on a weekday." https://www.statista.com/chart/19524/cups-of-coffee-drunk-by-americans-per-day/ https://www.statista.com/chart/19524/cups-of-coffee-drunk-by... "The average American coffee drinker drinks just over 3 cups per day." https://www.ncausa.org/newsroom/nca-releases-atlas-of-american-coffee https://www.ncausa.org/newsroom/nca-releases-atlas-of-americ... 200 mg is about two cups of coffee. https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/how-much-caffeine-in-coffee https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/how-much-caffeine-in-co...
    - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
      That doesn't prove everyone who drinks coffee is a chronic consumer. Caffeine doses are not binary, as in either you don't drink any coffee at all or are a chronic consumer otherwise. What about those who consume it in small moderation? Just because other people abuse it doesn't mean those who do not suffer the exact same negative effects in the same manner. Of course studies will mostly focus on the cronic consumers as those will generally show the biggest symptoms and will be easier to study and draw conclusions versus the non coffee consumers, but that doesn't mean everyone is chronic consumer.
Mistletoe 3y ago
Well sometimes studies show coffee is good for your brain so I’m relieved to find this outcome because I don’t drink coffee and try to avoid caffeine daily.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  >Well sometimes studies show coffee is good for your brain Why can't it be both good and bad for you? Water is also good for you but you can also die from drinking too much. Same with oxygen. Anything that's good for you in moderation, can kill you when consumed in excess. The article doesn't say that any amount of coffee is bad for you, it says "chronic caffeine consumption is bad for you" which again, should be common sense. Chronic consumption of anything is generally bad for you. It may very well be that light to moderate consumption could be beneficial at the same time as chronic being bad.
  - mnky9800n 3y ago
    Water is good for you but you shouldn't breathe it. Air is good for you but you shouldn't eat it.
    - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
      You can also die of drinking too much water, not just drowning in it. Water intoxication is a thing. So is breathing in concentrated oxygen.
      - mnky9800n 3y ago
        I was agreeing with you
  - Shaanie 3y ago
    Chronic just means consistently for a long time, not the amount. There's lots of things for which chronic consumption is not bad (like pretty much everything considered healthy).
hagbarth 3y ago
Reading the actual article this was based on, the main takeaway is that they now have a hypothesis they want to test.
Quinzel 3y ago
Keyword: “potentially” - so basically common sense that the researchers have not yet confirmed anything as fact??… It seems like you’re jumping to conclusions.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  Which conclusion did I jump to?

malf 3y ago

> common sense 75% of people surveyed drink coffee every day?

scotty79 3y ago
Everybody breathes 70% of nitrogen mixture. Nitrogen at elevated pressures has narcoleptic effect. It's common sense that even at atmospheric pressure nitrogen also has some narcoleptic effect. That is in fact true, as breathing helium mixture at atmospheric pressure improves reaction times. People don't necessarily do what common sense would say if they have to do something else for other reasons. Caffeine doesn't stimulate you, it just makes you unaware of how tired you are. You are still tired with many of the downsides of being tired like the negative impact on learning. People who drink coffee routinely have to do it to mask how tiring their lives are.
- mnky9800n 3y ago
  I dunno. I drink coffee because I like to get up in the morning, grind the beans with my hand grinder, boil the water in the kettle, and put everything together in the French press. It's a transition moment that I take for myself from bedtime to day time. I like to have it after lunch to transition from lunch time where I am typically reading a novel back to work where I'm sitting and writing codes. I like to have a coffee at the coffee shop on the weekend because I can go for a walk with my gf and talk about random shit or plan a holiday or something. I'm not convinced my life is especially tiring except for all the drama I seem to create for myself inside my own head. That's a bit tiring. And so far, coffee seems to offer no respite to that self imposed exhaustion.
  - scotty79 3y ago
    Interesting interview with a award winning barista and coffee entrepreneur that says that caffeine ingestion is something that you should be mindful about: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqNrJNhcf5g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqNrJNhcf5g
  - tambourine_man 3y ago
    It’s also delicious, aside from the psychoactive effects. Good coffee, that is.
    - scotty79 3y ago
      Decaf is exactly the same.
      - kbelder 3y ago
        I'm going to have to argue that point. The best decaf is just ok. Typical decaf is pretty noticeably bad. I go on decaf stints occasionally, and not opposed to it. I'm grateful it exists. But you do pay for it in taste.
        scotty79 3y ago
        I wonder how it fares in double blind comparisons. Maybe you can tell, maybe not? https://www.huffpost.com/entry/decaf-vs-regular-coffee-taste_n_3430681 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/decaf-vs-regular-coffee-taste...
  - scotty79 3y ago
    You can do all that with decaf beans. Besides turning something into quaint ritual doesn't alter purely biological impact in any way. You could describe in very close terms lighting a joint every day after coming back home. Or drinking a beer, but it doesn't make you any less high or drunk. Caffeine strongly dysregulates nervous system and sleep patterns. Surprising thing for many people is that after stopping caffeine a lot of nervous drama inside your head might simply fade away.
- jona-f 3y ago
  Hey, i wasn't aware of nitrogen's narcotic effects. That led me down to this hilarious madness: "Hydreliox is an exotic breathing gas mixture of hydrogen, helium, and oxygen" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydreliox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydreliox Still, comparing breathing air with drinking coffee is one hell of a bad analogy. Ironically you did succeed in showing the ambiguity of common sense by your own lack thereof.

