Coffee Maybe Not a Health Drink! 381
perbert writes "Canadian researchers have published a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association indicating that excess coffee drinking (4+ cups a day) could lead to an increased risk of heart disease if you have the wrong gene. In light of other studies linking antioxidants in coffee to a reduction in heart disease, who is right? Or will they cancel out in a coffee death-match?"
Dose (Score:5, Insightful)
Paracelso once said... (Score:4, Insightful)
You Misunderstand (Score:5, Insightful)
If you look carefully the summary for the research is saying the caffeine is bad for you, and that the study concluded this based on research into coffee consumption. The other studies that claim coffee is good for you were actually referring to other chemicals in coffee, not the caffeine, nor the entirety of the coffee.
Also people seem to think that scientists study everything about a topic before releasing results. But that is a misunderstanding about how science works. Generally scientists focus on very small areas of large topics and then propose more sweeping conclusions. Usually the media then make even more generalised conclusions that result in complete misunderstanding in non-scientists.
Peer review is also important, often these studies are fundamentally flawed and even though the submitted paper offers a conclusion, the scientist writing it is well aware that in science, nothing is proved by one paper. Instead wait ten years for more supporting evidence, rinse, repeat and progress.
Balance (Score:3, Insightful)
Anything to excess is likely to be harmful. The key is to find balance — moderation in all things, including moderation!
Re:here we go again (Score:4, Insightful)
Salt is bad for you. Except if you don't have the gene that links salt to hypertension. In which case it isn't bad for you. If you do have that gene, then salt is very bad for you. In aggregate, given ignorance of your genes, it poses a risk.
Experiments to date have been crude, in that they don't effectively control for genetic variation. Thus a slight bias in the genetic make-up can easily push an experiment to one or the other side of statistical significance.
If we ever do get an efficient, fast and affordable way to do a comprehensive genetic screening, it will be of tremendous benefit to humanity. That is, after the fighting and chaos dies down, as insurance companies manage their risk to the point they become irrelevant, and families come to grips with uncomfortable holes in their pedigrees.
Aspartame (Score:2, Insightful)
Too much Aspartame gives me wicked headaches. Aspartame also breaks down into formaldehyde by your liver - how much or how long - I don't know, but that's what I've been told by a dietician - a real dietician from a hostpital. Not your typical "self educated" one who learned about diet from magazines thay, well, may not be the best source for that kind of information.
Re:Dose (Score:5, Insightful)
If anyone ever tells you to do a lot of anything, run the other way. People have died from everything from eating too much salt to drinking too much carrot juice. Keep your diet balanced and your intakes in moderation, and you'll do far better than chasing around massive doses of things that are "good" for you.
please read more carefully in the future (Score:5, Insightful)
I saw one study that said a single cup of coffee a day was good for athletic training, and another that said that the more coffee you drink, the lower the risk of heart disease.
This study says that more than four cups of coffee a day are bad for you if you have a particular gene.
None of these things are contradictory-- just like how a glass of wine may be beneficial, but 10 glasses may cause liver disease. Or how some types of cholesterol are good, but others are bad.
Re:Ex Caffeine Junky (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's see here, 100 ounces at work, plus another 48 ounces at home, on average, every day. That's over 1 gallon of soda a day! How often did you have to go to the bathroom? They are working hard to get people to drink just over half a gallon of water a day, and here you are more than doubling that in soda, I take it moderation isn't (wasn't) your strong suit? Imagine if that had been the fully leaded version, you would have had over 1800 calories a day in colas alone (Dr. Pepper (my liquid crack) is 150 cal/12 ounce can, I'm fairly sure the Cherry Vanilla has even more, but can't swear to it)! That's most adults' daily allowance (at least, that's what my wife (MD) keeps telling me).
I can relate to the compulsion to always have a drink on hand, after kidney stones at a young age, my doctor told me I basically was constantly dehydrated -> stones. Now I have my water cup at work, and drink over a gallon at work a day. Happily, it has been 4 years since my last stone, my fingers are crossed there won't be another!
Re:The baffled geek cries out (Score:3, Insightful)
Stuff is complicated. Be glad that we strive to make progress, even when it means saying, "whoops, we were wrong."
Re:Dose (Score:4, Insightful)
According to the article, a cup a day is not a major risk. Two to three cups regularly, however, is. From the article:
So if you're a Venti (20 oz/2.5 cups) Starbucks drinker, maybe you should consider cutting back to a tall (12 oz/1.5 cups). And avoid regularly making multiple trips to Starbucks. Once your doctor is able to start testing for this gene, then he can provide more precise recommendations for your genetic type.
best not to have any coffee (Score:3, Insightful)
Two cups a day means you are addicted. If you "need" a cup a day, you are addicted.
Not just dose. (Score:3, Insightful)
Not to mention the person's physiology. There's a reason they call the lethal dose of something the "LD50", and that's because that's the dose at which 50% of the animals they injected the substance into died. (they measure it in milligrams of drug per kiligram of animal, in case you're wondering).
Some people are immune to AIDS, some people are allergic to peanut butter, in some people Ibuprophen works for headaches, in others Asprin or Tylenol works. Sometimes people are just plain different.
There was an article in The Economist (print edition, so I wont bother linking) about how doing DNA tests on people and finding out how they would react to drugs would save a lot of time and possibly lives. The reason we don't is because it's expensive and people (all of a sudden, and seemingly on this issue alone) are concerned about privacy.
There was a reason 1 out of every 100,000 people who took Vioxx died, and it's not because Merck was "evil," it's because they simply couldn't account for all the different physiologies out there. Don't worry though, the law suits will certainly ensure higher prescription drug prices in the future, all due to ignorance and jerks like James Sokolove.
Re:Fittingly Canadian Story (Score:3, Insightful)
Who funded the study? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Still waking up (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:best not to have any coffee (Score:5, Insightful)
Opiates to build tolerance on their own, so said legal junky will still need more and more.
People on heroin maintenance programs tend to acclimate to a dosing schedule that keeps them functional. They're so tolerant that they literally can't get enough to get high, so it's barely worth considering them intoxicated.
Sure, like alcoholics aren't? Good example there, alcohol = legal drug, and a large portion of the population is directly harmed by it. Be it through drunk drivers, domestic abuse, or just the general unpleasantness that exists in being around them
So your solution is to prohibit alcohol? Look how well that worked... Besides, the comparison between alcohol and heroin is very tenuous. The violence caused by alcohol is pharmacological, the violence caused by heroin is sociological.
Ignoring a fact that they are incapible of actually living a normal life.
That's just ignorant prejudice. Heroin maintenance works [drugpolicy.org].
If you hate heroin addicts so much, why not advocate legalization so it will be easier for the bastards to get what's coming to them?