[HN Gopher] Coffee drinking linked to lower mortality risk, new ...
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Coffee drinking linked to lower mortality risk, new study finds
Author : mistersquid
Score : 128 points
Date : 2022-06-02 13:24 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| guerrilla wrote:
| How many times has this been replicated? We should probably just
| flag science posts that haven't been at this point.
| paskozdilar wrote:
| I've been a caffeine user for my whole life - started drinking
| energy drinks as a kid, took caffeine powder/pills in college for
| studying, drank a lot of coffee at work - and I've stopped about
| a month ago.
|
| I find that caffeine made me anxious, so much that all the energy
| wasn't even worth it anymore, as I couldn't focus on anything
| from anxiety. After stopping, my anxiety has went down so much
| that I feel I'm able to do much more work then before, even if
| I'm doing it slower, because I can just relax and focus on what I
| need to do, without being distracted by every single intrusive
| thought I have and without the crash that inevitably comes every
| day after caffeine wears off.
|
| I don't care about "health benefits" of coffee, to be honest.
| Caffeine is a crappy drug (for me), so nowdays I only save it for
| situations where I have to stay awake for longer than I usually
| can.
| triyambakam wrote:
| I recently quit caffeine, too. It is interesting how I was so
| habituated with the rush of it that I didn't consider the
| anxiety. Now whenever I consider having some tea I tell myself,
| "I really want to become extremely anxious" and so far it
| hasn't been worth it to take any tea after that.
| neves wrote:
| The study result isn't about caffeine and dying, but about
| coffee and dying. There's a lot of substances in coffee beyond
| caffeine.
| jcadam wrote:
| To deal with caffeine-exacerbated anxiety, switch from coffee
| to wine sometime in the afternoon (easier with a remote job,
| mind you) :D
| smachiz wrote:
| This sounds like you were on the very extreme end of caffeine
| consumption...
| paskozdilar wrote:
| In college, yes.
|
| I've always had issues with focus, and first year of college
| was overwhelming. I cut out all unnecessary time sinks, and
| I've found that I lack enough "focus" in a day - at some
| point I'd just read, but be unable to engage with any words
| I'm reading.
|
| Caffeine pills helped me study for longer, however, the
| tolerance made me take more and more until at some point I
| was taking up to 2000mg of caffeine a day. I was barely
| functioning from anxiety, but I managed to be amongst better
| students on my year.
|
| At work we have an espresso machine, so it's very easy to
| just "grab a cup" when I feel tired while working on an
| important task. It wasn't strange for me to drink 5-6 cups
| per day.
|
| Nowdays, I'm only drinking coffee if it's a social event, and
| I keep a hard limit of one cup per day.
| troydavis wrote:
| The study covers this, as does the NYT article. From the
| article: "The mortality risk remained lower for people who
| drank both decaffeinated and caffeinated coffee."
| pazimzadeh wrote:
| What if people who drink coffee get more done, people who get
| more done are more fulfilled, and people who are more fulfilled
| live longer?
|
| Edit: doesn't explain that the effect also worked with decaf.
| Maybe coffee contains other compounds and secondary metabolites
| which have health benefits
| zwieback wrote:
| Bummer, I'm in my fifties now and used to love coffee but now I
| just don't really enjoy it that much. Mostly switched to tea, is
| there a study that tea is even better?
| bell-cot wrote:
| Quick Theory: The regular coffee drinkers are (on average) folks
| with more energy/time/money (which keeping up a coffee habit
| requires), or working (free & convenient coffee at the office),
| or other things that correlate with better physical & mental
| health.
| stimpson_j_cat wrote:
| yes, this is mentioned in the article
|
| > there may be other lifestyle factors contributing to that
| lower mortality risk among people who drink coffee, like a
| healthy diet or a consistent exercise routine
| yourusername wrote:
| Coffee is dirt cheap. A kilo of coffee is around EUR8 and you
| can make ~16 liters or 80 cups with that.
| jeffbee wrote:
| That must be for people who hate coffee, or hate themselves,
| or both. Even the cheapest grocery store brand ground coffee
| that comes in buckets sells for $0.4/oz which is about twice
| the price you mentioned. Anything worth drinking costs $1/oz
| where I live.
| alexk307 wrote:
| People can argue about the design of the study all they want, but
| 170k people followed over 7 years is enough evidence for me that
| drinking black coffee is beneficial to my health.
| pigeonhole123 wrote:
| A systemic problem in the study will not get better by running
| more data through it.
| mikkergp wrote:
| The researchers themselves state they're not sure if coffee is
| good for you or it is indicative of other lifestyle factors.
| alexk307 wrote:
| Right, but it's highly correlated to drinking coffee. Enough
| for me to continue drinking my 2 cups of black coffee a day.
| layer8 wrote:
| Even if a real causal relation between coffee consumption and
| longevity was proved, I feel that the benefit of that finding
| would be limited as long as the actual mechanism isn't
| understood. Few people who don't like drinking coffee will start
| drinking it because of that, and those who like coffee drink it
| anyway (they'll just feel even better doing so, maybe).
| rsync wrote:
| Alternative interpretation: neither the coffee nor the caffeine
| is helpful.
|
| Instead, coffee consumption is so pervasive that coffee drinkers
| are "normal" and many people that don't consume coffee do so
| because it's actually hurtful or uncomfortable ... and that
| likely correlates to other weaknesses.
|
| The same interpretation should be considered for all of those
| moderate drinking studies... I am quite certain nobody is getting
| a health benefit from alcohol.
| keybored wrote:
| Is that your interpretation of the data that they used?
| stimpson_j_cat wrote:
| Yes this is mentioned in the article
|
| > the data cannot conclusively prove that coffee itself lowers
| the risk of dying; there may be other lifestyle factors
| contributing to that lower mortality risk among people who
| drink coffee, like a healthy diet or a consistent exercise
| routine
|
| ...and controlled for in the study
|
| > lifestyle, sociodemographic, and clinical factors
| carbocation wrote:
| I would just caution people to understand that saying that
| something is "controlled for" in an observational study
| (which is something I do all the time, I'm not saying it's
| bad) is not the same as saying that we've eliminated
| confounders, leaving a causal effect.
| nabla9 wrote:
| > all of those moderate drinking studies... I am quite certain
| nobody is getting a health benefit from alcohol.
|
| The effect where moderate alcohol use is beneficial have
| disappeared after better studies. It didn't prevent it from
| becoming "common wisdom".
| mrits wrote:
| I'm still on a small glass of wine with my meal diet. I'm
| also a big fan of 6-7 meals a day.
