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Coffee itself might not have anything to do with it; rather, coffee follows a certain lifestyle which is healthier than that of non-drinkers. I.e. it is perhaps

by MrJagil 11y ago

Coffee itself might not have anything to do with it; rather, coffee follows a certain lifestyle which is healthier than that of non-drinkers. I.e. it is perhaps quite good for you to get up every morning at 9am and go to work. Active lifestyle, continuous stimuli etc. Coffee just so happens to be very ingrained in that culture. It might not be the actual chemicals and nutrients of coffee that helps you, but the fact that it "forces" you to be active, mentally. It kickstarts your brain. The biggest killers are staying still and loneliness.

sageabilly 11y ago
That's my thought too. Is it the coffee itself or is it the lifestyle that goes along with drinking five cups of coffee a day? I'm pretty sure that no one is drinking five or six cups of coffee a day and just sitting on the couch and watching TV.
erikb 11y ago
I'd argue that coffee is connected to a rather unhealthy lifestyle of sitting in an office chair the whole day, eating unhealthy fast-/restaurant food instead of cooking for yourself, working long hours instead of a regular 7 to 5 schedule etc.
- mseebach 11y ago
  I'd argue that you're both middle-browing the f* out of an article that actually quotes several actual scientific studies.
  - erikb 11y ago
    I love the term middle-browing. Both comments weren't about the immediate effects of coffee, though, but about their indirect benefits. At least I didn't want to say anything about the immediate facts at all. The position of the article and its beautiful quotes is kept virginly untouched.
- jwcooper 11y ago
  Coffee is ingrained into the culture of many professions, far beyond just office jobs. Nursing, landscaping, utility work, construction, you name it...it's a great way to kickstart the body when having to get up at 5am or, stay awake during an overnight shift serving tables at a restaurant.
  - mhurron 11y ago
    > Coffee is ingrained into the culture of many professions, far beyond just office jobs. Exactly, so it could be very silly to claim that any benefits to coffee are actually because of it being a part of healthy lifestyles. I too, like the GP, don't exactly equate coffee to healthy lifestyles, because of my interactions with various people where coffee is used to extend the day far past where it is healthy to do so. > it's a great way to kickstart the body when having to get up at 5am or, stay awake during an overnight shift serving tables at a restaurant. These are not healthy activities, but I still think that coffee being a part of so many both healthy and unhealthy lifestyles makes trying to equate health benefits of coffee to being just a because it's part of some healthy lifestyles silly.
- matwood 11y ago
  There is a lot of writing about how coffee fueled the industrial revolution which happened way before people sat in office chairs all day. > http://www.npr.org/programs/wesat/features/2001/coffee/010908.caffeine.html http://www.npr.org/programs/wesat/features/2001/coffee/01090...
- rubiquity 11y ago
  > I'd argue that coffee is connected to a rather unhealthy [...] working long hours instead of a regular 7 to 5 schedule etc. Since when did 7-5 (which is 10 hours) become regular?
wimagguc 11y ago
Quite some research in rodents supports the statement. That would suggest that coffee works without the typical lifestyle choices, at least unless coffee-high rats are programming till the sun comes up. (A Scientific American article about a similar research from last year: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coffee-and-tea-may-protect-the-brain/ http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coffee-and-tea-may...) My two cents is in keeping my daily coffee - and leave the causation vs. correlation debate for later.
0359B02149AB 11y ago
Anecdotally, I would agree with you for some, but for others not so much. I get a short boost followed by a long crash when drinking coffee. It's also like an unfocused focus - like as long as what I want to focus on is nearby, I will do that. But if I have to figure out what I want to focus on, that feels like frustration and hypertension. I prefer tea. I get up at 4:50 am 5 days a week, and I rarely sleep past 7-8 on weekends. I just make sure I'm asleep by 10:00 pm before work nights, and weeknights I stay up til 11:00 max. I really like thinking that I think slowly, and that I can control my thinking direction using another level of meta-thinking. It's one of my most favorite and dramatic life shifts as an adult, that I have made. Pretending that my mind is a machine that needs to be turned on is a one way ticket to crazy town, and it's pretty hard to leave crazy town. But otherwise, I don't understand how loneliness has to do with any of this. I'm lonely regardless of whether I drink tea or coffee.
- RankingMember 11y ago
  Agreed, coffee for me is basically a burst of energy/focus followed by a longer period of worse energy/focus than when I began, so really not worth it for me. I like Yerba Mate for this reason - no real crash, but a strong but steady warm buzz, much less peaky than coffee.
  - YorkianTones 11y ago
    Coffee also creates an energy sine wave for me, the amplitude of which is too intense. I go for matcha green tea powder in my morning shake - the effects last longer since your body is digesting a powder (it's extended-release caffeine), with little drop-off. I tolerate it much better than coffee.
