The Case for Coffee
In one large-scale epidemiological study from last year, researchers primarily at the National Cancer Institute parsed health information from more than 400,000 volunteers, ages 50 to 71, who were free of major diseases at the study’s start in 1995. By 2008, more than 50,000 of the participants had died. But men who reported drinking two or three cups of coffee a day were 10 percent less likely to have died than those who didn’t drink coffee, while women drinking the same amount had 13 percent less risk of dying during the study.
Other recent studies have linked moderate coffee drinking — the equivalent of three or four 5-ounce cups of coffee a day or a single venti-size Starbucks — with more specific advantages: a reduction in the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes, basal cell carcinoma (the most common skin cancer), prostate cancer, oral cancer and breast cancer recurrence. (More)
I wonder if coffee is equally enjoyed by all income levels. If affluent people are more often coffee drinkers than others, then there may be some bias here.
While I would definitely agree with the study that a 20oz of coffee could be good for you. The addictive properties of coffee (aka caffeine)make it extremely unlikely that any of the people who are going to drink coffee every day will only drink 20oz.
Yes, having previous experience working at starbucks in my younger years. The caffeine addiction removes the solvency/ accuracy of the study.
Absolutely, I would argue though that it is the combination of caffeine tolerance + addiction, which is what would make people drink more than 20 ounces.
You also need to factor in the issue that most coffee consumers don’t just consume coffee, they consume a mixture of coffee with sugars and creams and sometimes other additives that end up being pretty unhealthy.
Absolutely which increases the probability of addiction, because most of the time black coffee is an acquired taste.
“The addictive properties of coffee (aka caffeine)”
I think these are way overblown, especially the physiological.
For years I was a chain coffee-drinker – sunrise to way after sunset. I could not measure how many “cups” a day I drank because I continually filled my cup. Even just before bedtime – no problem, went right to sleep.
Eventually I quit. At first I tried to cut back – no success. So I just quit. Cold. March 25, 1990.d
I have not had so much as a sip of coffee since that night. People ask me, didn’t I have headaches? No – not any that I can remember. People ask me how do you wake up in the morning? Simple, get out of bed and go. In 10 minutes, I’m totally alert.
So I think the physiological addiction argument is very weak.
Psychological addiction however – – that’s another matter.
That is very interesting that you had no physical withdrawal effects. Multiple scientist would disagree with you, and who knows you might be an anomaly, but anecdotal evidence is (not to be redundant or circular) by default anecdotal.
http://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/05/us/yes-people-are-right-caffeine-is-addictive.html
“anecdotal evidence is (not to be redundant or circular) by default anecdotal.
Of course, but it’s still evidence. In fact, each and every data point in any sample is “anecdotal” by itself.
My experience makes me wonder if there are others like me. If so, perhaps my experience is not so “anecdotal” after all.
Also, back when I quit, no one told me to expect headaches. Now people are told to expect them. That’s s big difference – sort of a nocebo effect – that in itself may elicit reports of headaches.
But all I know for sure is my own experience – which was unlike what people are being told today.
How many times are these studies going to “conclude” some sort of health discovery? In other words, many things can be “linked” to living longer and these correlations don’t really mean these things are all good or all bad for you. Coffee has some other links leading to unhealthier consequences. So, with anything natural that we consume, remember moderation and balance is key.
How do you define moderation of consumption? or in other words how much coffee can one drink before it is excessive?
I am not a nutritionist and that is up to them to suggest, but I know enough to know that anything that you take too much of is not good for you in the long term. Even H20…although we have a tendency to take in too little of that.
I find the entire principle of moderation to be extremely interesting. The mindset of moderation (originally) comes from Aristotle’s argument for “what is virtue” in his writing of Nicomachean Ethics. He argues that the mean between deficiency and excess in any activity is what real virtue is, but the “mean” (aka moderation) is relative between different people and their strengths and weaknesses…so i’m not sure making an objective argument of moderation of consumption of food is such a solid conclusion because historically and logically it’s relative, and we can never know what is true moderation.
I think you might be missing Aristotle’s point a little bit. He IS arguing for an objective mean/moderation, he is just saying that the result is different for different people. Not that it is different in concept. Otherwise Nichomachean Ethics would be a pointless book and it would follow a completely different progression of thought. Virtue=relativism=existentialism=nihilism …and trying to discover what virtue is, becomes kind of hard when you are saying nothing matters and all of human thought is worthless.
Exactly. People take research like this to mean something that it doesn’t.
The decreased risk in oral cancer makes sense, because of the high acidity of some coffee’s.
According to the DSM V, coffee withdrawal is now a diagnosis.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324904004578537263312778902.html
Maybe I should start deduction my coffee purchases off my taxes. God only knows I spend enough on coffee to exceed my adjusted gross income by 7.5%.