| [deleted]
| tragictrash wrote:
| Does this mean you consume 6-7 small glasses of wine a day?
| xeromal wrote:
| yunohn wrote:
| Yes, and I think they were just being sarcastic.
| standardUser wrote:
| Seems ridiculous to assume there aren't any health benefits
| from at least some types of alcohols at some levels of
| consumption. Just because the ill effects are better documented
| doesn't preclude the existence of benefits.
| frazbin wrote:
| yeah but just from mechanisms.. small organic solvent
| molecules aren't like, a promising target for antiaging
| treatments.. most solvents are bad for you, for obvious
| reasons, that is, they interfere with cellular chemistry and
| they have to be metabolized by the liver in large quantities.
| seems ridiculous to think alcohol would have any positive
| effects-- as a drug, it's just so shitty. I mean, you have to
| take 20g+ to get a physiological effect. The whole experience
| of having it in your system is dominated by the processes
| trying to get it /out/ of your system!
|
| Folks who drink alcohol should consider taking safer and more
| powerful drugs.
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| Bah. I try to limit myself to a 6 pack a week, well under
| guidelines, but alcohol doesn't have a dramatically bad
| effect on mortality until you're in the 20 drink / week
| range.
|
| I don't think alcohol is somehow _better_ than anything
| else, but I don 't think it's that harmful either until you
| get well beyond the 14d / wk max recommendation.
|
| There are plenty of other factors like meat consumption and
| exercise habits that have a bigger effect. I'm not giving
| up one harmless vice for an infinitesimal benefit. We're
| all going to die of something.
| hirvi74 wrote:
| > The whole experience of having it in your system is
| dominated by the processes trying to get it /out/ of your
| system!
|
| That is not exclusive to alcohol though. I am not extremely
| drug-savvy, but I do believe this is true for psilocybin
| mushrooms and a few other hallucinogenic plants/fungi.
|
| > Folks who drink alcohol should consider taking safer and
| more powerful drugs.
|
| This is often an issue with legality and sourcing for many,
| not to mention the cultural acceptance of alcohol by many
| cultures.
| hirvi74 wrote:
| For the common person, the potential health benefits do not
| outweigh the potential damage -- especially when there are
| other ways to get the same health benefits with less risk. At
| least, that is the stance I believe the medical community has
| adopted.
| danschumann wrote:
| So the correlation is like a societal strength test of
| worthiness?
| tragictrash wrote:
| No, if coffee bothers your digestive system, you don't drink
| it. The reason it bothers your digestive system is you have
| other health problems that are undiagnosed/medicine doesn't
| understand yet. Those other health problems could contribute
| significantly to all cause mortality.
|
| Not saying I agree, but thats my interpretation.
| plsbenice34 wrote:
| Yes this seems extremely obvious. People with anxiety, sleep
| and/or heart problems are probably more likely to avoid coffee.
| waterhouse wrote:
| In fact, it says that decaf coffee also has that association,
| so that would mean it's not the caffeine.
|
| It also says they don't make the same conclusion about
| artificially sweetened coffee (the study says it's "less
| consistent"--seems I need to pass the paywall to see the
| numbers on that). One wonders if they believe that the
| artificial sweeteners are killing people, or that they
| interfere with the benefits of coffee, or if they'd say this
| reveals that selection effects are strong here.
| plsbenice34 wrote:
| Decaf coffee still typically contains some caffeine: https://
| www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/10/061012185602.h...
| leonroy wrote:
| I wonder if it's because coffee as an appetite suppressant causes
| colorific reduction in people - effectively, they eat less.
| Fasting has recently been proven to also lower mortality risk by
| a large amount.
|
| > Coffee suppresses your appetite because it contains chlorogenic
| acids which are a type of phytochemical compounds that help
| control hunger pangs and suppress your appetite. Because of this,
| you don't need to drink caffeinated coffee to integrate it into
| your weight loss program; decaffeinated coffee will do just fine.
|
| Source for the quote: https://energeticlifestyle.com/how-to-use-
| coffee-as-an-appet...
|
| Pubmed source which corroborates coffee as an appetite
| suppressant:
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6683100/
| baby wrote:
| As usual I will ask: could this mean that people who can stand
| coffee have stronger hearts?
|
| I can't drink coffee because my heart will go crazy. Does that
| make me more at risk according to this study?
| jacobsimon wrote:
| Yeah this is the main question everyone should be researching.
| Basically does caffeine (in)tolerance predict health issues.
| dcolkitt wrote:
| Similar studies have found that decaf coffee is associated with
| similar if not larger health gains.
| jacobsimon wrote:
| Oh really? I'll search for that but if you have the link
| please share
| albertgoeswoof wrote:
| The article in question states this
| somenameforme wrote:
| The latest word is that this is where the previous idea about a
| cup of wine a day being good for you came from (it's not).
| Studies pursuing this question generally did not sufficiently
| control for the fact that people regularly drinking alcohol are
| in a state of health where they _can_ regularly drink alcohol.
| It 's not as easy to control for as it sounds because somebody
| might defer for reasons tied to possible health issues, but
| without even knowing it. Instead, just like you're talking
| about here simply not liking how it makes them feel.
| dncornholio wrote:
| On another note, I always break sugar cubes in half and even a
| half is sometimes too much. I don't understand how people can
| drink coffee with 1 or even 2 cubes.
| [deleted]
| m348e912 wrote:
| Black coffee, even with a teaspoon or sugar has to be better than
| soda or the sugary monstrosities from Starbucks that are excluded
| from the study. One can of coke contains 39g (~7 teaspoons) of
| sugar. This study seems to be less about the benefits of coffee
| but rather the health risks of sugar.
| rightbyte wrote:
| > sugary monstrosities from Starbucks
|
| Does Starbucks add sugar to the coffee? Or what do you mean.
| The ice coffee?
| rngname22 wrote:
| Coffee-flavored milkshakes / cups of syrup and foam and
| whipped cream and caramel.
|
| They serve coffee also.
|
| If you google 'starbucks unhealthiest drinks', you'll find
| references to stuff like 'cinnamon roll frappucino blended
| coffee' which apparently had 85 grams of sugar in its largest
| size and 510 calories. If you're familiar with the 'packets'
| of sugar people sometimes sweeten coffee or tea with, 85
| grams is like 20 packets. The 'sweetened cup of coffee'
| referenced in the study referred to a coffee with about 5
| grams of sugar added.
| pengaru wrote:
| The majority of what they serve are coffee-spiked desserts.
