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Drinking More Coffee May Undo Liver Damage From Booze (usatoday.com)
schwit1 writes: Drinking more coffee might help reduce the kind of liver damage that's associated with overindulging in food and alcohol, a review of existing studies suggests. Researchers analyzed data from nine previously published studies with a total of more than 430,000 participants and found that drinking two additional cups of coffee a day was linked to a 44% lower risk of developing liver cirrhosis.
Jokes aside, this will probably lead more people to drink coffee and alcohol at the same time since they think they'll stay awake longer and be able to drink more. This is a bad idea actually since having a stimulant and a depressant can lead to heart attacks (in severe cases) or capillary damage (in less severe cases).
Well, while I agree with you in principle, coffee is an outlier. After decades of trying to find the cloud to go with the silver lining researchers have been unable to find much evidence for serious harm from sustained heavy coffee usage. You won't get high blood pressure or ulcers; and far from causing cancer there is now solid evidence that coffee protects you from liver and pancreatic cancers.
As for the caffeine, the only serious issue still on the table is possibly higher miscarriage rates. Aside from that the negative effects of caffeine are minor: sleeplessness if taken too late, jitteriness if taken in unaccustomed amounts, withdrawal if you decide to go cold turkey. So don't go cold turkey, drink away and enjoy the benefits.
Now I've made lifestyle changes which have for the most part eliminated my craving for caffeine. Since there's diabetes in my family I've lost weight, increased exercise, and improved my diet. Consequently I don't need caffeine to power through my afternoon fog any more; I can take it or leave it. But the evidence for the health benefits of coffee are so overwhelming -- particularly for liver and pancreatic function -- that I've deliberately reintroduced heavy coffee drinking to my daily routine. I brew about 60-90 grams of grounds every day by various methods -- the equivalent of about 4-6 cups of drip coffee. If I have to skip I miss it, but because of the other changes I've made a day without coffee is not the brain-numbing torture it once would have been.
If Dr. Oz claimed that something does all the good things coffee does with so few drawbacks, I'd chalk it up to him being a lying bastard. But coffee's the real deal.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
It's wise to avoid going cold turkey on coffee. It's one way to get long term migraines that are tough to clear up.
Doesn't happen if you wean off coffee slowly.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.