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?"

Comments

Dose

[ThenAgain]

As with anything related to toxicology, the dose is the poison.

Re:Dose

[ergo98]

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.

Re:Dose

[Alex P Keaton in da]

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...

here we go again

[dkode]

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.

Well,

[deletedaccount]

I've started injecting it, so I'm not sure how this applies to me.

Ex Caffeine Junky

[garcia]

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.

What does this mean...

[dantheman82]

for the future of Java? For now, I'm drinking green tea and coding in C#.

You Misunderstand

[Makarakalax]

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.

Re:Who Cares

[TripMaster Monkey]

It is by coffee alone I set my mind in motion.
It is by the juice of the java bean that thoughts acquire speed.
The teeth acquire stains; the stains become a warning.
It is by coffee alone I set my mind in motion.

Apologies to Frank Herbert.

Studies have shown...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Studies have shown that research causes cancer in lab rats."

Totally offtopic about your signature

[fistfullast33l]

while ($beer != full) { $beer = new Beer(); chug($beer); }

So here's a small problem with your signature - you run the while loop until the beer is full...but you chug the beer inside the while loop. Which means that once your beer is full...you stop drinking. Of course, this is all dependent upon the fact that chug doesn't empty the glass, which is usually what happens when you chug...so basically I think you need to check the return of chug to make sure it didn't fail. Otherwise you might have problems.

Sorry for wasting your time.

please read more carefully in the future

[raygundan]

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.

Warning: This May Be Harmful To Your Health

[ackthpt]

"Coffee Maybe Not a Health Drink!" Gasp! :-)

From a life-long geek's perspective:

• I've sat for hours, for years in front of 25" colour TVs before they reduced radiation emissions.
• I've eaten countless bags of crisps flavoured with chemicals for visual and taste enhancements and dusted with MSG
• I've eaten countless pounds of fried foods
• I've made my share of /. typos (inadvertent and purposful)
• I've raced on a bicycle over 60 MPH downhill
• I've been hit with kilovolt shocks
• I attended dozens of indoors Hamfests, choked with the smog of hundreds of cigarettes, plus a few pipes and cigars.
• I've been run over by a car
• I've drunk a Mickey's Bigmouth
• I flew on a jet that bounced on the runway at Baltimore
• I fell out of a raft in the middle of Lost Paddle class V rapids in the Upper Gauley river of West Virginia
• I've collided with my brother's sled on an icy hill in Michigan, nearly fracturing my skull.
• I've been in 3 auto accidents
• I've lept off a 40 foot cliff into a flooded quarry
  • I'm not done yet.

    Regarding health, it will be bad for someone's if I don't get my coffee.

Who funded the study?

[deviantphil]

A lot of who is right depends on who funded each study and what they set out to prove (or disprove) in their study.