- Rapzid 11y ago
  Wow guys, I also have rather bad times on coffee! Its really hard for me to find any information on the subject as well. Sometimes I have really bad times of it, particularly on low sleep(ironic?). It can cause me to become a bit more anxious, have trouble conversing with people as if I'm hungover, and cause context swiching issues.
- 11y ago
rsync 11y ago
"Coffee itself might not have anything to do with it; rather, coffee follows a certain lifestyle which is healthier than that of non-drinkers." I think it's much simpler than even that. Health fads and science results come and go, but over thousands of years humans develop (just a few) heuristics based on subtle observations along the way. One of the best of those heuristics is "an apple a day keeps the doctor away". Bear with me here... Is it flavonoids ? Special anti-oxidants ? Some weird apple chemical that we can isolate and realize all of our dashed resveratrol hopes with ? No. An apple a day keeps the doctor away because it keeps your bowels moving, all else being equal. That's it. Just a big, boring macro effect on your body and your bodies primary consumption/waste pathway. I suspect the same is true with coffee. Special secret antioxidants ? Natures hidden chemical compounds we can distill into a pill ? No ... coffee is just a good laxative[1] and if you're having 2-3 cups of coffee a day you're (all else being equal) moving waste along (relatively) more efficiently. Which is great. Nothing to be sneezed at - just like the apples - but also nothing exotic or confounding. [1] http://www.onemedical.com/blog/live-well/why-coffee-makes-me-poop/ http://www.onemedical.com/blog/live-well/why-coffee-makes-me...
rudolf0 11y ago
I also wonder if it's something intrinsic to coffee, or just a result of the caffeine. Stimulants like caffeine can improve blood flow and potentially stave off arterial plaque build-up.
JulianMorrison 11y ago
You are assuming the scientists who did these studies and the scientists attempting to merge them with meta-analysis are asleep at the wheel and have failed to correct for obvious confounding factors that a random member of the public could brainstorm in the seconds it took you to post. This doesn't seem like a sensible assumption, absent evidence.
- MrJagil 11y ago
  Hey Julian, I really wasn't trying to discredit any of the studies done. Whenever I participate in discussion my main motivation is always to try and create nuances. I know before hand that an actual truth is impossible to attain, so I feel it's better to just try and add some color to the discussion. Causation and correlation is of course always low-hanging fruit, I just felt it was curious that the article did not touch upon it and wanted to fuel a different angle of discussion.
  - JulianMorrison 11y ago
    As a general rule, devils-advocacy (being the process of advocating a position you don't agree with because you think it isn't getting enough air time) is unhelpful verging on concern trolling. If it's a strong argument, why hasn't it convinced you? When you do that, you emit weak arguments that are easy to knock down but send the discussion off on a tangent.
    - MrJagil 11y ago
      I never considered nuancing a discussion could be unhelpful, but I think I understand your point. There's some kind of underlying truth we're attempting to uncover, and in your opinion, I'm derailing by "nuancing" through devils advocacy; submitting arguments I do not actually believe to be worthwhile. I'm wondering though, does it have to be so black and white? Can't I believe partially that what i'm positing is worthwhile, or at least have a feeling there's something to uncover down that avenue, without being entirely convinced? I would assume bouncing half-baked ideas off each other could be valuable (though I do recall a bunch of studies debunking Brainstorming, which I guess this is similar to).
drzaiusapelord 11y ago
>The biggest killers are staying still and loneliness. My alone time, recreation time, time dedicated to meditation are some of the best/heathiest times for me. Being amped up all the time is messed up, imo, and leads to chronic stress and such. >coffee follows a certain lifestyle which is healthier than that of non-drinkers. I The fattest slobs drink coffee just like everyone else. It seems you've never watched the clientele in your average breakfast or donut place. I find people addicted to caffeine and stimulants seem very busy, but often deliver sub-par work as soaking your neurons in excitors feels good to you, but actually doesn't make you better at anything. If anything, it makes you worse than you normally would be. I think there's a great argument here about how slow and steady wins the race and is healthier overall. Look at US over-working conditions, lack of maternity leave, lack of vacation days, etc compared to our more genteel European peers. I can't imagine anyone thinking our amped up culture is better from a health perspective.
coldtea 11y ago
>Coffee itself might not have anything to do with it; rather, coffee follows a certain lifestyle which is healthier than that of non-drinkers. Which is what most competent research controls for in the first place. Besides, coffee is something so prevalent that even junkies and never exercizing couch potatos do it, so it kind of controls itself.

