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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?"
Does anyone really drink coffee because supposed health benefits?
...
I thought it was just the magic breakfast juice that helps me move, think,
More and more often I keep hearing about things like this.
"Doctors say more than 4 cups is bad for you!"
then, 2 months later... "Doctors say more than 4 cups is good for you!"
One month you hear too much fiber is bad for you, then cholesterol is good for you.
I think as long as everyone comsumes food/drinks moderately and not go over board most people have nothing to worry about. Although, with obesity in the United States the way it is today, I would say it's already too late.
Those who trade in their freedom for security, deserve neither.
It shouldn't be too surprising that too much of anything is bad for you. Most food stuffs have complicated chemicals in, and thus too much of any of them can give your body a hard time due to damaging reactions, or difficulty in disposal.
;)
However having said this, I until recently was having something like 6 cups of coffee a day. A few months ago my body started reacting really badly to even the smell of coffee, drinking a cup gives me a terrible reaction with shivering, accelerated heart rate and light-headedness for up to a few hours.
The stuff is nasty.
Currently I'm drinking 6 cups of tea a day instead
I was basically forced to quit drinking caffeine in Decemeber. This was not something I ever expected to be able to do. The migraine lasted for about a week straight but I have been basically fine since.
Since I was 22 I have had high blood pressure. I've spoken here about it before and complained about the high cost of Rx meds to control it and my belief that my Doctor (undercompensated by my insurance provider) is possibly pushing name-brand drugs instead of their generic counterparts to recoup some of that cost in kick-backs.
Anyway, I was gaining on 200mg daily of various meds to control the BP. I was also gaining in daily consumption of caffeine. 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).
After quitting the caffeine habbit I'm on 10mg of BP meds (about $10 a month) and water.
So, if you're looking to limit your heart disease and the high cost of protecting yourself against it with prescriptions, you might want to first take a look at your caffeine intake. It worked for me.
I think the problem with stories like this is that broad generalizations on health are made using one narrow area of research. In this case it is discovered that 4+ cups a day may cause heart disease.
Wait! Only if you have a certain gene that expresses itself. Or maybe it's because the gene causes a stressful life and it has nothing to do with coffee.
Perhaps in 20 years 1 cup a day will cause colon cancer. Maybe it will help you live 20 years longer. We are far too willing to jump to holistic health decisions based on a single narrow study.
I would hope that no one would make drastic life decisions (not that drinking/not drinking coffee should be that drastic) based on a single study.
Cut back on fast food, drink more water, eat more fruits and vegetables. My mom was trying to tell me that 20 years ago. You feel better and your body can better handle the impurities that you put in it. Then you don't have to focus so much on the small stuff.
You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means
I can only laugh as I sip on my Large Double-Double[1] Coffee from Tim Hortons. Coffee can kill me, my Work may kill me, walking across the street is dangerous. On the plus side, the coffee helps me cope at work and keeps me alert as I walk across the street: reducing 2 out of 3 risks isn't too bad.
[1] For those not in the know: double-double -- a coffee with double cream, double sugar (especially, but not exclusively, from Tim Hortons). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_slang
Proof by very large bribes. QED.
I see your joke but it really is pathetic how one study tells you this and another tells you something contrary. I remember when eggs were good for you and then they weren't and now they are good again. Apples were good for you ("An apple a day keeps the doctor away") and then they weren't ("The sugar in an apple can rot your teeth", my dentist told me.). Now, they are good for you again. And there are other examples out there.
And the other thing that should not amaze me as much as it does is grammar. How about "Coffee May Not Be a Health Drink". "Coffee Maybe Not a Health Drink!" sounds like Ebonics.
As with anything related to toxicology, the dose is the poison.
To a point, however that simplifies and misses the point of the article: The researchers are claiming that there are two common variants of the gene responsible for the systems that breaks down coffee, and those with one variant are made healthier by 3 cups of coffee a day, while those with the other variant (CYP1A2*1F) are detrimentally affected by the same.
