4 ms·

The endless articles about studies that are pro-coffee make me highly skeptical. They all feel like advertising by the coffee industry to help coffee addicts fe

The endless articles about studies that are pro-coffee make me highly skeptical. They all feel like advertising by the coffee industry to help coffee addicts feel good about their habit instead of feeling like they should cut back.

designerarvid 2mo ago
Either point out weaknesses in the study, or dubious funding behind it etc. Or just stick with saying that you prefer tea.
- mc32 2mo ago
  Or possibly one of those who stick to only water.
- blinkbat 2mo ago
  AmishNews
- pazimzadeh 2mo ago
  it could be that coffee acts directly on the endocrine system as they suggest, or coffee allows you to work out longer (or work out at all since you don't want to sit still) which leads to the effects they observed I'm curious why they don't mention tea actually, are they suggesting it's not the caffeine that's doing it? granted recent studies showed decaf coffee has some benefits itself, so it could be some of the other compounds present in coffee, but a discussion of this would be useful
  - askvictor 2mo ago
    Decaf still has caffeine; about 30% of the original from the bean iirc. Tea, as well as caffeine, has other compounds that are calming. And yes, there are plenty of other compounds in coffee, as well as purely psychological effects.
    - lovecg 2mo ago
      FDA requires 97% reduction to claim “decaf”. Swiss Water Process removes 99.9% for example.
      - askvictor 2mo ago
        Thanks, I got it wrong. Not sure where I got 30% from.
- ShinyLeftPad 2mo ago
  Or links between the study and coffee industry
brokencode 2mo ago
Why should they feel like cutting back? Where’s the evidence that it’s bad for you?
- ifh-hn 2mo ago
  I cut back because I found that I couldn't go a day without it without a massive headache. Took me 2 weeks to stop craving coffee. And about a month until I started to feel right. I still have the occasional coffee but don't drink it every day. I like it this way. I miss it like I missed cigarettes after I quit those.
  - nomel 2mo ago
    Is there a net benefit that you see, ignoring the fact that you're no longer dependent? I've stopped a half dozen times, for around a month each time, but I found that I like the way my brain functions with coffee. The risk of a headache seems like a net win for me, in the grand scheme, especially since I try to do what I can to reduce the risk of dementia and Alzheimers.
    - ifh-hn 2mo ago
      I suppose for me the net benefit is I can do without it. I don't like the feeling of being dependent on something. I like that I can just get up and go do something without having to get a coffee to stave off a headache and be fully functional. Like I say I'm not t-total I just have a different relationship with coffee now, one where I'm in control and I can use it rather than needing it.
  - deleted 2mo ago
    [deleted]
- al_borland 2mo ago
  I constantly hear coffee drinkers say how much they drink with shame and that they should cut back. It's one of the most common things I hear when someone is talking about their coffee consumption. Personally, I stopped drinking caffeine when I was around 19 after I figured out it was the source of my chronic headaches (from withdrawal). I had to talk my dad out of taking me to a neurologist at one point in high school. My quality of life went up significantly after cutting caffeine and going through the week-long headache.
embedding-shape 2mo ago
> coffee addicts I don't know if it's the word "addicts" that maybe doesn't have to be a negative, or if it's not the right word at all for "functional addicts", but I feel like the "addiction" people have to coffee is much more behavioral than chemical (although there is physiological withdrawal symptoms too), compared to other "harder" drugs like cocaine or heroin. The clear negative effects from long-term use is also a lot much evidence with one side of these, coffee not so much. Not sure you have to cut back on something that you really enjoy, so much that you wanna do it every day, even if you get cranky when someone (sometimes you) ruin this ceremony for you. Why would you cut back when the biggest negative is spending 10-20EUR a month on some nice coffee you can consume every single morning?
- co_ent 2mo ago
  I've known people with disabling headaches until they hit 200mg+ of caffeine in the AM. They are caffeine addicts. >you wanna do it every day, even if you get cranky when someone (sometimes you) ruin this ceremony for you This is addicted behavior; the bar is far lower than most people use the word for.
  - dasyud 2mo ago
    My father's one of those people who get a headache unless they get their morning cup of tea. That is what deters me from caffeine.
  - bulbar 2mo ago
    > the bar is far lower than most people use the word for. The term addiction is commonly used to describe something else though. Addiction for the most part is life shattering and not about 'having headache for a few days when not drinking coffee'. Sure, withdrawal effects are a criteria for substance use disorder and I guess you could construct a mild disorder by finding some other criteria. But nobody becomes homeless because of coffee consumption, nobody loses they job or friends because of it, nobody smokes or injects caffeine to have a greater effect. You can call people drinking coffee addicted, but that only works for the effect because addiction is a terrible disorder, not because coffee consumption is that terrible. Btw: I consume products that contain caffeine very rarely (1 per month maybe).
