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Coffee Maybe Not a Health Drink!
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?"
As with anything related to toxicology, the dose is the poison.
"the difference between medication and poison is the dose"
So say we all
What happens is that conflicting summaries get posted around the Internet and everyone thinks scientists are just having them on.
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.
Anything to excess is likely to be harmful. The key is to find balance — moderation in all things, including moderation!
All about me
Well, I think what is missing is a technology of personal genomics.
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.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
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.
Saturday is April 1. Slashdot will be shut down. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Blame the media's lousy science reporting or poor reading comprehension skills, but what people see as conflicting results are often nothing of the kind, they just miss the details.
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.
After switching to Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper (aka Liquid Crack) I was heading for 5 to 6 20oz bottles a day (at work) plus 5 to 10 12oz cans every two days (at home).
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!
Stuff is complicated. Be glad that we strive to make progress, even when it means saying, "whoops, we were wrong."
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
As with all addictive substances, it's best not to become addicted.
Two cups a day means you are addicted. If you "need" a cup a day, you are addicted.
As with anything related to toxicology, the dose is the poison.
:)
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.
Latewire
The only danger to a double-double is falling asleep in the line-ups at Timmy's, waiting to get served. None the less, I will be having my ExLarge, two cream shortly. (Hopefully before the shakes kick in.)
.. paranoid crackpot leftover from the days of Amiga.
A lot of who is right depends on who funded each study and what they set out to prove (or disprove) in their study.
You know, hot liquids and milk, the curdling thing.
Why not fork?