
The Case for Drinking as Much Coffee as You Like - alexpopescu
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/11/the-case-for-drinking-as-much-coffee-as-you-like/265693/
======
geoka9
Or for Pete's sake...

 _What I tell patients is, if you like coffee, go ahead and drink as much as
you want and can," says Dr. Peter Martin, director of the Institute for Coffee
Studies at Vanderbilt University. He's even developed a metric for monitoring
your dosage: If you are having trouble sleeping, cut back on your last cup of
the day. From there, he says, "If you drink that much, it's not going to do
you any harm, and it might actually help you. A lot._

What else can you expect from an "institute" with a name like this?

And, surely enough, a little more digging brings this:

 _Nashville's Vanderbilt University is to establish an Institute for Coffee
Studies this fall, funded by $6 million from the Brazilian Coffee Association
and other coffee-growing organizations._

<http://www.nature.com/nm/journal/v5/n3/full/nm0399_252b.html>

~~~
gyardley
That was a rather selective quote, given that the same article says this just
a paragraph down:

 _Institute director, Peter Martin, stresses that his research group wants to
maintain "arms length" from the coffee industry for ethical reasons. "We are
setting up a foundation to oversee the funds which will be administered by
independent scientific directors to ensure that there isn't even an appearance
of conflict of interest," he insists._

In addition, the original article described a wide variety of studies done by
many different institutions. I suppose it's _possible_ that they're all just
"studies" conducted by people in the pay of the nefarious coffee lobby, but we
probably shouldn't start resorting to conspiracy theories without a little
evidence.

~~~
DanBC
The described articles may be impeccable, but selected because they agree with
whatever viewpoint an institute wants to present. It's possible they've
ignored anything not agreeing with them. And it's probable that groups do
research that isn't published when it doesn't agree with whoever's funding it.

Ben Goldacre's book (pro science, about flaws in current system of research
and science reporting) "Bad Science" is w useful read.

------
jacques_chester
My hobby is weightlifing. About 3 weeks out from a competition I
systematically wean myself off caffeine by substituting more and more decaf
into my regular coffee until I'm purely on decaf.

Why? Two reasons.

The first is tolerance. Caffeine tolerance reduces the sense of freshness,
alertness, energy etc that coffee gives for any given dose. But tolerance
isn't a linear function for all the effects of caffeeine.

The practical upshot is that, on competition day, I wind up needing more
caffeine than usual to give me the extra pep to really perform well. But if
I'm already tolerant to caffeine, my "pep" dose will be high enough to cause
sweaty hands and to degrade my motor control -- in my case my grip becomes
weaker and my pulls are not as crisp. Olympic-style weightlifting is a
precision sport; I can't afford that.

Whereas, if I've weaned myself off caffeine over the preceding weeks, there's
been adenosine re-regulation and I've become more sensitised to it again. So I
can get all the pep and energy to push through a competition (it can be very
draining with all the warm up lifts) without the sweaty hands or weaker grip
or less accurate pulling technique.

The second reason to wean myself is that going cold turkey is _absolute hell_.

One rule I observe these days is that I don't consume caffeine after 1pm. I
can't get to sleep otherwise. In practice this means two cups a day: one when
I wake up, one before or during lunch. Even after the noticeable effects of
caffeine have faded, it has enough of a half life to make it difficult to fall
asleep in a timely fashion. Then you get stuck in the caffeine-sleeplessness-
caffeine feedback loop. Worth avoiding.

------
frankus
The biggest issue for me is that I respond very negatively to caffeine
withdrawal (I get extremely cranky and it often triggers a migraine). What
keeps me from drinking more is that I don't want a missed dose to ruin my
whole day.

Second biggest issue is that I tend to get hypoglycemic an hour or so later if
I don't have a carby snack at the same time.

A cup a day (with a cup of tea in the morning) is the best balance of
enjoyment versus drawbacks that I've found. If I want more I brew up a cup of
decaf.

Also I find an Aeropress is easy enough to be convenient but not so easy as to
trigger overconsumption (Cf. K-Cup). It doesn't hurt that it makes a great cup
of coffee.

~~~
saryant
I'm the same. I once tried going cold turkey from four cups a day and my
headaches were so bad I was useless for three days before I gave up and
started drinking coffee again.

Today I'm still at about four cups a day. Similar to you, I use a Chemex
instead of an automatic machine to slow my consumption.