KPGv2 2mo ago
I feel that way about the endless studies showing fiber is important for health, too. Because there's no way studies re-confirm findings because they're revealing truth. It's definitely Big Leaf at work.
throwaway27448 2mo ago
Addiction implies harm. What is the harm in coffee consumption?
- bossyTeacher 2mo ago
  Addiction implies dependence. If you feel unable to be a productive member of society without a psychoactive substance that you must ingest daily, then I have bad news for you.
  - throwaway27448 2mo ago
    There's nothing wrong with dependence! It's the harm that makes it addiction, and coffee in moderation has no harm. (I suppose some people get headaches if they don't drink it, but that certainly doesn't affect me.) Fear of benefitting from psychoactive substances per se on a daily basis sans harm is irrational.
    - bossyTeacher 2mo ago
      > There's nothing wrong with dependence! It's the harm that makes it addiction, and coffee in moderation has no harm No, addiction is an uncontrolled dependence. If you FEEL dependent on a substance to function as an adult and you are UNABLE to control that dependence (can't quit on a whim for let's say 4 months) despite harm, you are addicted. Regular coffee usage gradually stains and erodes your teeth at a minimum. At certain doses, you worse your sleep quality and increase heart rate and blood pressure. The above look like negative effects to me. It is perfectly fine to accept the consequences. The problem is when it's a dependency and you cannot control it. Like doing base jump, it's clearly risky but you can make an informed decision about accepting the risk. If you feel like you NEED to do it and can't stop for lets say 5 months, that's where it gets concerning.
scythe 2mo ago
The meat, tobacco, alcohol, etc industries would like very much to be able to do this but haven't with much larger budgets. Caffeine causes increased locomotor activity. It's possible that the apparent benefits of coffee may occur because it causes drinkers to move around more (exercise). Other drugs also do this, but usually with more side-effects. Reductions in all-cause mortality associated with coffee consumption are broadly distributed across cardiovascular disease, cancer, which qualitatively resemble the benefits of exercise. Increased testosterone is also an effect of regular exercise: https://journals.bioscientifica.com/ec/article/6/5/306/35211/Exercise-training-improves-free-testosterone-in https://journals.bioscientifica.com/ec/article/6/5/306/35211...
- al_borland 2mo ago
  The alcohol industry was successful with it for a while. There was a time when it seemed a new study came out every month about how alcohol, in moderation, was associated with a longer healthier life than abstaining completely. Then all the studies about the antioxidants(?) in wine. My grandma used to have a small glass of wine every night for the health benefits it was supposed to have. These days we’re being told there is no safe level of consumption and any amount is bad, but even that message hasn’t been widely communicated. Example from 2009: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2009/apr/30/alcohol-life-expectancy-live-longer https://www.theguardian.com/society/2009/apr/30/alcohol-life... Tobacco stated off being marketed as a botanical medicine. We could say similar things about cocaine and other harder drugs as well. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7247455/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7247455/ Meat mostly got a bad wrap due to its association with fat. Fat got a bad wrap, because the sugar industry paid off researches to point the finger and fat instead of sugar as the cause of heart disease. We’re still paying the price for this one. https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/13/493739074/50-years-ago-sugar-industry-quietly-paid-scientists-to-point-blame-at-fat https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/13/493739074... There are also the vegans who have made it their life’s mission to try to vilify meat, so that’s kind of the same thing, but from the opposite direction. These things have happened in other industries. It’s just that many of those were impactful enough that they could only keep up the ruse for so long. Caffeine has a more mild effect, so it’s less likely that it will end up like cocaine or tabacco.
smitty1e 2mo ago
You just have to mirror your consumption of coffee; eggs; meat &c with the aggregate study mood for a given week, is all.
pibaker 2mo ago
I don't think there needs to be a nefarious motive for results like this to come out of nutrition studies. If you have a pile of data and you analyze every possible correlation between every possible pair of variables, you will find something significant by pure chance. Green jelly beans and all that. https://xkcd.com/882/ https://xkcd.com/882/ Whether or not the results are being taken seriously is another matter.