| vangelis wrote:
| No one is forcing you to order a frappuccino. You do realize
| you can get drip coffee (actually pretty good) and espresso
| drinks without added sugar there, right?
| troydavis wrote:
| > This study seems to be less about the benefits of coffee but
| rather the health risks of sugar.
|
| The control was not drinking coffee, and far lower all-cause
| mortality was observed in both black coffee and coffee with a
| tiny bit of sugar.
|
| Or: Yes, adding a ton of sugar to anything is unhealthy, but
| this study provides far more information than that. Although
| it's observational, the observed effect is huge. From the
| study:
|
| "Compared with nonconsumers, consumers of various amounts of
| unsweetened coffee (>0 to 1.5, >1.5 to 2.5, >2.5 to 3.5, >3.5
| to 4.5, and >4.5 drinks/d) had lower risks for all-cause
| mortality after adjustment for lifestyle, sociodemographic, and
| clinical factors," [then repeats for lightly sugar-sweetened
| coffee, but not artificially-sweetened coffee].
| goda90 wrote:
| "Nonconsumers" didn't factor soda drinking, energy drinking,
| etc. So it lumped people who were drinking larges amounts of
| sugar with people drinking little sugar(tea, water), and
| compared them to coffee drinkers, which are low to moderate
| amounts of sugar.
| RobertRoberts wrote:
| These studies are known for excluding unhealthy people,
| especially those with heart conditions.
|
| Edit: by "these studies", I mean caffeine, cigarettes/smoking,
| alcohol, coffee and generally any food or "health" study. If you
| don't know the exact make up of the test group, then I just
| assume it's rigged to get a certain result.
| troydavis wrote:
| What is "These studies"? Are you referring to all studies? All
| observational studies? Something else?
|
| While I can't debate "These studies" without knowing what
| you're referring to, this specific study provides a clear
| explanation of the study cohort and there's no sign that anyone
| was excluded or otherwise cherry-picked.
| RobertRoberts wrote:
| I updated my comment, I realize I was definitely vague in my
| criticism.
|
| I've found that digging deeper into studies in the past that
| they would leave out people with heart conditions
| (specifically with caffeine studies) and not state that
| _anywhere_ in documentation. And this only came out from
| investigations.
| Blackcatmaxy wrote:
| I know there were studies about eating organic food that at
| deeper levels of observation just mirror income inequality.
| stimpson_j_cat wrote:
| Does your general comment have to do with _this_ specific
| study? They mention controlling for all the things you
| mentioned.
| RobertRoberts wrote:
| Studies I've read in the past have claimed the same thing,
| yet still excluded people that would skew their results
| without reporting it.
|
| I have a friend who does statistical analysis for a living,
| and we have a game where he points out the flaws that are
| only obvious to those that know statistics and research well,
| and us laymen are oblivious.
|
| A medical doctor once told me "coffee must be good for you
| because I drink it!". It seems common that people just want
| science to agree with them, and they don't care how or why.
|
| I can't prove my point on this article (not enough
| time/energy/will) but I have watched health articles for
| years and you can go back to news sites and find this same
| exact study done over and over, reported in news
| organizations as if it's new every time.
|
| One stupid example, articles from just CNN going back to 2010
| just on one page of search results:
|
| https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffsb&q=site%3Acnn.com+coffee+good+.
| ..
| rhacker wrote:
| A lot of people that don't drink coffee have heart issues. Even
| ones that don't know they have those kinds of issues don't drink
| coffee because it makes them feel bad. It's typically the heart
| doing uncomfortable things for them.
|
| And since they already have heart issues - ding ding ding.
| Correlation. It's not that coffee is making people healthier,
| it's just a substance that is addictive that people that don't
| have heart issues drink.
| keybored wrote:
| The culture around me is to drink black coffee or lattes. No
| added sugar or cream. Most people in my office space who seem to
| drink coffee as their hot beverage of choice.
|
| There's not a lot of chatter about coffee being healthy or
| unhealthy. The only unhealthy thing that people tend to want to
| avoid is being unable to sleep due to drinking too much of it or
| too late.
|
| Another cultural thing is to joke about the first cup of joe
| being mandatory if you want to wake up properly (at the office).
| In that light it makes sense to not really consider whether it is
| healthy or unhealthy; it's as if your body needs it anyway so you
| either gotta get it or sleepwalk through the day.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Caffeine is habit forming. If you're in the place where you
| "have to" have a cup of coffee every morning just to feel OK
| you can probably get over it after about two weeks of
| abstinence. Probably the hardest time is the second day.
| thirtyfivecent wrote:
| Habit forming? This is obviously a physical dependence like
| any other drug. There are thousands of case reports on
| /r/decaf outlining a recovery period of months and years with
| horrible side effects like anhedonia, panic attacks, sleep
| issues, brain fog, cramping. The hardest day is day 2?? You
| honestly believe that is sufficient payback for the years of
| being buzzed up and artificially interested in boring and
| pointless office work by drinking this poison?
| jb1991 wrote:
| The interesting bit here is it seems even more beneficial to add
| a little sugar to your coffee. It doesn't make much sense to me,
| considering all the negative news about sugar in general.
| 323 wrote:
| Maybe adding sugar allows you to drink more coffee.
|
| Like how children medicine is sweetened to increase compliance.
| Jaygles wrote:
| I wonder if the little bit of sugar kicks off some digestive
| processes that can bring in more of the beneficial things
| Johnny555 wrote:
| _Those who drank 1.5 to 3.5 cups of coffee per day, even with a
| teaspoon of sugar, were up to 30 percent less likely to die
| during the study period than those who didn't drink coffee._
|
| I wish coffee studies would report results in ounces (or better,
| ml) instead of ambiguous "cups"
|
| The Coffee industry uses 6 ounce cups, the USA standard "cup" is
| 8 ounces, and the imperial cup is 10 ounces (the study was based
| on UK data).
|
| I drink around 12 oz of coffee a day and I drink it out of a
| single large coffee cup, is that 1 cup, 2 cups, 1.5 cups, or 1.2
| cups?
| bufferout wrote:
| A lot of the world drinks espresso. Mg of caffeine probably the
| appropriate measure here?
| resters wrote:
| Does instant coffee count?
| troydavis wrote:
| Study: https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M21-2977
|
| And before someone asks "But what if it's .. instead?": Yes, they
| controlled for lots of things:
|
| > lower risks for all-cause mortality after adjustment for
| lifestyle, sociodemographic, and clinical factors
|
| The patient data is from UK Biobank, which has quite a bit about
| each participant. While they can't control for everything (like
| factors that aren't documented), they can control for a lot -
| probably including whatever possible confounder someone jumps to.