~~~
sk5t
I went cold turkey a couple months ago because I didn't like the afternoon
headache and general feeling of uselessness that I'd suffer on days when it
wasn't practical to get coffee. Nor was it pleasant to live with the very fact
of a chemical dependency... I'm not quite as sharp in the morning on just
chamomile, but afternoons and sleep are much improved.

------
cheald
This makes me happy, because boy howdy do I go through a lot of it.

It's worth noting, though, that what you put into coffee may not be so good
for you. I sat down and did the math and realized that I was taking in almost
1500 calories/day in milk and sugar that I put in my coffee. I've since
switched to drinking it black or with just a bit of skim milk (to cool it -
the first cup out of a french press is scalding!), and have lost a significant
amount of weight just from that change alone.

~~~
jmmcd
Yeah that's an important point, also mentioned in the article. It also
mentions coffee that is designed to smell like "seasonal celebrations", ie
pumpkin spiced latte and similar. We have to distinguish between coffee and
dessert-in-disguise.

~~~
pyre
Well, all of those flavored lattes are done with sugary syrup. You can still
flavor your coffee without sugar. Things like raw cocoa powder, cinnamon,
nutmeg, ginger, etc. (maybe vanilla extract too, but I'm not sure how much
sugar that might have on its own)

~~~
dubya
Cardamom in coffee is quite tasty. It gives some of the flavor of Turkish
coffee without all the viscosity.

------
AceJohnny2
Like many, I started drinking coffee partway through college and continued
enjoying it when I started working. However I started noticing it triggered
some pretty bad anxiety and muscular tension and made me extremely moody. I
stopped for a while.

I finally found some excellent decaf (Ethiopian Sidamo at Zombie Runner [1] in
Palo Alto), so I can continue indulging the habit.

[1]
[http://www.zombierunner.com/store/categories/cafe_zombie/cof...](http://www.zombierunner.com/store/categories/cafe_zombie/coffee_beans/product1251.html)

~~~
shardling
This was exactly my experience.

It seemed to take a few months for my body to transition off caffeine. I
recommend switching to tea for the first couple of weeks, since that'll at
least prevent the terrible headaches.

I definitely feel healthier for quitting the habit, though I still miss "real"
coffee sometimes. :(

~~~
alexkus
It was 'just' a solid week of bad sleep, horrendous headaches and night sweats
for me when stopping.

Frightening to think of those withdrawl symptoms for such a seemingly
innocuous drug.

~~~
swah
I'm going the last 5 days w/o coffee and felt no difference at all regarding
anxiety, focus, sleep & headaches. I normally drank 3 cups in the morning
(200ml each I'd guess) and 3 after lunch.

~~~
aaronblohowiak
Caffeine sensitivity is highly variable between individuals. I am both
sensitive and a slow metabolizer; if I had 6 cups of coffee in one day my guts
would be churning and I would not be able to get anything done.

------
ryguytilidie
Yeah I can't imagine being permanently high on a drug being bad for you...this
study funded by the Institute for Coffee Studies is probably right, everyone
should take more of this drug!

~~~
chimpinee
I agree that being permanently high (and thus being out of touch with the body
and with emotions) is unhealthy -- however, perhaps some drugs are less
unhealthy than others.

[from the article]

>That there were no major differences in risk reduction between regular and
decaf coffee suggests there's something in it, aside from its caffeine
content, that could be contributing to these observed benefits

It could merely be that people who drink coffee eat less food, and that food
is a less healthy drug

~~~
justatdotin
"and thus ..." : I actually sometimes find that being high puts me more in
touch with body and emotions .. _shrug_

~~~
chimpinee
Oh I agree. In vino veritas. But 'permanently high' is different: it isn't
really a high at all.

------
rpm4321
Anecdotally, this seems like pretty reckless advice, and I'm a caffeine
junkie.

Don't get me wrong, it's clearly not crystal meth, but Caffeine overdoses are
real and can be dangerous, especially in a situation where you are drinking a
boatload of coffee. I'm sure I'm not the only person on this board that has
had some minor heart palpitations during an all-nighter after one too many
coffees or Coke Zeros.

~~~
Firehed
There's overdosing (to the point where you risk it being lethal) and then
there's general ill effects. Even as someone very light (OD dosage is based on
your weight, unsurprisingly[1]), it would require me to take multiple caffeine
pills before I'd have to potentially go to the hospital: I simply couldn't do
it through coffee alone - it's just too much liquid to consume in too short a
time. Even with crazy-strong coffee (250+mg/cup) I'd need to drink 30+ [2]
cups.

But you can bet your bottom dollar that drinking a dozen cups of coffee by
lunchtime will have some pretty interesting results. You'll feel your heart
racing and probably experience something like extreme ADD. Probably headaches,
nausea, crazy jitters. The severity depends on your tolerance to caffeine, of
course. I get nasty headaches 6-8 hours after waking if I don't get my morning
coffee, so it takes me quite a lot to get into _over_ dose land.

[1] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffeine#Caffeine_intoxication> [2]
~150mg/kg for LD50; I weigh about 50kg