designerarvid 2mo ago

Either point out weaknesses in the study, or dubious funding behind it etc. Or just stick with saying that you prefer tea.

mc32 2mo ago
Or possibly one of those who stick to only water.
blinkbat 2mo ago
AmishNews
pazimzadeh 2mo ago
it could be that coffee acts directly on the endocrine system as they suggest, or coffee allows you to work out longer (or work out at all since you don't want to sit still) which leads to the effects they observed I'm curious why they don't mention tea actually, are they suggesting it's not the caffeine that's doing it? granted recent studies showed decaf coffee has some benefits itself, so it could be some of the other compounds present in coffee, but a discussion of this would be useful
- askvictor 2mo ago
  Decaf still has caffeine; about 30% of the original from the bean iirc. Tea, as well as caffeine, has other compounds that are calming. And yes, there are plenty of other compounds in coffee, as well as purely psychological effects.
  - lovecg 2mo ago
    FDA requires 97% reduction to claim “decaf”. Swiss Water Process removes 99.9% for example.
    - askvictor 2mo ago
      Thanks, I got it wrong. Not sure where I got 30% from.
ShinyLeftPad 2mo ago
Or links between the study and coffee industry

brokencode 2mo ago

Why should they feel like cutting back? Where’s the evidence that it’s bad for you?

ifh-hn 2mo ago
I cut back because I found that I couldn't go a day without it without a massive headache. Took me 2 weeks to stop craving coffee. And about a month until I started to feel right. I still have the occasional coffee but don't drink it every day. I like it this way. I miss it like I missed cigarettes after I quit those.
- nomel 2mo ago
  Is there a net benefit that you see, ignoring the fact that you're no longer dependent? I've stopped a half dozen times, for around a month each time, but I found that I like the way my brain functions with coffee. The risk of a headache seems like a net win for me, in the grand scheme, especially since I try to do what I can to reduce the risk of dementia and Alzheimers.
  - ifh-hn 2mo ago
    I suppose for me the net benefit is I can do without it. I don't like the feeling of being dependent on something. I like that I can just get up and go do something without having to get a coffee to stave off a headache and be fully functional. Like I say I'm not t-total I just have a different relationship with coffee now, one where I'm in control and I can use it rather than needing it.
- deleted 2mo ago
  [deleted]
al_borland 2mo ago
I constantly hear coffee drinkers say how much they drink with shame and that they should cut back. It's one of the most common things I hear when someone is talking about their coffee consumption. Personally, I stopped drinking caffeine when I was around 19 after I figured out it was the source of my chronic headaches (from withdrawal). I had to talk my dad out of taking me to a neurologist at one point in high school. My quality of life went up significantly after cutting caffeine and going through the week-long headache.

embedding-shape 2mo ago

> coffee addicts I don't know if it's the word "addicts" that maybe doesn't have to be a negative, or if it's not the right word at all for "functional addicts", but I feel like the "addiction" people have to coffee is much more behavioral than chemical (although there is physiological withdrawal symptoms too), compared to other "harder" drugs like cocaine or heroin. The clear negative effects from long-term use is also a lot much evidence with one side of these, coffee not so much. Not sure you have to cut back on something that you really enjoy, so much that you wanna do it every day, even if you get cranky when someone (sometimes you) ruin this ceremony for you. Why would you cut back when the biggest negative is spending 10-20EUR a month on some nice coffee you can consume every single morning?

co_ent 2mo ago
I've known people with disabling headaches until they hit 200mg+ of caffeine in the AM. They are caffeine addicts. >you wanna do it every day, even if you get cranky when someone (sometimes you) ruin this ceremony for you This is addicted behavior; the bar is far lower than most people use the word for.
- dasyud 2mo ago
  My father's one of those people who get a headache unless they get their morning cup of tea. That is what deters me from caffeine.
- bulbar 2mo ago
  > the bar is far lower than most people use the word for. The term addiction is commonly used to describe something else though. Addiction for the most part is life shattering and not about 'having headache for a few days when not drinking coffee'. Sure, withdrawal effects are a criteria for substance use disorder and I guess you could construct a mild disorder by finding some other criteria. But nobody becomes homeless because of coffee consumption, nobody loses they job or friends because of it, nobody smokes or injects caffeine to have a greater effect. You can call people drinking coffee addicted, but that only works for the effect because addiction is a terrible disorder, not because coffee consumption is that terrible. Btw: I consume products that contain caffeine very rarely (1 per month maybe).