|
| Although it's still subject to the limitations of an
| observational study, 171,616 people is a big cohort, mortality is
| clearly measurable, and the observed effect is really large. It's
| worth paying attention to.
| mikkergp wrote:
| So, in the abstract, they say they controlled for "lifestyle"
| but then the researchers are paraphrased in the article as
| saying "This is an observational study, which means the data
| cannot conclusively prove that coffee itself lowers the risk of
| dying; there may be other lifestyle factors contributing to
| that lower mortality risk among people who drink coffee, like a
| healthy diet or a consistent exercise routine."
|
| On the one hand I get what they're saying about their own study
| design, on the other hand, it might be good to get more info
| about lifestyle vs lifestyle.
| sdfhdhjdw3 wrote:
| That's because 99% of the time when a study says "we found an
| effect in Y even after we controlled for X" it just means
| that they included X in their multi-variate regression and
| error analysis in their study of Y. "controlled for" sounds
| like it has something to do with ruling out the effect of
| something from causality, but it doesn't.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Did they compare against what the non-coffee drinkers were
| drinking instead? It's not surprising that coffee is
| substantially healthier than cola, but is it statistically
| healthier than tea or water?
| cgh wrote:
| If you look at the study, you can see they compared with
| "nonconsumers", among others.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Access isn't available without an account. What's a
| "nonconsumer"? Everybody drinks something.
| troydavis wrote:
| I don't know any more about this study than is in the links.
| The NYT reporter covers some of that, though:
|
| > Scientists don't know exactly what makes coffee so
| beneficial, Dr. Goldberg said, but the answer may lie in its
| antioxidant properties, which can prevent or delay cell
| damage. Coffee beans contain high amounts of antioxidants,
| said Beth Czerwony, a registered dietitian at the Cleveland
| Clinic's Center for Human Nutrition in Ohio, which can help
| break down free radicals that cause damage to cells. Over
| time, a buildup of free radicals can increase inflammation in
| the body, which can cause plaque formation related to heart
| disease, she said, so dietitians recommend consuming foods
| and beverages that are rich in antioxidants.
|
| > There's also the possibility that coffee drinkers tend to
| make healthier choices in general. They might opt for a cold
| brew or a cup of drip coffee instead of a less healthy source
| of caffeine, like an energy drink or soda, Dr. Goldberg
| added. "If you're pounding Mountain Dew or Coca-Cola or Red
| Bull or all these other drinks, they have tons more sugar,
| all the artificial stuff -- versus coffee, which is a
| generally unprocessed food."
|
| (Side note: if someone else read this and started drinking
| coffee because of it, they'd probably be replacing an
| existing beverage choice as well. IOW, even if substitution
| effect was the cause or a contributing factor, people acting
| on the conclusions may still see the effect - and certainly
| would at public-health scale.)
| mjb wrote:
| Emily Oster has a useful post about why, despite the effort,
| its is difficult to control for everything that matters in
| observational studies:
| https://emilyoster.substack.com/p/coffee-definitely-either-k...
|
| Specifically:
|
| > As result, in the data, sugar starts to look...a lot worse
| for you over time. In the earliest period of the data there is
| no observed correlation between the sugar measure and BMI (see
| below) but by the latest period, it's hugely correlated. The
| "sugar-makes-you-fat" story only shows up in the last few
| years, coincidentally during the period when sugar is less
| consumed by individuals who exercise, do not smoke and are
| better educated.
| rhacker wrote:
| I'm kinda "done" with observational studies. It seems like
| for the last 10 years that's all we get. And every time the
| studies come out they contradict that last one. When are we
| going to see the actual coffee atoms attack bad viruses and
| shit (kinda a joke but seriously, when are we going to have
| that visibility into exact pathologies).
| rajin444 wrote:
| That kind of work is hard, expensive, and likely to be
| fruitless. And in the case of many softer sciences it would
| more or less remove the need for the field (in their
| current forms). Sociology is a band aid until we understand
| biology better.
|
| That being said I agree with you entirely and we shouldn't
| shy away from hard problems because of this.
| AussieWog93 wrote:
| >That kind of work is hard, expensive, and likely to be
| fruitless.
|
| Don't forget that the "fruit" for scientists is fame, not
| the truth. Anything that can get headlines and conference
| talks is a good thing, regardless of whether or not the
| methodology even makes sense.
| hdjjhhvvhga wrote:
| Would we be ever able to conduct such a study? We'd need to
| have clones bred for that purpose since birth in exactly
| the same conditions - and even if we had that, you'd never
| be sure it would transfer well onto people living free
| lives. So, these weak observational studies are all we
| have.
| PheonixPharts wrote:
| It's also important that people understand what "control for"
| means in an observational study.
|
| Nearly all observational studies that you read draw their
| conclusions from regression analysis (or something, such as a
| ANOVA, which is a can be trivially implemented as regression
| analysis).
|
| This just means that a linear model such as this is used:
|
| outcome ~ b_coffee * drinks_coffee + b_income_level *
| income_level ....
|
| Then, unlike in machine learning, researchers look at the
| value of the coefficients and most importantly the confidence
| in the coefficient value. In a simplified example:
|
| years_of_life ~ b_coffee * drinks_coffee + b_intercept
|
| Where b_intercept will represent the life expectancy in
| general. Then b_coffee (since drinks coffee is binary here)
| will represent whether or not coffee adds to your years of
| life. If it's negative it means drinking coffee reduces your
| life expectancy and if it's positive it means it increases
| it. In statistics we also look at how certain we are in
| b_coffee in terms of standard error and p-values. For example
| if b_coffee is say 5, meaning it adds 5 years to your life,
| but our standard error in this estimate is 4 (ie 95% chance
| that the real impact is between -3 and 13 years). In this
| case the p-value for this coefficient will be higher than
| necessary to conclude "statistical significance".
|
| But suppose the standard error is very small, like 1 year,
| where we are virtually certain that coffee does improve life
| expectancy. To control for say, college education, we just
| add that coefficient to our model.
|
| years_of_life ~ b_coffee * drinks_coffee + b_college +
| has_degree + b_intercept
|
| The magic of regression analysis is that if, in fact, people
| that go to college life longer and people that go to college
| also drink more coffee, the our coefficient for b_coffee will
| change in this new model to reflect this. If for example it
| were to become negative now (with a low p-value) what we
| would conclude from this model is that coffee is in fact bad
| for you, and college is good for you and it just happens that
| a lot of people who go to college also drink coffee.
