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Coffee A Health Drink?

Yocto Yotta wrote to mention an article from The Independent which would seem to indicate that coffee has numerous health benefits, and could be construed to be a 'health drink'. From the article: "'A study has found that coffee contributes more antioxidants - which have been linked with fighting heart disease and cancer - to the diet than cranberries, apples or tomatoes...[antioxidants in coffee] have been linked to a number of health benefits, including protection against heart disease and cancer. Studies have associated coffee drinking with a reduced risk of liver and colon cancer, type two diabetes, and Parkinson's disease.'"

23 of 404 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Didn't see that coming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Espresso, not expresso.

  2. Best antioxidants ! Don't trust vitamins ! by zymano · · Score: 4, Informative

    I try and drink 2 glasses of Tea a day. Also try blueberries. Boysenberries taste great but aren't listed.

    Oh yeah , Vitamins may not work and make corporations rich.
    http://www.diet-blog.com/archives/2005/08/05/do_vi tamin_pills_really_work.php

    List of most powerful antioxidant fruit and vegetable.
    http://www.mdsupport.org/library/antiox.html

    http://my.webmd.com/content/Article/104/107639.htm

    http://altmedicine.about.com/cs/supplements/a/anti oxidants.htm

    http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5489179/

  3. Yes, coffee has anti-oxidants by bahwi · · Score: 4, Informative

    And if you REALLY want a health benefit, switch to decaf. Sorry, I know everyone wants to pretend what they do is fine or healthy and wants to find that reason why, but some things are just bad for you(Fast food for example, although we all eat it anyways). Just because coffee has anti-oxidants doesn't mean that it will prevent cancer. Caffeine is pro-inflammatory, so most likely those anti-oxidants will be reducing damage of the caffeine.

    Don't wanna give up caffeine? No problem. Still want to reduce your risk of cancer, have some real food. Steam some kale, have an apple, some berries(Not Apple-Berry Poptarts, not the same thing). Just add a few veggies or fruits to your daily food intake and you'll be a lot better for it. Cut something out, or reduce, and you'll be even better. Don't have to give up coffee/caffeine, but it isn't some miracle health food, and don't think of it as such.

  4. Re:That explains... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    lol

    "Gaah. I don't tend to bother about slashdot, because quite frankly, the
    whole _point_ of slashdot is to have this big public wanking session with
    people getting together and making their own "insightful" comment on any
    random topic, whether they know anything about it or not."

  5. Re:Opposites Distract. by Babbster · · Score: 3, Informative

    If you read the article you'll find that the antioxidants are found in both regular and decaffeinated coffees. So, drink decaf and that knocks out the biggest health risk (you can hit this search to find out more about the biggest problem with caffeine) while preserving the "benefit."

  6. Antioxident quantity not valid for health benefits by rufusdufus · · Score: 2, Informative

    Antioxidents are a new fad, and while we might stipulate there is some validity to eating antioxidants, its a mistake to equate antioxidents in any particular food as being significant. The problem is that these studies never take into account total antioxidant intake in the diet.
    For example, while coffee and tea do have antioxidents in them, you'd have to drink dozens of gallons to equal what you get from a little bit of oregano (one of the foods with the highest antioxidant contant,far higher than blueberries). In fact, there are many many foods that have giant doses of antioxidents in them. If you look at your actual overall diet, it is unlikely that coffee would ever be a significant source of antioxidents. And if in fact it is, and you are concerned about antioxidents in your diet, you'd do better to add a higher source into your diets.
    For example, cherries, blueberries, dried plums, artichokes, russet potatoes, red cabbage, walnuts, pecans, hazelnuts, cinnamon, and cloves.

  7. Re:Health drink? by DilbertLand · · Score: 4, Informative

    Uh....a quick google search says that the LD50 of caffeine in rats is 192mg/kg...or about 15+ grams for a 180lb person......

  8. Re:Antioxident quantity not valid for health benef by The+Wooden+Badger · · Score: 2, Informative

    I don't disagree with you, but I wouldn't say antioxidants are a new fad. People have been pushing them for at least a decade.

    --
    Heroscape, it's like legos combined with anachronistic wargames.
  9. Dehydration causes cancer?? I think not. by spineboy · · Score: 3, Informative
    ..This can cause dehydration, probably the foremost cause of cancer...

