I'm going to go out on a limb here and state a theory I've been considering for a while that could explain these coffee health benefit results...<p>The liquids I and everyone else consumes can be placed in two classes: pure water and everything else.<p>When I'm not drinking pure water, my drink of choice is usually coffee, of which I drink about 3 cups a day.<p>Now let's think of the alternative non water drinks out there... Many of them are sodas which have obscenely high sugar levels, just like most drinks that aren't pure water.<p>Someone who doesn't drink coffee may have more of these sugar containing drinks when they're not drinking pure water, inundating their bodies with harmful amounts of sugar.<p>So the benefits we see from high levels of coffee consumption come not from the coffee itself but from a substitution effect of replacing unhealthy sugary drinks with coffee.<p>A good test for this would be to see if tea drinkers also experience health benefits similar to those seen in the study. If not then that may indicate that my theory is wrong.
In about 100 years, people will realize that this kind of research doesn't actually work.<p>Here's the problem: the human body is an immensely complex system, with millions of factors influencing its status and well-being. Untangling these factors correctly and producing an accurate and sophisticated statistical theory of the body would require a comparably large number of parameters - on the order of millions or more.<p>Unfortunately, modern medical science relies on low-N observational or clinical trials, with N on the order of hundreds or thousands. In this radically low-data regime it is impossible to justify the use of complex models. If you try to use a complex model, you will just get overfitting. You can use a simple model to avoid overfitting, but there's no reason to believe that a simple model will produce a good approximation of the underlying dynamics.
I think this kind of information is funded by the caffeine industry. This is pure insanity. It took me a month to quick coffee (IT professional here) and to stop hating my life. Another 5 months to finally get completely over it where I didn't feel like I was dragging every day.<p>Now, I am free from coffee addiction and happy as I have ever been. No way in hell is that stuff good for you.<p>Read Caffeine Blues, it will wake you up for real.<p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Caffeine-Blues-Hidden-Dangers-Americas/dp/0446673919/" rel="nofollow">https://www.amazon.com/Caffeine-Blues-Hidden-Dangers-America...</a>
We all have gene in our liver for making enzyme that breaks down caffeine. Due to small genetic differences, some of us have enzyme that breaks down caffeine quickly and others that breaks it down slowly. If you win genetic lottery and produce enzyme that breaks down caffeine fast then you flush out caffeine and end up reaping benefits of antioxidants found in coffee beans. If you have enzyme that breaks down caffeine slowly, caffeine hangs around longer causing health problems. That's all there is.
So the article touched on this briefly but I think it's a point worth exploring: a big problem with many sources of caffeine is also that sugar confuses the issue. Many people have an excessive amount of sugar with their coffee (personally I find coffee revolting and 4+ sugars is the only way I could cope if I were forced to drink it).<p>Other caffeinated drinks (eg sodas) are either sweetened (sugar or HFCS or have artificial sweeteners.<p>So about a month ago I decided I was drinking too much caffeine. I'm talking 600-700mg a day. I should also point out that my variance with and without caffeine is pretty low. In college for example I tried once to take caffeine pills to stay awake to cram. Not sure how much I took but it was enough that my hands were shaking. I still fell asleep just fine. Some people really do seem a whole lot more sensitive to this than I am.<p>Anyway, my reason wasn't coffee in particular but sugar. For years I've drunk artificial sweetener sodas and ignoring any other possible side effects I think the big problem is that they still taste sweet so it seems like they still feed the craving loop for sugar without containing any sugar.<p>It's early days yet but I think I can already notice some difference. Like I had ice cream tonight that I've had many times before and it tasted too sweet.<p>Anyway I think it's impossible to talk about caffeine consumption without also considering sugar consumption because they really do go hand in hand.<p>Caffeine is a stimulant and seems like it can be used to enhance some activities including athletic ones [1].<p>[1] <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/03/how-athletes-strategically-use-caffeine/283758/" rel="nofollow">https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/03/how-athle...</a>
Observation: Coffee studies often report (in headlines and abstract and body) consumption in terms of <i>cups</i>.<p>At best, this refers to a standardized 250 ml or 8 oz measuring cup (unfortunately, still rarely what "a cup of coffee" generally means to those who read these headlines and adjust behaviour as a result).<p>At worst, the term is used to allow for ambiguity and variance expected in self-reporting.<p>I recognize there are many other variables that are even harder to measure than beverage volume, like mg of caffeine or diterpenes or antioxidants. But "cups" just seems so loose.<p>Related question: Is there a somewhat accurate amateur method of measuring caffeine content? I vary my beans and roasts and method a fair bit for fun and taste. e.g. various beans, light vs medium vs dark roasts, varying apparatus, mass of beans per "cup", filter types, and brewing time. I would like to have insight into how much caffeine I'm consuming.