|
| Just as even the most advanced AI is often just a lot of
| matrix multiplication with non-linear transforms, the vast
| majority of observational studies are drawing conclusion
| using linear models. In practice, as you add more variables
| to your model, you tend to get a lot of tricky to interpret
| results. Regression analysis is a remarkably powerful tool,
| but it is important to remember when you see publications
| this is what is really happening and there is a lot of room
| for subtlety when interpreting these models.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| Yet all you have to do is miss a factor and you've ended up
| with correlation.
|
| As a simple question, what about people who have weak
| stomachs or hearts? My mother doesn't drink coffee because
| it "makes her heart beat too hard". How, with no actual
| medical data for "coffee makes my heart beat hard", do you
| control for that? Is that something to control for?
|
| This is the "caffeine and healthy pregnancy" problem. We
| know women who consume less than ~200mg of caffeine tend to
| have healthier pregnancies.. but if you can drink 5+ cups
| of coffee while pregnant and not get overtaken with nausea,
| that might indicate something is already wrong.
| TameAntelope wrote:
| Yes, science is really hard, and it's a good point by Oster,
| but you've got to think about the idea that the folks who
| conducted this study know as well how hard science is, and
| for them to publish this anyway means they (and their
| reviewers) did a pretty good job dealing with this issue (and
| many others).
|
| None of this is conclusive to the point where no further
| study is necessary, but I'm guessing this study will make
| some institutions think/rethink their guidance on coffee
| consumption.
| jaybaxter wrote:
| >but you've got to think about the idea that the folks who
| conducted this study know as well how hard science is, and
| for them to publish this anyway means they (and their
| reviewers) did a pretty good job dealing with this issue
| (and many others).
|
| What makes you say that about this paper specifically?
| Certainly in general there are career incentives for
| authors to publish papers which are not very conclusive,
| and we know that relatively useless observational studies
| do get published.
| rajin444 wrote:
| > for them to publish this anyway means they did a pretty
| good job
|
| The standard shouldn't be "we did the best we can" for the
| sake of publishing. It should be "is what we're doing
| useful".
|
| > I'm guessing this study will make some institutions
| think/rethink their guidance on coffee consumption.
|
| This is the major issue with all these kinds of studies.
| The absolute last thing they should be doing is influencing
| public policy. Data that's more or less garbage but you
| treat it like it's solid because it's "science" is harmful.
| TameAntelope wrote:
| I'm sorry but I completely disagree; the standard
| _absolutely_ should be "we're doing the best that is
| currently possible to determine how things work". Asking
| for more is entitled and completely misunderstands the
| nature of science.
|
| We need to have a way to figure out what to tell people
| to do, and we're doing that, whether you like it or not,
| with imperfect information.
|
| Also not for nothing, this data is not "more or less
| garbage". This is about as good as we can do in science
| right now, and honestly your tone is pretty terrible. It
| sounds like you want religious levels of certainty and
| you feel you _deserve_ that.
|
| Science doesn't get much more certain than this (and this
| is far from very certain in any sense), there is no
| "better" way to do things that the researchers just
| lazily didn't follow here, and your suggesting that such
| is the case is ignorant and selfish. You should feel bad
| for what you've written here.
| jtc331 wrote:
| > Science doesn't get much more certain than this
|
| A well designed RCT isn't much more certain than this?
|
| Observational studies are hardly the peak for scientific
| knowledge.
| guelo wrote:
| A decades long rigorously controlled RCT in human
| nutrition science is practically impossible. Even if it
| were possible the scientist would still have to choose
| variables to control for in their population selection.
| [deleted]
| ryandvm wrote:
| I decided to go the other way and ignore all the potential
| confounders and just cargo-cult the hell out of all of this
| stuff. I'm bound to hit a few of the actual factors.
|
| Now if you'll excuse me I need to go drink my coffee and glass
| of red wine while doing yoga/meditation, then eating
| Mediterranean meals during my intermittent fasting period while
| making more that $75K per year, sleeping 8 hours a day and
| living in a "blue zone".
| falcolas wrote:
| > And before someone asks "But what if it's .. instead?": Yes,
| they controlled for lots of things
|
| On Reddit's /r/science board, there's a base rule that
| "criticism of published work should assume basic competence of
| the researchers and reviewers".
|
| I think it would benefit HN if we all made the same assumption.
| FastMonkey wrote:
| I don't think it's questioning anyone's competence to suggest
| that a single scientific result might have confounding
| factors. This is one study done by one team. If the result
| was repeated in several studies, all coming at it with
| different viewpoints then I'd start to believe the result. In
| this particular case though, there seems to be new research
| coming out every few months saying coffee is good or bad for
| you. If the results look like that then it's hard to put much
| weight on any single one of them.
| falcolas wrote:
| > I don't think it's questioning anyone's competence to
| suggest that a single scientific result might have
| confounding factors
|
| Honestly - I do. Basic competence in creating a study would
| definitely include identifying confounding factors that are
| directly relevant to the study being conducted. It's a
| basic part of the scientific method - both in creating the
| hypothesis and creating a test against that hypothesis.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| As someone who reads a lot of published research, no, that is
| a terrible rule and a lot of garbage gets published. Both
| historically and now there is no shortage of bad science that
| gets published, or good science that gets really misreported.
| falcolas wrote:
| If you don't trust studies at such a fundamental level,
| what is the value in reading and commenting on such
| threads?
| vorpalhex wrote:
| Studies don't have value just because they are a study.
|
| Put another way, just because Cosmo publishes an article
| doesn't mean it's true - but Cosmo does also publish true
| articles.
|
| Plenty of studies are great and move our understanding
| forward. More studies answer a very narrow - but
| important - question. Some studies are just inconclusive,
| but have value too.
|
| You should read studies. You should evaluate the quality
| of studies as part of integrating them and their
| conclusions. At the same time just because something was
| "a study" or got published doesn't make it true or good
| or useful, anymore than being written in blue ink makes
| something truthful.
|
| The value of science is that it does not require faith.
| JoshuaDavid wrote:
| Not OP but
|
| If someone were advocating making policy decisions based
| on astrological charts, I would read and comment in such
| threads despite not trusting astrology on a fundamental
| level.
|
| I personally would go _quite_ as far as to say that
| purely observational studies have as much predictive
| value as astrology, but "observational studies are as
| reliable as astrology" is a better first-order
| approximation of my opinions than "observational studies
| are as reliable as large-n randomized controlled trials".
| tuatoru wrote:
| I don't know what value vorpalhex gets from doing so, but
| I got value from the gp comment.