So it's the dose...and the genes that build the systems that deal with the dose.
Also, as with anything else, direct causation is almost impossible to prove. 4+ cups of coffee leads to heart disease? I would postulate, not from scientific study but from anecdotal evidence gathered over years of stressful jobs, that the people under the most pressure and stress tend to drink the most coffee. So maybe the stress is what is causing the heart disease?
Also, coffee is so acidic that people who work out everyday are not likely to be able to drink 4+ cups a day (again, non scientific anecdotal evidence). Coffee is currently fashionable, but when I think of a stereotypical coffee addict like myslelf, I dont think of a slim trim health nut...
And All I Ask is a Tall Ship And a Star to Steer Her By
Coffee is currently fashionable, but when I think of a stereotypical coffee addict like myslelf, I dont think of a slim trim health nut...
To really appreciate coffee saturation, get to know Canadian culture (particular Vancouver or Southern Ontario). We quaff coffee close to universally, from stressful to calm, and from unhealthy to healthy. Small towns feature half a dozen drive through coffee shops, all hosting endless lineups.
Tip for breaking the vicious cycle: I've stopped drinking coffee twice... once cold turkey, once progressively after getting back into it through the devious paths of coca-cola and green tea (I didn't realise green tea had caffeine).
I found that breaking off progressively was *much* easier than all-of-a-sudden. You don't get all the psychological trip where your brain tries to convince you that you *must* have a cup otherwise something bad will happen (eg. you won't be sharp enough to do your job, etc). Breaking off cold turkey was a nightmare for a whole week, then progressively got better. Breaking off progressively (cutting my consumption by half every week, until I was having half a cup of espresso every other day, and then nothing at all) worked a LOT better, very smoothly. I don't even recall having any coffee cravings when I did that.
Daniel
Carpe Diem
I like to have a dose of espresso before meditating. It makes it more challenging. /K
It's not like it's freakin' heroin or something. First of all, you're probably better off being a "hard-core" coffee addict than a casual user of cocaine or heroin. Second, last time I checked there weren't any twelve-step programs for coffee drinkers, or patches to help them quit. That suggests that either people don't have a problem with being regular coffee drinkers, and/or they don't have much of a problem quitting if it's making them irritable, sleepless or whatever.
The whole "addiction" thing is just a little out of hand. When I'm working out in the desert I may drink two liters of water a day, and damn sure I feel a "need" for water when its 90 degrees. So I'm a water addict? To be an addiction, I think it has to (a) be seriously detrimental to your well-being, and (b) you have to have serious trouble quitting. Coffee doesn't meet either of those criteria.
I don't mean to discount their identification of a genetic link (which I think is valid), and I have no idea how Costa Ricans drink their coffee, but previous research has identified a risk in unfiltered coffee like that through a percolator or French press (or Turkish, Espresso machine, etc) vs filtered coffee. Since terpenes (oils) in unfiltered coffee are suspected raising cholesterol, it is possible that elevated cholesterol levels from drinking unfiltered coffee may also play a role here.
In any case, having that gene and drinking a lot of unfiltered coffee would put a person most at risk, I would think.
It's not like it's freakin' heroin or something. First of all, you're probably better off being a "hard-core" coffee addict than a casual user of cocaine or heroin.
Actually, if you're sure of the purity and dose of your heroin it's very physiologically benign. It's just an opiates, and pain patients use opiates their entire lives. If heroin were legal it would be cheap enough that addicts wouldn't have to steal to get it, and wouldn't be stigmatized by being an addict. Because of tolerance the actual deleterious effects of being opiated go away. They could live entirely normal lives.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
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.
Overall I agree with you, but I just thougth I'd mention that some studies suggest that the link between alcohol and aggression is sociological as well - in a study I read, people who believed they consumed alcohol, whether they had or not, were more aggressive than people who didn't think they had consumed alcohol, whether they had or not.
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