    I'd like to see some documentation for that statement that you seemed to pull out from under your tin-foil hat. I have never heard ANY evidence to even remotely suggest that dehydration causes cancer. Honestly, show me even one article froma reputable scientific journal, and I will deign to argue this point with you, otherwise you are wasting our time with nonsensical ideas, like pyramid power and homeopathy.

    I'm fairly certain that I'm right- I know the literature, since I am an oncology surgeon.

    --
    ..........FULL STOP.
  10. Re:Too bad it's a diarrhetic. by zerblat · · Score: 3, Informative
    ITYM diuretic , not diarrhetic .
    This can cause dehydration
    Only if the diuretic effect isn't compensated by the water that coffee contains. AFAIK, coffee isn't dehydrating unless it's really, really strong (but I guess the diuretic effect varies a bit from person to person). So, if you're afraid of dehydration, just drink a glass of water with you coffee.
    --
    Please alter my pants as fashion dictates.
  11. Re:Yellow Teeth by moro_666 · · Score: 5, Informative

    actually getting yellow teeth barely is any real concern for the health (it may look ugly but it doesnt kill you)

    you should be althrough worried for the calcium levels that you affect with drinking coffee. in many studies coffee has been proved to be responsible for increasing calcium extraction from human body, therefor your teeth and bones will get weaker. this seems to be an individual dependant case however, not everybody is affected in the same range.

    see this link

    http://www.cosic.org/coffee-and-health/bone-health

    drinking enough milk will compensate this anyway, so if you are a real caffeine addict, just make sure you drink enough milk to keep the bones&teeth healthy and wash your teeth enough to keep em white. this way you wont break your bones while raising the coffe cup and wont need to go to dentist after your cup has accidently collided with your teeth.

    i love coffee, and there is nothing that keeps me from drinking it. concidering the chances that *vogon* ships may be out here by next thursday doesnt make really worried about the fact that my teeth may get yellow. (i dont like thursdays, seriously i dont like them!)

    ps. people who drink caffeine coffee should have their head examined.

    --

    I'd tell you the chances of this story being a dupe, but you wouldn't like it.
  12. Re:Yellow Teeth by moro_666 · · Score: 2, Informative

    oopsie, that last line should be

    ps. people who drink caffeine **FREE** coffee should have their head examined.

    my mistake, (i even used preview this time, but didnt notice the missing word) sry :)

    --

    I'd tell you the chances of this story being a dupe, but you wouldn't like it.
  13. Re:Didn't see that coming by slashdot.org · · Score: 3, Informative

    Are you serious? What's the source language you're translating from, if you don't mind me asking. I've never heard about the stuff being properly referred to as expresso in any language. It's a somewhat common mistake though, I thought it was expresso, too - when I was twelve... ;)

    Actually, according dictionary.reference.com expresso is "Variant of espresso.". So maybe it was originally a mistake (probably in several languages), but it seems to have been accepted, at least in English.

  14. Re:Didn't see that coming by henrygondorff · · Score: 3, Informative

    FYI, in Spain it's called "expreso"... this could have been the mistake. "Espresso" is the italian original name. Maybe he's Spanish. Anyway, I think everyone understood his point.

  15. Re:Anti-oxidants do no such thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Vitamin E has demonstrably no benefit in fighting heart disease. But thanks for playing!

    Lets get this straight, and I hardly ever write in caps, but:

    THAT STUDY WAS NOT PERFORMED WITH REAL VITAMIN E.

    It was a review of 19 studies of which 18 were performed with a synthetic substance which is inferior to vitamin E. Nobody should ever take that junk anymore than you should replace fruit with fruit candy.

    This is like doing a study of OpenBSD's server security with SCO & Mandriva Linux and complaining that it's insecure.

  16. Re:the worst are always good for you in some ways. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Type 1 diabetes has nothing to do with diet.
    Type 2 diabetes can be liked to diet in many cases, but not always. It also has a high genetic correlation.

    Hint: Don't assume you know everything about human health.

  17. Re:Health drink? by ozmanjusri · · Score: 2, Informative

    Um, forgive me if I'm wrong here

    I forgive you...

    To simplify calculations, we'll say espresso contains 100mg/cup of the finest Colombian caffiene, and an average, slightly corpulent Slashdot male weighs in at about 80kg. The LD50 of our stimulant of choice is 200mg/kg, or two cups for every single one of those 80kg's of twitching, testosterone fuelled muscle and lard.