| dekhn wrote:
| This is a fundamentally wrong rule because, as we have
| learned, researchers and reviewers basic competence has come
| into play repeatedly. The further you get from quantitative
| physics, the worse it gets.
|
| That said, if you _are_ going to criticize something based on
| the idea "this result doesn't agree with my preconcieved
| notions so I'm going to say that their sample size was too
| small, the effect size was too small, or they made some sort
| of incorrect calculation, and conclude the paper can't be
| trusted", you owe it to yourself to read the paper carefully
| enough that you can make the determination they made a major
| error.
|
| Unlike most people, I read the conclusion, then the methods
| section. For most papers I can't get enough from the methods
| section to conclude that I trust the authors to make their
| claim, because most methods sections are missing major
| details on how the corrections/controls were made.
| falcolas wrote:
| Should we also look at final code assuming the programmer
| and their code reviewers lack basic competence? Or do we
| assume they made a best effort given their abilities and
| may have still made mistakes?
|
| I believe the latter, and the rule I mentioned also leads
| to that assumption. Otherwise, why read the studies at all?
| But that's not what people here do.
|
| > missing major details on how the corrections/controls
| were made
|
| I also make an assumption that some corrections/controls
| are so obvious within their field of study that they aren't
| worth documenting - that it's only "average joe" readers
| who assume they aren't being done.
|
| It is, in a way, akin to asking why programmers didn't
| document how their JWT is secured.
| dekhn wrote:
| I don't compare software engineers and scientists by the
| same metrics. The important thing about a code review
| request is that it contains everything required for me to
| reproduce the effects of the code change in my own hands.
| Science does not require that- instead, the methods is
| typically the "least descriptive and helpful
| representation of what was done" (especially in the case
| of very complex biological experiments) and can't be
| reproduced with nontrivial effort.
|
| BTW I've definitely gone into code reviews assuming the
| programmer lacks basic competence and been right. Other
| times, I've had to rollback other people's code (or stop
| a rollout) because an ostensibly genius programmer who
| made a change (and got a review from a starry-eyed
| junior) wasn't using their basic competence or testing
| their change at all.
| eurasiantiger wrote:
| Bad example. While the tokens themselves can only be
| secured in a handful of ways, JWT auth implementation is
| notoriously tricky. Even the official docs of some well
| known packages promote insecure practices such as storing
| tokens in browser localStorage.
| ekianjo wrote:
| > On Reddit's /r/science board, there's a base rule that
| "criticism of published work should assume basic competence
| of the researchers and reviewers".
|
| Since most studies/publications cant be replicated, I'd say
| basic competence is not warranted.
| lm28469 wrote:
| > And before someone asks "But what if it's .. instead?": Yes,
| they controlled for lots of things:
|
| I'm no experiment designer but I fail to see how you can
| control for variables when the field of the experiment is
| "life". There are an unlimited number of variables, wouldn't
| you find tonnes of meaningless correlations ?
|
| The set of variables is unlimited and the focus of the study is
| so precise that I have a real hard time to understand how
| meaningful these results can be.
|
| > there may be other lifestyle factors contributing to that
| lower mortality risk among people who drink coffee, like a
| healthy diet or a consistent exercise routine.
|
| Yeah no shit. Or like getting 8+ hours of sleep, or winning the
| genetic lottery, or working at a desk instead of on a
| construction zone, &c.
|
| If it's all self reported it's kind of garbage to begin with, I
| know people who think they eat healthy diets, they don't
| SkyMarshal wrote:
| _> 171,616 people is a big cohort, mortality is clearly
| measurable, and the observed effect is really large._
|
| This should be a criteria for posting studies in general -
| large cohort, controls for every known factor, clearly
| measurable outcome like all-cause mortality, and large observed
| effect.
| carbocation wrote:
| As someone who also heavily uses UK Biobank in my research, I
| would just encourage people to think about this effect size and
| ask whether it's plausible. If true, coffee has a more powerful
| effect on your risk of all-cause death than any drug for most
| diseases. It's wildly implausible. The results are confounded.
| There is no causal anchor.
|
| Having said that, coffee is great.
| troydavis wrote:
| > There is no causal anchor.
|
| While it's closer to speculation than science, past discussion
| of health benefits from coffee focused on antioxidants. Coffee,
| green and black tea, and cocoa have relatively high antioxidant
| content[1], particularly after adjusting for quantity consumed.
|
| I haven't seen any breakdowns of how the average person ingests
| antioxidants, but it's not like everyone eats 3 oz of
| blueberries a day :-) Beverages might be a major source.
|
| Again, this is pretty close to speculation, but it's not
| nothing.
|
| [1]: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11453788/ (a quick
| citation - IANA expert)
| 323 wrote:
| Note that there is a suspected link between anti-oxidants and
| cancer. The mechanism is pretty simple: oxidative stress is a
| warning system to the cell that initiates various repair
| mechanisms, up to apoptosis. Too much anti-oxidants suppress
| this warning system, thus allowing a damaged cell to go on.
|
| One paper, there are many:
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30674247/
| carbocation wrote:
| Yours is perfectly fine speculation for a message board. I
| just think that the result is likely confounded, and there is
| no reason to reach for a biological mechanism when the study
| wasn't causal in the first place.
|
| I tend to think along the lines of `rsync:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31595857
| 323 wrote:
| > _a more powerful effect on your risk of all-cause death than
| any drug for most diseases_
|
| But these people were mostly healthy.
|
| I'm sure that coffee doesn't work better compared to medicine
| if you are diseased,
| carbocation wrote:
| My point is that most drugs don't work this well for your
| disease, if you are diseased. If this result were
| mechanistically true, then we could instantly prolong human
| lifespan dramatically.
| 323 wrote:
| But my point is that when you're healthy, the mortality
| risk is so low, that it doesn't take much to make it even
| lower.
|
| Even more impressive result, exercise reduces all cause
| mortality by 40%:
|
| > _Using a large nationally representative sample of US
| adults, we found that those who engaged in both aerobic and
| muscle strengthening activities consistent with the
| recommended 2018 physical activity guidelines for Americans
| showed a reduced risk of all cause mortality (40%
| reduction)._
|
| https://www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m2031
|
| > _instantly prolong human lifespan dramatically_
|
| But that doesn't follow. It's conditional. More accurate
| follow would be _" instantly prolong human lifespan
| dramatically AS LONG AS YOU DON'T GET DISEASED"_
|
| Example: having a fire extinguisher in your house decreases
| risk of losing your house in a fire by 30% before a fire.
| But if your house is on fire I bet it's much much lower.