by MrJagil 11y ago

sageabilly 11y ago

That's my thought too. Is it the coffee itself or is it the lifestyle that goes along with drinking five cups of coffee a day? I'm pretty sure that no one is drinking five or six cups of coffee a day and just sitting on the couch and watching TV.

erikb 11y ago

I'd argue that coffee is connected to a rather unhealthy lifestyle of sitting in an office chair the whole day, eating unhealthy fast-/restaurant food instead of cooking for yourself, working long hours instead of a regular 7 to 5 schedule etc.

mseebach 11y ago
I'd argue that you're both middle-browing the f* out of an article that actually quotes several actual scientific studies.
- erikb 11y ago
  I love the term middle-browing. Both comments weren't about the immediate effects of coffee, though, but about their indirect benefits. At least I didn't want to say anything about the immediate facts at all. The position of the article and its beautiful quotes is kept virginly untouched.
jwcooper 11y ago
Coffee is ingrained into the culture of many professions, far beyond just office jobs. Nursing, landscaping, utility work, construction, you name it...it's a great way to kickstart the body when having to get up at 5am or, stay awake during an overnight shift serving tables at a restaurant.
- mhurron 11y ago
  > Coffee is ingrained into the culture of many professions, far beyond just office jobs. Exactly, so it could be very silly to claim that any benefits to coffee are actually because of it being a part of healthy lifestyles. I too, like the GP, don't exactly equate coffee to healthy lifestyles, because of my interactions with various people where coffee is used to extend the day far past where it is healthy to do so. > it's a great way to kickstart the body when having to get up at 5am or, stay awake during an overnight shift serving tables at a restaurant. These are not healthy activities, but I still think that coffee being a part of so many both healthy and unhealthy lifestyles makes trying to equate health benefits of coffee to being just a because it's part of some healthy lifestyles silly.
matwood 11y ago
There is a lot of writing about how coffee fueled the industrial revolution which happened way before people sat in office chairs all day. > http://www.npr.org/programs/wesat/features/2001/coffee/010908.caffeine.html http://www.npr.org/programs/wesat/features/2001/coffee/01090...
rubiquity 11y ago
> I'd argue that coffee is connected to a rather unhealthy [...] working long hours instead of a regular 7 to 5 schedule etc. Since when did 7-5 (which is 10 hours) become regular?

wimagguc 11y ago

Quite some research in rodents supports the statement. That would suggest that coffee works without the typical lifestyle choices, at least unless coffee-high rats are programming till the sun comes up. (A Scientific American article about a similar research from last year: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coffee-and-tea-may-protect-the-brain/ http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coffee-and-tea-may...) My two cents is in keeping my daily coffee - and leave the causation vs. correlation debate for later.

0359B02149AB 11y ago

Anecdotally, I would agree with you for some, but for others not so much. I get a short boost followed by a long crash when drinking coffee. It's also like an unfocused focus - like as long as what I want to focus on is nearby, I will do that. But if I have to figure out what I want to focus on, that feels like frustration and hypertension. I prefer tea. I get up at 4:50 am 5 days a week, and I rarely sleep past 7-8 on weekends. I just make sure I'm asleep by 10:00 pm before work nights, and weeknights I stay up til 11:00 max. I really like thinking that I think slowly, and that I can control my thinking direction using another level of meta-thinking. It's one of my most favorite and dramatic life shifts as an adult, that I have made. Pretending that my mind is a machine that needs to be turned on is a one way ticket to crazy town, and it's pretty hard to leave crazy town. But otherwise, I don't understand how loneliness has to do with any of this. I'm lonely regardless of whether I drink tea or coffee.