~~~
rpm4321
Yep, clarified a bit below in my response to nickkthequick that I was talking
more about my personal experiences with what I would call minor caffeine
overdoses, not the clinical definition of caffeine intoxication. My main point
is that the notion that massive amounts of caffeine injestion is consequence
free, especially as it's usually paired with sleep deprivation, is laughable.

------
alexpopescu
Plus two older HN threads:

1\. Ask HN: How much coffee do you drink?:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4606007>

2\. Ask HN: Coffee Drinkers, How Do You Brew?
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4408221>

------
laowan
Coffee just makes me need to shit a lot more.

~~~
psweber
This is rarely (if ever) mentioned in all these articles claiming that coffee
is so beneficial. I drink a fair amount of coffee and try to cut back
frequently because of this issue. It isn't just that coffee makes me crap
more, it degrades the...qualify of the crap. Am I alone here? Seems like it
can't be good for me.

~~~
jsolson
I agree with you that the frequency of my shitting goes up while the quality
goes down, although I was amused when I came across this line:

> That same high dosage is also effective in fighting against colorectal
> cancer

I do have to wonder if it's not a primary effect of anything in the coffee,
but rather a byproduct of the secondary effects.

------
alexkus
I can't put in to words how much better I feel, and sleep, since switching to
decaffeinated[1] coffee.

1\. You still get some caffeine; decaf is about 5% of the caffeine of normal
coffee.

~~~
wyclif
...or switch to high-quality green tea, which has trace amounts of caffeine—
enough to maintain sufficient alertness in the morning, I've found.

------
carbocation
Epidemiologically, coffee consumption (even up to >6 cups/day) does not appear
to be associated with risk for heart attack.[1] This is a large cohort study
(128,000 people). Obvious limitations include the fact that the coffee intake
assessment was via a questionnaire administered every few years, and that it's
a cohort study and not an RCT.

I understand that there may in fact be organs in the human body that are not
the heart, but when I hear people talking about caffeine risk, they generally
seem to be referring to heart disease, so that's the kind of article I
pubmed'ed.

1) <http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/113/17/2045.long>

------
leoh
Misguided. For some people, Coffee is probably okay. But I have noticed that
after drinking it for a few days, I suffer from general exhaustion, and I
don't think I am alone. There is also some research that in some individuals,
coffee can affect adrenal function. I think the key is to be mindful about
usage of any substance; with respect to our person and how we feel, we can
sometimes be the best scientist.

------
bitteralmond
Rule of thumb: Never trust a study funded by someone who would benefit
directly from a certain result. It doesn't matter how sound the science seems.

------
tomkin
I'm gonna call BS on this. Hiatal hernia's are frequently associated with over
consumption of coffee, which has other effects on the heart, esophageal and
stomach lining. Anecdotally, an alarming amount of heavy coffee drinkers also
seem to be taking maintenance prescription antacids, Nexium, etc. None of
which are intended for long term use as they deplete Vitamin B12, among other
issues.

------
rdtsc
> says Dr. Peter Martin, director of the Institute for Coffee Studies at
> Vanderbilt University.

The director who is paid to study coffee says that coffee is good for you. I
am shocked, shocked, I tell you!

------
beagle3
According to Dave Asprey (self-described biohacker), you should drink good
coffee but never drink decaf:
[http://www.bulletproofexec.com/coffee-5-reasons-you-can-
perf...](http://www.bulletproofexec.com/coffee-5-reasons-you-can-perform-
better-10-ways-to-live-longer/)

If you are adventurous, you should try his "bulletproof coffee" (high quality
coffee with butter, but there's more to it - you can find details on his
website). Butter is also good for you. Really.

~~~
mistercow
I'm not saying this to be mean, but I think it's important to point out that
Dave Asprey is a quack, and his "Upgraded Coffee" is snake oil. Asprey is
happy to cherry-pick studies to support his products, but the fact is that
there is simply no good reason to believe that mycotoxin levels in ordinary
coffee are high enough to have any measurable effect on humans who drink it.
(And if you look carefully at his citations, you'll notice that he does not
bridge that crucial gap between "mycotoxins are bad for you" and "my coffee
has lower mycotoxin content").