| There are two different populations, two different
| distributions.
| carbocation wrote:
| Luckily, there is no signal for harm from coffee, so we
| can randomize a bunch of healthy people and see if there
| is an effect. Personally, I'd want to see a higher
| quality of evidence before spending my time on it, but if
| people believe it, this is one of the most important
| studies in the history of human health waiting to be
| written.
| tqi wrote:
| Agreed, this doesn't pass the sniff test at all. Makes me think
| of this article[1]:
|
| > Your estimate will be wrong for a silly, almost tautological
| reason: if you can only detect large effects, then any effect
| you detect will be large. If you keep looking for an effect,
| over and over again, until finally one study gets lucky and
| sees it, that study will almost necessarily give a wild
| overestimate of the effect size.
|
| [1]: https://jaydaigle.net/blog/replication-crisis-math/,
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30181696
| 11thEarlOfMar wrote:
| What are the differences in Cause of Death between the coffee and
| non-coffee drinkers?
|
| For example, are coffee drinkers less likely to die in a crash
| commuting to work in the morning?
|
| Or less likely to die from stroke?
| steviedotboston wrote:
| I dunno, call me skeptical but I think everyone has a 100% risk
| of dying.
| phabricator wrote:
| lel this comment is 2 zany 4 me XD
| carapace wrote:
| I had the same thought. "Coffee is the Fountain of Youth" is
| not what they meant, eh? :) (Although I often joke that you can
| actually see me turn from a zombie into a live human being with
| that first sip in the morning.)
| goda90 wrote:
| >There's also the possibility that coffee drinkers tend to make
| healthier choices in general. They might opt for a cold brew or a
| cup of drip coffee instead of a less healthy source of caffeine,
| like an energy drink or soda, Dr. Goldberg added. "If you're
| pounding Mountain Dew or Coca-Cola or Red Bull or all these other
| drinks, they have tons more sugar, all the artificial stuff --
| versus coffee, which is a generally unprocessed food."
|
| It sounds like we need a study comparing people who rarely drink
| anything but water vs coffee drinking vs energy drink/soda
| drinking.
| mikkergp wrote:
| It sounds like they didn't cover lifestyle factors, but I'm
| wondering if you even could. Over 7 years, does 170,000
| participants means people lying or not remembering things
| properly cancel each other out? or would the data be too
| muddied to tell.
| CydeWeys wrote:
| I'm a habitual coffee drinker and I can tell you with a high
| degree of certainty that I almost never drink non-diet soda,
| and haven't for at least 7 years. It's pretty hard to just
| forget behaviors that are habitual for you.
| mikkergp wrote:
| While true for habits, I eat cake like maybe 3 times a
| month four months out of the year? I never drink soda, but
| I couldn't tell you what my consistent
| sugar/fat/cholesterol intake is, it varies with the
| seasons/stress, etc. is it better than average? Worse than
| average? I dunno. Same with exercise.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| They do? Most coffee drinkers that I know load up on cream and
| sugar.
| swozey wrote:
| Also I'm a no-coffee but energy drink (Bang usually) drinker
| and my energy drinks have either 0-3 grams of sugar... I drink
| water all day long, no sodas, etc. I'm sure 280 grams of
| caffeine can't be that great for me, of course.
| antihero wrote:
| Better than 280 grams of cocaine though.
| ISL wrote:
| 280 grams would be very bad. 280 mg, substantially better :).
| swozey wrote:
| Haha, I thought grams sounded weird as I was typing it.
| Thanks!
| gigaflop wrote:
| ~300mg all at once is a recipe for a bad time, for me. I'd
| rather drink 2 Monsters (0-cal, 140mg caff each) than 1 Bang,
| and space them out further.
|
| But I'll have a C4 once in a blue moon, if I plan to hit the
| gym very soon after.
| antiverse wrote:
| I drink anywhere between 0-5 cups of black coffee a day. By cup I
| mean a standard size coffee cup you'd find in any store.
| Sometimes I'll throw in a cappuccino (double espresso) because
| I'm feeling like having one. So far I've lived through studies
| telling me I will live shorter, and studies telling me I will
| live longer.
|
| There seems to be an unhealthy neurosis/anxiety built up around
| staving off death as long as possible - the number of articles on
| HN, companies started around longevity by people who are, to put
| it bluntly, scared shitless of dying, is disturbing. You can't
| lower your risk of dying. If enjoy a cup of coffee, then enjoy a
| damn cup of coffee regardless of what studies say.
| orblivion wrote:
| Hopefully it compensates for my increased mortality risk from
| beer.
| danw1979 wrote:
| I'll have a guess at the causation here: more coffee consumed =>
| better code written => higher income => higher standard of
| living, correlated with better health outcomes.
| karmakaze wrote:
| I drink coffee because it became part of my routine, then I got
| to enjoy it, and now it helps me focus while working.
|
| One aspect I notice from my caffeine intake is that it helps me
| deal with stuff in general--nothing stresses me out. The downside
| is that I also feel positive things less as well, so I try to
| limit it to morning/mid-afternoon of weekdays. I can certainly
| see in my case living a life with less stress promoting longevity
| but with less richness of experience.
| carlgreene wrote:
| > The mortality risk remained lower for people who drank both
| decaffeinated and caffeinated coffee.
|
| Very interesting! I've seen this conclusion many times in the
| past decade+ but have yet for someone to call out the aspect of
| caffeine. I wouldn't suspect caffeine to result in lower
| mortality risk, but you never know
| neonate wrote:
| https://archive.ph/L5k9P
| jokoon wrote:
| so why doctors keep saying to drink less coffee? not to mention
| sleep problems...
| xeromal wrote:
| Doctors aren't a monolith and I doubt all of them have read
| this study yet.
|
| I've found most sleep problems disappear if I stop drinking
| coffee before 3pm. YMMV.
|
| In college, I could drink coffee at 9pm with a bowl of icecream
| and it didn't hurt my sleep at all. lol
| Tagbert wrote:
| Not all doctors say that.
|
| Yes, if you are having sleep problems they might tell you to
| cut back on coffee and other caffeine sources. Some people are
| particularly sensitive to caffeine and get jitters and have
| trouble sleeping. Most people do not have this problem and as
| long as they don't drink coffee late in the day, it does not
| cause sleep problems.
| 0daystock wrote:
| Most doctors receive inadequate nutrition training, if any, and
| are usually unqualified to speak about these topics.
| karaterobot wrote:
| I hadn't heard doctors (and by that I mean: researchers) saying
| to drink less coffee, except if it's causing sleep problems.