RankingMember 11y ago
Agreed, coffee for me is basically a burst of energy/focus followed by a longer period of worse energy/focus than when I began, so really not worth it for me. I like Yerba Mate for this reason - no real crash, but a strong but steady warm buzz, much less peaky than coffee.
- YorkianTones 11y ago
  Coffee also creates an energy sine wave for me, the amplitude of which is too intense. I go for matcha green tea powder in my morning shake - the effects last longer since your body is digesting a powder (it's extended-release caffeine), with little drop-off. I tolerate it much better than coffee.
Rapzid 11y ago
Wow guys, I also have rather bad times on coffee! Its really hard for me to find any information on the subject as well. Sometimes I have really bad times of it, particularly on low sleep(ironic?). It can cause me to become a bit more anxious, have trouble conversing with people as if I'm hungover, and cause context swiching issues.
11y ago

rsync 11y ago

"Coffee itself might not have anything to do with it; rather, coffee follows a certain lifestyle which is healthier than that of non-drinkers." I think it's much simpler than even that. Health fads and science results come and go, but over thousands of years humans develop (just a few) heuristics based on subtle observations along the way. One of the best of those heuristics is "an apple a day keeps the doctor away". Bear with me here... Is it flavonoids ? Special anti-oxidants ? Some weird apple chemical that we can isolate and realize all of our dashed resveratrol hopes with ? No. An apple a day keeps the doctor away because it keeps your bowels moving, all else being equal. That's it. Just a big, boring macro effect on your body and your bodies primary consumption/waste pathway. I suspect the same is true with coffee. Special secret antioxidants ? Natures hidden chemical compounds we can distill into a pill ? No ... coffee is just a good laxative[1] and if you're having 2-3 cups of coffee a day you're (all else being equal) moving waste along (relatively) more efficiently. Which is great. Nothing to be sneezed at - just like the apples - but also nothing exotic or confounding. [1] http://www.onemedical.com/blog/live-well/why-coffee-makes-me-poop/ http://www.onemedical.com/blog/live-well/why-coffee-makes-me...

rudolf0 11y ago

I also wonder if it's something intrinsic to coffee, or just a result of the caffeine. Stimulants like caffeine can improve blood flow and potentially stave off arterial plaque build-up.

JulianMorrison 11y ago

You are assuming the scientists who did these studies and the scientists attempting to merge them with meta-analysis are asleep at the wheel and have failed to correct for obvious confounding factors that a random member of the public could brainstorm in the seconds it took you to post. This doesn't seem like a sensible assumption, absent evidence.

MrJagil 11y ago
Hey Julian, I really wasn't trying to discredit any of the studies done. Whenever I participate in discussion my main motivation is always to try and create nuances. I know before hand that an actual truth is impossible to attain, so I feel it's better to just try and add some color to the discussion. Causation and correlation is of course always low-hanging fruit, I just felt it was curious that the article did not touch upon it and wanted to fuel a different angle of discussion.
- JulianMorrison 11y ago
  As a general rule, devils-advocacy (being the process of advocating a position you don't agree with because you think it isn't getting enough air time) is unhelpful verging on concern trolling. If it's a strong argument, why hasn't it convinced you? When you do that, you emit weak arguments that are easy to knock down but send the discussion off on a tangent.
  - MrJagil 11y ago
    I never considered nuancing a discussion could be unhelpful, but I think I understand your point. There's some kind of underlying truth we're attempting to uncover, and in your opinion, I'm derailing by "nuancing" through devils advocacy; submitting arguments I do not actually believe to be worthwhile. I'm wondering though, does it have to be so black and white? Can't I believe partially that what i'm positing is worthwhile, or at least have a feeling there's something to uncover down that avenue, without being entirely convinced? I would assume bouncing half-baked ideas off each other could be valuable (though I do recall a bunch of studies debunking Brainstorming, which I guess this is similar to).

drzaiusapelord 11y ago

>The biggest killers are staying still and loneliness. My alone time, recreation time, time dedicated to meditation are some of the best/heathiest times for me. Being amped up all the time is messed up, imo, and leads to chronic stress and such. >coffee follows a certain lifestyle which is healthier than that of non-drinkers. I The fattest slobs drink coffee just like everyone else. It seems you've never watched the clientele in your average breakfast or donut place. I find people addicted to caffeine and stimulants seem very busy, but often deliver sub-par work as soaking your neurons in excitors feels good to you, but actually doesn't make you better at anything. If anything, it makes you worse than you normally would be. I think there's a great argument here about how slow and steady wins the race and is healthier overall. Look at US over-working conditions, lack of maternity leave, lack of vacation days, etc compared to our more genteel European peers. I can't imagine anyone thinking our amped up culture is better from a health perspective.

coldtea 11y ago

>Coffee itself might not have anything to do with it; rather, coffee follows a certain lifestyle which is healthier than that of non-drinkers. Which is what most competent research controls for in the first place. Besides, coffee is something so prevalent that even junkies and never exercizing couch potatos do it, so it kind of controls itself.