fbhabbed 3y ago

Basically everyone who consumes caffeine is a chronic user. Everyone I know of drinks it daily, and skipping one day is very unpleasant until your brain gets used to lack of it again (a couple miserable days).

FirmwareBurner 3y ago
>Basically everyone who consumes caffeine is a chronic user. Everyone I know of drinks it daily There goes HN with the health quackery again. Citation needed other than your opinion on you circle of acquaintances. Drinking 300mg vs 50mg of caffeine a day are not the same, and lumping everyone under chronic just because you have a strong opinion on the topic is silly. In this case they define chronic as someone who consumes over 200mg per day but the article and paper itself is very weak as they did not accurately measure subject's caffeine intake, they just went on subject's self reported data("I drank a coffee and a red bull") and built estimations on that which is weak science as there's not a fixed amount of cafeine in a cup of coffee but can vary wildly.
- morsch 3y ago
  "Among those drinking coffee daily, almost 80 percent drank two or more cups while at home on a weekday." https://www.statista.com/chart/19524/cups-of-coffee-drunk-by-americans-per-day/ https://www.statista.com/chart/19524/cups-of-coffee-drunk-by... "The average American coffee drinker drinks just over 3 cups per day." https://www.ncausa.org/newsroom/nca-releases-atlas-of-american-coffee https://www.ncausa.org/newsroom/nca-releases-atlas-of-americ... 200 mg is about two cups of coffee. https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/how-much-caffeine-in-coffee https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/how-much-caffeine-in-co...
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    That doesn't prove everyone who drinks coffee is a chronic consumer. Caffeine doses are not binary, as in either you don't drink any coffee at all or are a chronic consumer otherwise. What about those who consume it in small moderation? Just because other people abuse it doesn't mean those who do not suffer the exact same negative effects in the same manner. Of course studies will mostly focus on the cronic consumers as those will generally show the biggest symptoms and will be easier to study and draw conclusions versus the non coffee consumers, but that doesn't mean everyone is chronic consumer.

Mistletoe 3y ago

Well sometimes studies show coffee is good for your brain so I’m relieved to find this outcome because I don’t drink coffee and try to avoid caffeine daily.

FirmwareBurner 3y ago
>Well sometimes studies show coffee is good for your brain Why can't it be both good and bad for you? Water is also good for you but you can also die from drinking too much. Same with oxygen. Anything that's good for you in moderation, can kill you when consumed in excess. The article doesn't say that any amount of coffee is bad for you, it says "chronic caffeine consumption is bad for you" which again, should be common sense. Chronic consumption of anything is generally bad for you. It may very well be that light to moderate consumption could be beneficial at the same time as chronic being bad.
- mnky9800n 3y ago
  Water is good for you but you shouldn't breathe it. Air is good for you but you shouldn't eat it.
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    You can also die of drinking too much water, not just drowning in it. Water intoxication is a thing. So is breathing in concentrated oxygen.
    - mnky9800n 3y ago
      I was agreeing with you
- Shaanie 3y ago
  Chronic just means consistently for a long time, not the amount. There's lots of things for which chronic consumption is not bad (like pretty much everything considered healthy).

hagbarth 3y ago

Reading the actual article this was based on, the main takeaway is that they now have a hypothesis they want to test.

Quinzel 3y ago

Keyword: “potentially” - so basically common sense that the researchers have not yet confirmed anything as fact??… It seems like you’re jumping to conclusions.

FirmwareBurner 3y ago
Which conclusion did I jump to?