| [deleted]
| softwaredoug wrote:
| A plausible theory is people who CANT drink coffee, or dont drink
| as much, have health issues that often prevent them from drinking
| coffee...
| tarentel wrote:
| The article specifically says there were benefits to people who
| drink decaffeinated and caffeinated alike.
| dahart wrote:
| Decaf is still acidic. Caffeine is not the only reason some
| people can't drink coffee.
| rhacker wrote:
| There is still caffeine in decaf. Enough that my heart issue
| brother can't drink that either.
| nomel wrote:
| According to a quick search, ~2mg vs ~100mg.
| thih9 wrote:
| I've heard that sometimes ordering decaf will get you a
| caffeinated drink and that a lot of places disregard or
| don't pay enough attention to that particular request. I
| have no source or any numbers though.
| hawk_ wrote:
| That's why I always order instant decaf so I can look at
| the packet before dissolving it.
| CydeWeys wrote:
| It definitely varies wildly. Some methods of
| decaffeination might leave as much as one-third of the
| coffee still in the beans.
|
| I'm a regular coffee drinker (and not caffeine
| sensitive), and I do get a placebo boost from decaf, but
| without any noticeable effects from actual caffeine.
| eurasiantiger wrote:
| And a host of other psychoactive chemicals.
| planetsprite wrote:
| what kind of health issues keep people from drinking decaf
| coffee
| bena wrote:
| If you have issues with caffeine, decaffeinated coffee is
| often off limits as well. Decaffeinated coffee isn't caffeine
| free coffee. There's a limit to the process.
|
| Also, if you have issues with caffeine and have never drank
| coffee before, why ever start? It seems like a thing you
| could just never do and be fine with.
|
| Not to mention, what if the problem isn't with the caffeine,
| but something else in the coffee. Decaf doesn't fix that.
| jobu wrote:
| > _Baseline demographic, lifestyle, and dietary data from the
| UK Biobank were used_
|
| This data is from the UK where coffee is still significantly
| less popular than tea. Would be interesting to see the
| mortality risk of coffee vs tea drinkers though.
| 0des wrote:
| Hot beverages are proven to damage cells which can lead to
| cancer of the upper digestive tract, regardless.
|
| Also how many people load it up with sugar and cream rather
| than just the brew itself.
| ancientworldnow wrote:
| The study found natural sweeteners also had a decrease in
| mortality (but artificial sweeteners did not - but probably
| because people choosing those already have health risks).
| 0des wrote:
| how about no sweetener
| jamal-kumar wrote:
| I get the sense after living in a country which produces
| incredible coffee for a while that it's about quality.
|
| Like they're just covering up the bad taste.
|
| You have to pay like 20$ a bag to get something that
| isn't bitter in North America. Here if you want bad
| coffee at a low price I guess you can buy instant?
|
| I don't think green tea drinkers are putting many
| additives in there.
| wincy wrote:
| Isnt the British method of preparing tea and coffee to load
| it up with milk and cream immediately? Makes it so you can
| drink quickly and don't have to wait for it to cool off.
| (Source: am American and have watched one or two YouTube
| videos of how to prepare tea the British way)
| meowface wrote:
| >Isnt the British method of preparing tea and coffee to
| load it up with milk and cream immediately?
|
| I feel like the potential health risks of doing this
| every day might be worse than the health risks of cancer
| caused by exposure to hot liquids, even if it's something
| as small as a bit of increased weight gain. (Especially
| since you can just wait for it to cool down a bit.)
| jamal-kumar wrote:
| I always wait for my coffee or tea to cool down a bit
| before drinking it for this very reason. Doesn't make it
| any less enjoyable, I don't understand how people develop a
| tolerance to scalding hot and won't even finish anything
| less. Such a weird cultural preference.
|
| Even better on a hot day is iced coffee! Something about
| letting it end up at room temperature for a while alters
| the taste but if it just goes straight on ice it's kinda
| sweet on its own.
| arisAlexis wrote:
| Only if it exceeds certain Temps
| wincy wrote:
| Yeah I throw up every time I drink coffee. I mean I don't want
| to admit it but that's probably a sign that somethings wrong
| which is a problem. I saw a doctor today and he said "something
| something interesting parasympathetic system".
| hereforphone wrote:
| Mortality risk remains 100%.
| travisgriggs wrote:
| Curious how well they were able to control for economic factors.
| How are they not sure it's not
|
| "People who can afford to buy lots of coffee can also afford
| other lifestyle ingredients that lead to longer life,
| relatively." ?
|
| Latter Day Saints and Adventists don"t drink coffee, and yet they
| get to brag about better than average longevity too. But that too
| could just be a canary for economic indicators.
| ekianjo wrote:
| > Latter Day Saints
|
| What's the reason not to drink coffee for them?
| travisgriggs wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_of_Wisdom
| papito wrote:
| A study described in the Dorito Effect took millions of grocery
| receipts and analyzed them. Turned out people who had wine in
| their carts also had an overall healthy selection of food at
| checkout. The customers who bought beer stuffed their carts with
| all kinds of junk.
|
| So there is that. So much for "a glass of wine a day is good for
| your heart".
| sithadmin wrote:
| uhtred wrote:
| > Those who drank 1.5 to 3.5 cups of coffee per day, even with a
| teaspoon of sugar, were up to 30 percent less likely to die
| during the study period than those who didn't drink coffee. Those
| who drank unsweetened coffee were 16 to 21 percent less likely to
| die during the study period
|
| Eh? So having sugar in the coffee was better than no sugar? am I
| reading this wrong?
| ericmay wrote:
| Yea I thought that was worded a little confusingly as well, or
| at least my intuition is confusing me versus what was written.
|
| I also wonder if it's just increased consumption of water via
| coffee that is helpful here. They're saying it's not the
| caffeine so would it then just be the residue from the beans
| soaking in the water?
| mikkergp wrote:
| This effect makes me very curious, because yeah I wouldn't
| think adding sugar would be better, but one effect could be
| that - if people are really only using a teaspoon of sugar,
| maybe people who are able to moderate the sugar intake in
| coffee are good at moderating diet in other ways as well? I
| drink black coffee, but, it's not that I'm being healthful,
| it's I like the dark strong flavor of coffee, and that desire
| for "strong flavors" means I don't always make the best health
| choices in other areas.
| alfiedotwtf wrote:
| Stands up in muscle pose: "I AM INVINCIBLE"
| doctor_eval wrote:
| Came here to say the same thing. "I'M GONNA TO LIVE
| FOREVA!!!!!"
| arisAlexis wrote:
| Amen
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