There's enough anecdotal evidence here to fuel a study in it of itself. I'm surprised there isn't an app out there where you can opt into any number of studies. Surely there's potential for an app like this.. Anyone want to get together and build it?<p>* edit - maybe it's just an app where you like 'Facebook' all your medical history, and post daily diets, health issues like headaches, acne, etc...<p>All the data is public and accessible by anyone to trend. There would be no usernames though, everyone just has a guid and all the guids can find people like themselves and chat with anonymity.
I only drink one cup per day and I only started when I was in my early 30s so I guess I'm not getting much out of it.<p>Some people like me are very sensitive to caffeine. I wonder if we the jittery ones process caffeine slower and could that be a disadvantage.<p>Acrylamide due to roasting isn't a great thing either.<p>Hot liquid ingested every day may be a risk for throat cancer.
<a href="https://www.cancer.org/latest-news/world-health-organization-says-very-hot-drinks-may-cause-cancer.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.cancer.org/latest-news/world-health-organization...</a>
I wonder what the health benefits are for different caffeine metabolizers (i.e. for different CYP1A2 genotypes). The source article only mentions that slow metabolizers have a higher risk of hypertension, but is that outweighed by the other benefits?
4 cups of coffee in a row don't do anything to me and adding more makes me asleep. I guess I am one of those for whom coffee is just one of ways to stay hydrated and nothing else. Similarly alcohol, it doesn't affect my thoughts just coordination, I am not more open/brave/socially whatever with it. I guess I should be a monk...
Many people in this thread are sharing that coffee/caffeine doesn't work for them, and then others are replying that it must not be true, there's scientific evidence!!11 Look, one scientific study doesn't mean it will work for everyone. It's very likely that there is plenty of counter evidence available, as with almost every study. We all live by our own personal guidance, and that's fine if it doesn't hurt anyone. Coffee or not, it's great what works for you. But those replying here saying that person's personal experience mist be wrong, are just rude and ignorant.
Personally, I've found drinking that much coffee is very likely to give me headaches, and has even given me a couple ocular migraines over the years (not fun). Not to mention making me feel terrible once the caffeine starts to wear off in the evening.<p>Add in the caffeine withdrawal afterwards, and I've decided that it's best to just avoid caffeine altogether. Overall, I feel like I have more energy now... but it does require being more careful about getting enough sleep.
Go easy on the coffee. You'll discover it has caused you acid reflux, long after you can do anything about it.<p>Also: sugar masks the flavor. Good coffee tastes best with just cream.
There's an excellent, clear summary of this study on the NHS website:<p><a href="https://www.nhs.uk/news/food-and-diet/drinking-3-4-cups-coffee-day-may-have-some-health-benefits/" rel="nofollow">https://www.nhs.uk/news/food-and-diet/drinking-3-4-cups-coff...</a>
I feel like I have a real problem with some scientific studies on the human body, which apparently link things to specific outcomes and later on reverse those links and sometimes even linking the opposite to the same outcomes. As a researcher myself, but not in a biological field, I believe more and more that it is just insanely difficult to understand the complex interactions inside our bodies. This doesn’t mean that I’m against this type of research, on the contrary, we need more and more studies.
Can coffee still be more beneficial than harmful if you suffer withdrawal effects? I have some co-workers who get headaches if they try to have a morning without coffee.
previously: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15679522" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15679522</a><p>The relative risk vs coffee consumption curve fist goes below 1.0 (no coffee = 1.0) and reaches minimum around 3-5 cups then starts to increase slowly again. cardiovascular disease and stroke risk go above 1.0 after 9-10 cups per day.<p>The study mentions that results may not apply to unfiltered coffee (eg, French press, Scandinavian boiled, or Turkish/Greek coffee). Other studies have shown that cholesterol-raising factor in coffee does not pass a paper filter.<p>NOTE: Cholesterol increasing effect in coffee is not from dietary cholesterol.
It comes from cafestol and kahweol (diterpenes). They seem to have adverse effect to cholesterol regulation in the body, <a href="http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev.nutr.17.1.305" rel="nofollow">http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev.nutr.17.1.3...</a>
Consider supplementing drinking coffee with taking l-theanine. You can read more about the benefits at <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Nootropics/wiki/beginners/" rel="nofollow">https://www.reddit.com/r/Nootropics/wiki/beginners/</a><p>Magnesium replenishment also helps, esp. with >2 cups of coffee / day.
We seem way too focused on whether coffee is good or bad for our health.<p>All I know is it tastes fucking delicious, it makes me feel good, and we've been drinking it for generations. If I die earlier because of it, then so be it. At least I'll have had an enjoyable coffee-drinking life.
I don't know. When I drink more than 2 cups my sleep suffers and even my personality changes. I get pretty hyper and less patient. With my girlfriend I can tell immediately whether she has had coffee just from the way she talks.