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1st Cup Of Coffee: Hardening Your Arteries
mikewhittaker writes "A recent article on The Times refer to a report which indicates that the intake of caffeine from a single coffee can have adverse effects on your arteries and heart." Actually, it goes so far to say that the first cup of coffee is the worst. Of course, basically, anything you do is bad for at some level, so I guess it's choosing your poisons.
So skip the first cup of coffee and go right to the second.
They did it again ! Sometimes the study says "cofee bad", the next day another one claims "coffe good". With so many divergent results, how can one still trust any of those studies ?
-- javaDragon is an instance of JavaDragon.
a single coffee can have adverse effects on your arteries and heart.
Whew. That was close. Glad I switched to espresso!
Lawrence Lessig is my personal hero.
I'm not a coffee drinker - it's too bitter (even mocha tastes weird) and I haven't gotten used to it yet.
I like chocolate. Chocolate's great. The sugar'll probably be Very Bad for me later, though. No win.
What about tea?
It's easy to test out the health effects of caffeine - just give it up for a month.
Every 6 months or so, I quit caffeine cold turkey - no soda, no coffee, etc. The first 3-4 days are miserable - headaches, fatigue, etc. After that I start feeling much better, sleeping better, having more energy, etc. It's pretty clear that I feel better and healthier without that morning copy of coffee.
Of course, then some deadline pops up and I'm back to drinking 2 cups of coffee and a six pack of diet coke per day. What drives me nuts is that I know better - I've been through this cycle at least 5 times. Thanks God I never started smoking! If I have this much trouble giving up caffeine, I can't imagine what nicotine would do to me.
** The opinions expressed here are my own, and do not reflect those of my employers - past, present, or future**
It is rather a shame that society (North American society) is so obsessed now with risk aversion!
Everything we do has good and bad affects. Coffee makes you feel good but shortens life. Good choice for each to make. Wine lessens cardiovascular degeneration but increases the chance of liver ailments. Flying gets you tere quickly but you can fall. Peanuts are wholesome food but can kill one in a million. In the USA, only the negative part of each of these equations is being seen. Playgrounds have no swigs here anymore becuase they too can be dangerous.
Well, I for one will not worry. I make my own choices. I take calculated risks. I am aware that it all ends in tears anyway: no-one lives over 110 years and anyway, by 80, half of us have Alzheimers. Best enjoy the three score years and ten I'd say.
Would talk more but must be off for a coffee.
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BDOS ERR ON A:>
If you actually read this article, the study only confirms that for a few hours after consuming a cup of coffee, your heart is placed under more stress. In and of itself, this does not appear to be very significant. Any vigorous physical activity will also raise your heartrate, constrict your arteries, and put your heart under more stress. It says NOTHING about long-term health consequences, which is really the main issue here.
I recall reading several years ago that at that time, the long-term health consequences of coffee were unclear. Some adverse affects were sometimes suggested in studies, but it turns out there are tremendous confounding factors -- coffee drinkers often tend to eat lots of donuts, be less active, and so on. When the initial population of patient participants was selected as healthy health care professionals, little or no adverse affects were observed for moderate (up to a couple of cups a day) intakes of coffee.
Bob
Science, like Nature, must also be tamed, with a view turned towards its preservation.
Cheers,
vic
No more coffee means no more reading Slashdot first thing in the morning.
This, of course, would improve workplace productivity in the key IT depts around the nation.
Therefore, a ban on coffee will lead to increased productivity and a rise in economic output, thereby solving the nations economic woes.
Therefore, drinking coffee is the cause of the current economic downturn.
But none of you have read this because you all just gave up coffee.
Nothing wrong with this logic.
* Turkish Proverb: "Coffee should be black as hell, strong as death,
and sweet as love."
* Sheikh Abd-al-Kadir (1587): "No one can understand the truth until
he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness."
* Sir James MacKintosh (18th century philosopher): "The powers of a
man's mind are directly proportional to the quantity of coffee he
drank."
* Johann Sebastian Bach (1732, an aria from his 'Kaffee-Kantate'):
"Ah! How sweet coffee tastes! Lovlier than a thousand kisses,
sweeter than muscatel wine! I must have my coffee..."
* David Letterman (Esquire Interview Fall '94): "If it wasn't for
coffee, I'd have no discernible personality at all."
* Chris Egolf (1993): "This damn pot is too fucking slow!"
* Wise New York City Homeless Man (1996, to Chris Egolf): "Son, you
need to get some coffee in you so people know you're alive!"
At the intersection of computation and biology.
Drink up! Yippeee...! Er...
Scene closes with programmer's workmates, each with coffee in hand, shaking their heads sadly as paramedics bear away a sheet-covered object on a stretcher.
My point: less harmful is not the same as harmless.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
I think they should ban coffee, with the same force of prohibition that they ban marijuana.
It makes exactly as much sense.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
three times before I figured out that it didn't mean "a coffee can", because I was trying to figure out how to drink from multiple cans instead.
'The findings showed that the first cup had the most significant effect because caffeine levels in the blood had dropped during the night.'
There's a no-brainer. Drink a maintenance dose when you get up to pee in the middle of the night.
First Dupont or some beverage company has to come out with a synthetic beverage that they wouldn't even be able to market if coffee is around, since coffee is cheaper and more effective. Then they will lobby governments to make it illegal to import, possess, deal, or drink coffee. Then we will hear about how caffiene is a "gateway drug" that leads to crack abuse and moderating on Slashdot, as well as making people believe that information wants to be free and setting up peer to peer file trading servers. Eventually we will all be brainless drones drinking a beverage that comes in something similer to an oil can that also bears remarkable resemblance and chemical makeup to said combustible engine product, and fighting eachother over which brand is the best...
This is no big deal, unless you have high blood pressure, because the effect is very temporary. The article said "one cup hardened the blood vessels for at least two hours". It's not like you are going to need bypass surgery or something.
If you have average blood pressure, or (as I do) slightly low blood pressure, then have some coffee to celebrate the news!
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely