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NIH Study Finds That Coffee Drinkers Have Lower Risk of Death
parallel_prankster writes "Older adults who drank coffee — caffeinated or decaffeinated — had a lower risk of death [full paper is paywalled, at the New England Journal of Medicine] overall than others who did not drink coffee, according to a study by researchers from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health, and AARP. Coffee drinkers were less likely to die from heart disease, respiratory disease, stroke, injuries and accidents, diabetes, and infections, although the association was not seen for cancer. These results from a large study of older adults were observed after adjustment for the effects of other risk factors on mortality, such as smoking and alcohol consumption. They also found that the association between coffee and reduction in risk of death increased with the amount of coffee consumed. Relative to men and women who did not drink coffee, those who consumed three or more cups of coffee per day had approximately a 10 percent lower risk of death. Researchers caution, however, that they can't be sure whether these associations mean that drinking coffee actually makes people live longer."
... was roughly one in one. Guess I was wrong.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 is the magic number.
The risk of death must be lower than the risk of taxes, though, because I pay taxes every year and I haven't died even once.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
NIH Study Finds That Coffee Drinkers Have Lower Risk of Death.
In other news, death is avoidable.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
So what you're saying is that any study whose result disagrees with your preconceptions must be garbage.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
A statement is released saying that coffee is known in the State of California to cause cancer
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
It's just all the extra fiber they get from the coffee.
This is probably because people with bad hearts, etc., do not drink coffee, hence only people who are healthier drink coffee when they are old. Isn't it amazing that they would have a reduced death rate. Imagine what the relative death rate would be for old people who skydive, compared to those who don't?
I'm not sure I understand. My risk of dying decreases with coffee? Is this the new fountain of youth?
Pretty Much
"The investigators caution that coffee intake was assessed by self-report at a single time point and therefore might not reflect long-term patterns of intake. Also, information was not available on how the coffee was prepared (espresso, boiled, filtered, etc.); the researchers consider it possible that preparation methods may affect the levels of any protective components in coffee. "
It's an Epidemiology study, which looks at patterns. Which can be helpful in locating real effects but findings are quite meaningless.
You could just as easily say it was because each coffee drinker had a pet rock or a sunny disposition. Need hard concrete proof that coffee is providing real health benefits. Interestingly enough, if you include smokers and drinkers - then you don't see a benefit. Which tells me there isn't a real benefit here. Because if there was you should see an improvement among drinkers and smokers.
I can't see how this is "good" for you and reduces risk of death.
And yet, the data says it is. This is why we do science, because not everything is obvious, and sometimes tests come back with unexpected results. That's how we learn things.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Even though a larger proportion of coffee drinkers may engage in those activities (I'm not saying they do, but let's grant it, for the sake of argument), if you control for the different variables, you can still draw correlations out of the data. For instance, a coffee drinker who also smokes may, on average, live longer than someone who smokes but doesn't drink coffee as well. Likewise for red meat, less exercise, etc.. They're not suggesting that coffee drinking cancels out the effects of all those other things. They're merely suggesting it may provide some benefits over similar people not drinking coffee.
You've alleged that their controls are terrible. Please elaborate on how, exactly, since they explicitly mentioned controlling for smoking in the article, which was one of your points.
My guess is that people who don't drink coffee more likely DO drink sugary sodas.
Of course those of us who drink massive quantities of coffee won't die from heart disease, respiratory disease, stroke, injuries and accidents, diabetes, or infections. We'll die by lunging at the coffee machine early one morning, slipping on the wet floor, then failing to catch our jittery selves because we're busy protecting the ceramic mug our child gave us fifteen years ago.
I think by now it should be obvious .. California causes cancer.
It's evident to me that Grandma didn't drink enough coffee.
This sounds like it could be correlated to other lifestyle choices. e.g., People who have a routine or work in an office and drink coffee are safer than other occupations.
It's really hard to control for all of the other possible factors.
Competition Good, Monopoly Bad.
There was an immortal coffee drinker in the study. There may have been an immortal non-coffee drinker in the study but the coffee drinker chopped his head off.
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
I assume they mean people who actually drink real coffee, and not those that drink mocha-frappa-whatever liquid candy bars.
Proverbs 21:19
pretty sure he is referring to Starbucks or Caribu or some other such nonsense. I don't buy the cheap stuff, but I get roughly 64 cups for about $10.
Oh man! It was so funny when those thirty people posted comments about immortality! We need that joke some more!
There was an interesting article a year or so ago that showed a correlation between coffee drinking and bowl movements vs water drinking. I will try to find it for citation, but the gist of it was: Due to the diuretic properties of coffee, the coffee drinkers had more regular bowl movements than those who drank water which meant that toxins spent less time in the intestines thus creating a lower likelihood of some intestinal diseases.
The study made me think whether some other drink would work as well (or better)? Fruit juice, cocoa, tea, even plain water? What's the secret component(s)?
As the text also notes:
"The mechanism by which coffee protects against risk of death — if indeed the finding reflects a causal relationship — is not clear, because coffee contains more than 1,000 compounds that might potentially affect health," said Freedman.
Coffee is known to be rich in antioxidants, so that could be one sporadic blind guess. But yeah.
People who live longer have a higher risk of being coffee drinkers.
Correlation is not causality.
The study was 400,000 people - that is a pretty massive sample size, and covers any amount of coffee and even decaf coffee, which contains very little caffeine. My family follows this exactly - if I use my grandparents as an example, my dad's side drank no coffee and both died of natural causes at 83 and 87. My mom's side both drank coffee (grandma decaf) and died at 94 (complications from a broken hip) and 95 (natural causes). Both of my grandpas were farmers, and had relatively sedentary housewife wives, and my grandpa on my mom's side farmed a 4x larger farm. My oldest aunt on my dad's side (since dad was a whoops when grandma thought she was in menopause - my aunt already had kids by the time my dad was born) drinks coffee and is 94.
At least this study has a sample size bigger than one professor.
parallel_prankster writes
a.k.a Juan Valdez.
I stopped drinking coffee a few years ago and feel a lot better. It upsets my stomach. It made me a lot more tense. I tended to sleep badly. Waking up at 5am. Headaches during the day. Generally felt misserable. It took about 6 months to kick off. Coffee is an adiction. And a pretty bad one. I can not understand these studies, probably funded by the coffee makers. Because generally if you drink coffee you will feel awful.