3 ms·

Curious what you mean with the health benefits out weighing the negatives. Can you explain with sources?

• tjradcliffe 12y ago
  Summary of coffee benefits here with links to some sources: http://theweek.com/article/index/244468/7-purported-health-benefits-of-drinking-coffee http://theweek.com/article/index/244468/7-purported-health-b... Most of the data is of the kind "people who drink moderate amounts of coffee show lower $BAD and/or higher $GOOD", so it isn't enormously compelling on the benefits (could easily be some confounding population characteristics despite attempts to get good controls) but is pretty compelling on the lack of harms. Tea data are similar but quite a bit weaker. Can't find any sources but WebMD is reputable and has a nice summary: http://www.webmd.com/diet/features/tea-types-and-their-health-benefits http://www.webmd.com/diet/features/tea-types-and-their-healt... There is at least some biochemical justification for the belief that coffee and tea are good for us--they contain things that are thought to have positive effects--but the chemistry is complicated and not well-understood. And since humans are omnivorous hunter-gather-scavengers we are able to eat pretty much anything and still stay moderately healthy, so any strong claims relating diet and health are pretty close to Creationism: for humans to have a narrow, deep dietary optimum would have required our ancestors to be selected by processes that produced such a thing, and the life of omnivorous hunter-gather-scavengers is pretty much the opposite of that.