This guy's combination of scientific literacy and alarmingly poor reasoning
really makes me nauseous, because I can't simply write it off as mere
incompetence. For instance, look at this infographic:
[http://www.bulletproofexec.com/wp-
content/uploads/2012/04/Bu...](http://www.bulletproofexec.com/wp-
content/uploads/2012/04/Butter-Infographic1.jpg) . Specifically, look at the
part comparing 1910 and 2000. That's not just a case of spurious correlation.
It's like something I would _make up_ as a wacky example of spurious
correlation.

~~~
beagle3
Well, you may call him what you want, and yes, he is not right about
everything.

> you'll notice that he does not bridge that crucial gap between "mycotoxins
> are bad for you" and "my coffee has lower mycotoxin content"

I'm not sure which gap you think needs to be bridged here?

> Specifically, look at the part comparing 1910 and 2000. That's not just a
> case of spurious correlation. It's like something I would make up as a wacky
> example of spurious correlation.

I'm not sure what you're reading into this. When I look at it, I don't think
"butter protects against heart problems" (which seems to be your
interpretation, and I agree cannot be concluded from this data, not even
remotely), but rather "butter can't be the evil it is made to be, as this
statistic shows". Which is perfectly reasonable.

The thing about the QS movement, and people like Asprey, Roberts and Ferris,
is that they offer very cheap experiments with easily measurable outcome, so
you don't have to wait for a 30-year double blinded test that is blessed by
anyone.

I've tried several things they recommend, and the vast majority of the
practice checks out (regardless of the theory behind it).

I haven't tried his coffee, but I did start putting butter in my Lavazza
coffee, and as a result lost weight and am feeling much better. You don't have
to be a "believer" to try and see if things work for you. I don't think he's
right about everything, but a lot of the counterintuitive things him (and
Ferris, and Roberts) suggest actually work.

~~~
mistercow
>I'm not sure which gap you think needs to be bridged here?

I said it explicitly: "there is simply no good reason to believe that
mycotoxin levels in ordinary coffee are high enough to have any measurable
effect on humans who drink it."

>When I look at it, I don't think "butter protects against heart problems"
(which seems to be your interpretation, and I agree cannot be concluded from
this data, not even remotely), but rather "butter can't be the evil it is made
to be, as this statistic shows". Which is perfectly reasonable.

It isn't perfectly reasonable. Life expectancy in 1910 was 48 for men, and 51
for women. The average age for heart attacks today is 66 for and 70 for women.
Some, but not all of that is infant mortality, yes, but the fact is that if
people in 1910 had less heart disease than people today, it is likely largely
because people in 1910 often didn't long enough for heart disease to become a
problem.

And that's just one factor that the comparison fails to control for. The way
people lived and ate in 1910 was completely different from the way people
lived and ate in 2000, and it is quite likely that those changes simply
overwhelm the change with respect to one particular kind of saturated fat.
That doesn't mean that butter fat is harmless. It just means that you can't
see the harm if you also change _everything else_.

As a side note, where are these statistics about heart disease in 1910 coming
from? We get the top-level URL for dietheartpublishing.com (which is low on
data, high on sensationalist paleo-quackery), but no link to specific data.
Are we relying on what doctors were able to diagnose in 1910? Because that's a
whole other level of flawed.

>I've tried several things they recommend, and the vast majority of the
practice checks out (regardless of the theory behind it).

