Study Says Coffee Protects Against Cirrhosis

An anonymous reader writes "Good news for those who like both coffee and alcohol. In a recent study of more than 125,000 people an Oakland, CA medical team found that consuming coffee seems to help protect against alcoholic cirrhosis. The study was done based on people enrolled in a private northern California health care plan between 1978 and 1985." From the article: "People drinking one cup of coffee per day were, on average, 20% less likely to develop alcoholic cirrhosis. For people drinking two or three cups the reduction was 40%, and for those drinking four or more cups of coffee a day the reduction in risk was 80%."

for alcoholics

[Anonymous Coward]

obviously a healthier answer would be to cut back on the alcohol.

How about...

[GenKreton]

we drink neither and break our social and behavioral substance dependencies.

Of course

[TJ_Phazerhacki]

Those drinking that many cups a day complained of chronic heartburn, discolored teeth, an inability to sleep correctly, and of course there's the addictive aspect.

What doesn't kill you today only makes you stronger - until they find out that it too can kill you!

Study with 21 year old data?

[wpmegee]

Does it bother anyone else that the data in question is 21 years old? 1985 seems like an eternity ago - this from a guy born in 1982. I'm not a statistician or a doctor, but couldn't there have been a myriad of things that happened in between 1985 and now? Furthermore, if you drink coffee, most people I know drink at least 2 cups daily so I'm not sure you can draw any meaningful distinctions between 1 and 2 cups. Also, what about other caffeine sources like soda?

Merely correlation?

[neatfoote]

Based on the way that study is described, it doesn't sound as though the data necessarily supports a clear-cut causality between coffee-drinking and cirrhosis reduction. They based the results on a questionnaire, after all, and many of those are far too broad (and too sloppily answered) to give precise data about an individual's real consumption of either alcohol or coffee.

The most that this data proves is a correlation between higher reported coffee consumption and reduced cirrhosis-- and there are a ton of other reasons why that might be the case. Maybe heavy drinkers of alcohol tend to under-report their consumption of other harmful substances (like caffeine) out of guilt. Maybe higher caffeine consumption makes heavy drinkers drink a little less. Maybe coffee-drinking indicates a more white-collar lifestyle, which in turn might indicate better education and healthier life habits, any of which might itself be responsible for the diminished cirrhosis. As usual, the pop-sci treatment jumps to an easy causal conclusion that's far from being warranted by the facts.

Re:How about...

[iamlucky13]

On a serious vein, it shouldn't even be necessary to point out that this is hardly free license from a health standpoint to hit the bottle hard every night, then clear up the headache and the liver the next morning with a triple frapa-mocha-something-or-another the next morning, but I'm going to say it anyway.

This would be like a condensed version of the running joke with modern pharmeceutical products: Take one of pill A before bed to cure your insomnia. Then take one of pill B to prevent indigestion caused by pill A. Take one pill C and one pill D to respectively eliminate the dizziness and chills caused by pill B. Take one pill E to ward off persistant low energy in the morning from pill C and two pill F's plus one pill G to reduce the hypertension caused by pill D. Finally take one pill A to help with insomnia caused by pill G...

Justification/Rationalization

[doodlebumm]

Interesting how every week there is a new study that proves something is actually good for you (in some way or another, but usually not completely good for you) so that people can be justified in their actions. One day there will be a study that points out that pedophiles are less likely to contract AIDS and STD's than non-pedophiles, so if you are prone to pedophilia, you will be healthier (as long as you don't get caught).

People will justify their actions through rationalization right up to the day they die.

Re:How about...

[Durinthal]

Don't start and you'll never have to stop.

Re:Merely correlation?

[Iron Condor]

MOD PARENT UP!!

The most that this data proves is a correlation between higher reported coffee consumption and reduced cirrhosis-- and there are a ton of other reasons why that might be the case. Maybe heavy drinkers of alcohol tend to under-report their consumption of other harmful substances (like caffeine) out of guilt. Maybe higher caffeine consumption makes heavy drinkers drink a little less. Maybe coffee-drinking indicates a more white-collar lifestyle, which in turn might indicate better education and healthier life habits, any of which might itself be responsible for the diminished cirrhosis. As usual, the pop-sci treatment jumps to an easy causal conclusion that's far from being warranted by the facts.

Exactly!! There's a tousand more possibilities: propensity for cirrhosis is regulated by the same gene as taste for bitter foods. People who's livers are stressed from alcohol will instinctively avoid other liver-heavy foods (like coffee). etc etc etc

Could everybody please tattoo this on their penis so they'd be seeing it a couple times a day: "correlation does not imply, suggest, hint at causation in any way, shape or form".

So this is what passes for science nowadays?

[hahn]

Selection bias. They have no way for controlling the quantity of alcohol that these people consume NOR the number of years for which they consume it. Even alcoholics all drink different amounts of alcohol. Therefore you have no way of knowing if the coffee drinkers also tend to drink less alcohol (ergo, less damage to the liver), which is a very plausible explanation. The authors even admit they don't have a biologically plausible theory for why coffee might protect the liver.

And 20% is nothing with a sample size this small. An 80% drop when they drink 4 or more cups of coffee? Who has room for alcohol when they've drunk 4 cups of coffee per day? I'm willing to bet there's a huge drop in cirrhosis rates when someone eats a lot too.

There's a huge difference between association and causality, but lack of distinction results in hasty and flawed interpretations.

Re:Fox coverage

[Anonymous Coward]

But if Starbucks were involved they would make the story about whole milk. Because, after all, the majority of people in Starbucks pay for a lot of whole milk to be mixed with a little bit of coffee for $5. No one goes into Starbucks and just orders coffee because a) it's overpriced b) their regular coffee is terrible.

Re:How about...

[bn557]

Indeed, smoke would not be a problem if we (in my case, I'm referencing people of the United States) didn't have such a lack of courtesy. I am a smoker, but I always leave a building (even if it is ok to smoke there) and move away from people. I try to be diligent of where my smoke ends up, and always clean up my butts. Smoking wouldn't be such a problem if people would just be more courteous. THAT is the bigger problem 'we' have. I'm not sure, but it wouldn't surprize me if there was a similar problem in other parts of the world.