KPGv2 2mo ago

I feel that way about the endless studies showing fiber is important for health, too. Because there's no way studies re-confirm findings because they're revealing truth. It's definitely Big Leaf at work.

throwaway27448 2mo ago

Addiction implies harm. What is the harm in coffee consumption?

bossyTeacher 2mo ago
Addiction implies dependence. If you feel unable to be a productive member of society without a psychoactive substance that you must ingest daily, then I have bad news for you.
- throwaway27448 2mo ago
  There's nothing wrong with dependence! It's the harm that makes it addiction, and coffee in moderation has no harm. (I suppose some people get headaches if they don't drink it, but that certainly doesn't affect me.) Fear of benefitting from psychoactive substances per se on a daily basis sans harm is irrational.
  - bossyTeacher 2mo ago
    > There's nothing wrong with dependence! It's the harm that makes it addiction, and coffee in moderation has no harm No, addiction is an uncontrolled dependence. If you FEEL dependent on a substance to function as an adult and you are UNABLE to control that dependence (can't quit on a whim for let's say 4 months) despite harm, you are addicted. Regular coffee usage gradually stains and erodes your teeth at a minimum. At certain doses, you worse your sleep quality and increase heart rate and blood pressure. The above look like negative effects to me. It is perfectly fine to accept the consequences. The problem is when it's a dependency and you cannot control it. Like doing base jump, it's clearly risky but you can make an informed decision about accepting the risk. If you feel like you NEED to do it and can't stop for lets say 5 months, that's where it gets concerning.

scythe 2mo ago

The meat, tobacco, alcohol, etc industries would like very much to be able to do this but haven't with much larger budgets. Caffeine causes increased locomotor activity. It's possible that the apparent benefits of coffee may occur because it causes drinkers to move around more (exercise). Other drugs also do this, but usually with more side-effects. Reductions in all-cause mortality associated with coffee consumption are broadly distributed across cardiovascular disease, cancer, which qualitatively resemble the benefits of exercise. Increased testosterone is also an effect of regular exercise: https://journals.bioscientifica.com/ec/article/6/5/306/35211/Exercise-training-improves-free-testosterone-in https://journals.bioscientifica.com/ec/article/6/5/306/35211...

al_borland 2mo ago
The alcohol industry was successful with it for a while. There was a time when it seemed a new study came out every month about how alcohol, in moderation, was associated with a longer healthier life than abstaining completely. Then all the studies about the antioxidants(?) in wine. My grandma used to have a small glass of wine every night for the health benefits it was supposed to have. These days we’re being told there is no safe level of consumption and any amount is bad, but even that message hasn’t been widely communicated. Example from 2009: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2009/apr/30/alcohol-life-expectancy-live-longer https://www.theguardian.com/society/2009/apr/30/alcohol-life... Tobacco stated off being marketed as a botanical medicine. We could say similar things about cocaine and other harder drugs as well. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7247455/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7247455/ Meat mostly got a bad wrap due to its association with fat. Fat got a bad wrap, because the sugar industry paid off researches to point the finger and fat instead of sugar as the cause of heart disease. We’re still paying the price for this one. https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/13/493739074/50-years-ago-sugar-industry-quietly-paid-scientists-to-point-blame-at-fat https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/13/493739074... There are also the vegans who have made it their life’s mission to try to vilify meat, so that’s kind of the same thing, but from the opposite direction. These things have happened in other industries. It’s just that many of those were impactful enough that they could only keep up the ruse for so long. Caffeine has a more mild effect, so it’s less likely that it will end up like cocaine or tabacco.

smitty1e 2mo ago

You just have to mirror your consumption of coffee; eggs; meat &c with the aggregate study mood for a given week, is all.

pibaker 2mo ago

I don't think there needs to be a nefarious motive for results like this to come out of nutrition studies. If you have a pile of data and you analyze every possible correlation between every possible pair of variables, you will find something significant by pure chance. Green jelly beans and all that. https://xkcd.com/882/ https://xkcd.com/882/ Whether or not the results are being taken seriously is another matter.