What you think you've experienced through personal trials is not significant
evidence.

~~~
beagle3
> "there is simply no good reason to believe that mycotoxin levels in ordinary
> coffee are high enough to have any measurable effect on humans who drink
> it."

I don't keep the links handy, but a one second google brings up this:
<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16284846> and a tens of other references.
Coffee was not studied as extensively as far as I know, but if you have reason
to believe that it is better protected than wheat and maize, please let me
know why. The only non-asprey link about coffee toxin studies I could find is
a single article from the 1980 that says "I looked, I didn't find, I stopped
looking".

> Some, but not all of that is infant mortality, yes, but the fact is that if
> people in 1910 had less heart disease than people today, it is likely
> largely because people in 1910 often didn't long enough for heart disease to
> become a problem.

Well, in 1860-1910, US white infant mortality rate was coming down from 21% to
10% (with black mortality rate, when documented, being 50% higher than the
white one). I don't know if that data is included in the "1910 life
expectancy", but it is likely that it is. In Italy, it was going down from 25%
to 13% over the same period. That's enough to make the "48/51" lifespan you
quote meaningless (sources I found say 54, but whatever).
<http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/haines.demography>

If you consider "life expectancy of anyone aged > 4", then all of a sudden 50
years jumps to 62 years; and if you consider "life expectancy of anyone aged >
20", then it will surely increase the 1910 number to 70 or more, while hardly
nudging today's numbers. I agree that his statistic is not conclusive in any
way, but your interpretation is not valid either.

> That doesn't mean that butter fat is harmless. It just means that you can't
> see the harm if you also change everything else.

That is true. And yet, there is virtually no direct evidence of harm from
butter than I can find. (Neither is there from cholesterol intake, for that
matter - or salt intake, with the exception of a well defined 20% of the
population - that is, if you're not in those 20%, there is no evidence of salt
harm).

> Are we relying on what doctors were able to diagnose in 1910? Because that's
> a whole other level of flawed.

Yes, that's true. But that throws away any study done before the early 1990s -
which is also flawed. We're damned if we do, damned if we don't, and everyone
gets to pick their own favourite data and interpretation.

> What you think you've experienced through personal trials is not significant
> evidence.

What I discovered is significant for my daily life, is significant for my
daily life (duh, it's a tautology). I'm not saying you should believe it
because it worked for me. I'm saying you should try and figure what works for
you.

FWIW, my ex was a medical doctor and I regularly read BMJ and NEMJ for a
while. That was before Ionnadis's paper, but I remember thinking back then
that 70% of what was published was statistically invalid.

Much of what is considered significant evidence in medicine and health today,
is not significant evidence. If the experiment is simple and cheap enough, you
should do it yourself.

~~~
mistercow
>I'm saying you should try and figure what works for you.

And I'm saying that that's the same mantra that homeopaths, chiropractors and
other peddlers of pseudoscience repeat. "Figure out what works for you" has
implications dangerously close to relativism. To find out what works, you need
science. "Try it yourself" isn't science.

~~~
beagle3
I feel sorry for you, really.

I figured out that wheat is bad for me. As in, I've stopped taking in wheat
(much harder than it sounds, because it's used as a filler in just about
everything), upped my overall caloric intake (mostly coconut fat and butter),
and lost 30 pounds in a month feeling much much better. As in, better than in
years. That happened 24 months ago, and it stayed off.

My doctor, seeing it, said it was impossible - because every test HE had at
his disposal said I did not have a wheat allergy (or intolerance, or whatever
other variations of "bad for you" medicine has).

If you claim that losing 30 pounds in one month and it staying off for two
years since is placebo, I'm going to laugh at you, and so will everyone else
who actually has a brain and is not religiously following some mantras.

A friend of mine is allergic to peppers of any kind. Not deathly allergic, but
excruciating-pain allergic. 20 years ago or so, it was not a standard
diagnosis, and some doctors therefore suggested it was psychosomatic (because
apparently, that was the only "scientific" explanation). Whatever it is she
has, has since become a standard diagnosis (she's missing an enzyme, and it is
a recessive genetic trait). Are you seriously claiming that she should have
eaten peppers all these years because her self diagnosis was "not scientific"?
I would give you the benefit of doubt that you do not, although your response
indicates otherwise.

The "science" you talk about is a religion, and if you refrain from self
experimenting because "it is not science", then you are a religious zealot.
Physics is science; Chemistry is science; Nutrition and Medicine are religions
that are controlled by politics and money, that are informed by science, but
are definitely not following it.

Yes, science is a great thing. It's hardly related to modern nutrition, and
missing from some areas of modern medicine.

Doctors and nutritionists have been claiming for years that salt is bad for
you, and dietary cholesterol is too (to the point that you should limit e.g.
eggs to no more than two a week). If you can find scientific evidence anywhere
that, say, 25 eggs/day, is not healthy, then please show it. Because no one I
know is aware of any. Or any evidence for calorie balance (carb=4kcal/g,
fiber=0kcal/g, ...) theory for that matter. Add nutrition experts and "MDs" to
your list of homeopaths and other pseudoscience peddlers - they're only better
on the average because their pool of (mandated!) beliefs is culled more often
-- but definitely not often enough to give it the halo of science that you
assume it has.

~~~
mistercow
>I feel sorry for you, really.

After reading your comment, I assure you that the feeling is mutual.

------
eavc
This is just stupid. Caffeine should either be consumed in moderation or not
at all.