    That means our hypothetical Slashdottian hero could drink 160 of those dinky little cups of coffee and have a fair expectation of living through the experience. Now an espresso cup is actually 30-40ml, (or 3.5-4.5oz, for those who understand arcane alchemical units), so that would mean knocking back about 6.4 litres of aromatic black bitterness.

    Possible, I suppose, but unlikely to happen by any accident I can currently imagine.

    --
    "I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
  18. Caffeine is an insect poison. by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 2, Informative


    Caffeine is an alkaloid. Alkaloids were invented by plants to slow being eaten by insects. Caffeine does not kill insects, it just prevents them from eating much of the plant. Not all poisons kill.

  19. Re:Once again, deceived by pseudo-science. by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 2, Informative


    Wow! Someone found some other pseudo-science: Dark chocolate is healthy.

    P.R. agencies are often very successful at fraud.

    --
    If you support dishonesty and violence, don't say you are Christian.

  20. Re:the worst are always good for you in some ways. by shawb · · Score: 3, Informative

    From the American Diabetes association: nearly 9 out of 10 people with newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes are overweight. That sounds like it's linked to diet and exercise. How to prevent diabetes? Diet and exersise.

    That is indeed a very strong correlation. It either means that obesity (or at least a lifestyle which leads to obesity) causes diabetes (type II anyways) or that diabetes contributes to obesity. Actually I wouldn't doubt that there is a catch 22 type situation where diabetes can contribute to a person growing overweight. The blood sugar spikes and lack of hormonal control would A)encourage overeating by signaling that the body is hungry earlier, and craving sweet foods which cause blood sugar jumps. B)disuade exercise by making it more difficult to exercise due to lack of control of the sugars which fuel muscles. C)insulin physically controls how fat is burnt in the body. Insulin in the blood directs the body to store sugar as fat, lack of insulin allows fat to be burned as energy.

    My guess is that it actually ends up being a catch-22 type situation. People who eat sugary foods and don't exercise regularly put themselves at a higher disposition for pre-diabetes (a medically accepted state where one's insulin is not functioning quite right.) and being in pre-diabetes can help lead to physical addictions to sugars and eating.

    --
    I'll never make that mistake again, reading the experts' opinions. - Feynman
  21. Re:Health drink? by TheLink · · Score: 2, Informative

    Maybe not that poisonous to us but it is poisonous to other animals - slugs, snails, frogs etc.

    BTW: other stuff that's relatively harmless to us but poisonous to other animals: chocolate for dogs, aspirin for cats, and the fumes from teflon frying pans for many types of birds.

    (acetaminophen/paracetamol/tylenol is very toxic for cats, but IMO I wouldn't say it's harmless to humans).

    --
  22. Re:Yellow Teeth by garett_spencley · · Score: 4, Informative

    I gave up coffee about a year ago for health reasons. Mostly because I have a history of heart disease and diabetis in my family. I don't honestly know if coffee will increase my risk of those, but I figured caffiene is still a stimulant, I'm addicted to it.. so lets cut it out of my diet just for the heck of it.

    So this article isn't without a bit of irony :)

    Anyway the other day I was going on 3 hours of sleep so I decided to make myself a cup a coffee and I became curious as to the calorie content of a cup of black coffee, assuming there are any calories in black coffee. I came across this page:

    http://www.dietbites.com/CalorieIndexDrinks.html

    I'm not sure how reliable it is... but it claims that coffee renders Vitamin B inactive. Not being a nutritionalist or a doctor I did a bit of research on what the B vitamins are good for and found out that they're pretty essential.

    According to this page: http://home.howstuffworks.com/vitamin-b.htm

    "The B-complex vitamins are actually a group of eight vitamins, which include thiamine (B1), riboflavin (B2), niacin (B3), pyridoxine (B6), folic acid (B9), cyanocobalamin (B12), pantothenic acid and biotin. These vitamins are essential for:

            * The breakdown of carbohydrates into glucose (this provides energy for the body)
            * The breakdown of fats and proteins (which aids the normal functioning of the nervous system)
            * Muscle tone in the stomach and intestinal tract
            * Skin
            * Hair
            * Eyes
            * Mouth
            * Liver"


    So .. while the article may have some truth to it, it seems like it's a pretty big trade off. You gain some anti-oxidants but you lose your Vitamin B and Calcium absorption .. which really sucks.

  23. Mercola's comments by MickoZ · · Score: 2, Informative

    If antioxydant is a topic that interest you -- you would want to read this too: http://www.mercola.com/blog/2005/aug/29/coffee_ame ricas_leading_source_of_antioxidants