
Drinking 3-4 Cups of Coffee Is “More Likely to Benefit Health Than to Harm It” - Exo_Tartarus
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/11/171122190659.htm
======
Exo_Tartarus
I'm going to go out on a limb here and state a theory I've been considering
for a while that could explain these coffee health benefit results...

The liquids I and everyone else consumes can be placed in two classes: pure
water and everything else.

When I'm not drinking pure water, my drink of choice is usually coffee, of
which I drink about 3 cups a day.

Now let's think of the alternative non water drinks out there... Many of them
are sodas which have obscenely high sugar levels, just like most drinks that
aren't pure water.

Someone who doesn't drink coffee may have more of these sugar containing
drinks when they're not drinking pure water, inundating their bodies with
harmful amounts of sugar.

So the benefits we see from high levels of coffee consumption come not from
the coffee itself but from a substitution effect of replacing unhealthy sugary
drinks with coffee.

A good test for this would be to see if tea drinkers also experience health
benefits similar to those seen in the study. If not then that may indicate
that my theory is wrong.

~~~
Nydhal
Here's another theory. Coffee makes you move more. Moving is healthy. Think of
how coffee gets people off their desks to get it and also because of the
caffeine and the need to urinate after. Its unlike other drinks as people
don't carry it in bottles, it requires more movement. Maybe the sedentary
lifestyle is what's killing people.

~~~
kelvin0
Coke and Meth also make you move more ... not sure I'd call those health
supplements.

~~~
digi_owl
Could have sworn i have seen old ads for meth as a diet pill...

------
d_burfoot
In about 100 years, people will realize that this kind of research doesn't
actually work.

Here's the problem: the human body is an immensely complex system, with
millions of factors influencing its status and well-being. Untangling these
factors correctly and producing an accurate and sophisticated statistical
theory of the body would require a comparably large number of parameters - on
the order of millions or more.

Unfortunately, modern medical science relies on low-N observational or
clinical trials, with N on the order of hundreds or thousands. In this
radically low-data regime it is impossible to justify the use of complex
models. If you try to use a complex model, you will just get overfitting. You
can use a simple model to avoid overfitting, but there's no reason to believe
that a simple model will produce a good approximation of the underlying
dynamics.

~~~
cJ0th
I've never understood this phenomena myself. Those who do this kind of
research on a daily basis must have been rather smart to get their job.
Surely, they must be intelligent enough to realize that what they do does not
really add up to much?

~~~
Asooka
Publish or perish.

------
RobertRoberts
I think this kind of information is funded by the caffeine industry. This is
pure insanity. It took me a month to quick coffee (IT professional here) and
to stop hating my life. Another 5 months to finally get completely over it
where I didn't feel like I was dragging every day.

Now, I am free from coffee addiction and happy as I have ever been. No way in
hell is that stuff good for you.

Read Caffeine Blues, it will wake you up for real.

[https://www.amazon.com/Caffeine-Blues-Hidden-Dangers-
America...](https://www.amazon.com/Caffeine-Blues-Hidden-Dangers-
Americas/dp/0446673919/)

~~~
vesak
Yeah, what I find weird is this:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_coffee_chemicals](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_coffee_chemicals)

More than a thousand chemical compounds in coffee, area of active research.
Does this imply that we don't know much about coffee yet?

And more anecdotally, what I find weird is that when I switch from coffee
drinking to tea and soft drinks, there seems to be no amount of caffeine
intake that make the withdrawal symptoms go away. For me, there certainly is
something in coffee besides caffeine that hooks me.

~~~
gizmonty
There are more than a thousand chemical compounds in anything you eat that
came from nature.

------
e9
We all have gene in our liver for making enzyme that breaks down caffeine. Due
to small genetic differences, some of us have enzyme that breaks down caffeine
quickly and others that breaks it down slowly. If you win genetic lottery and
produce enzyme that breaks down caffeine fast then you flush out caffeine and
end up reaping benefits of antioxidants found in coffee beans. If you have
enzyme that breaks down caffeine slowly, caffeine hangs around longer causing
health problems. That's all there is.

~~~
nastygibbon
Do you have a source for this?

~~~
vesak
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CYP1A2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CYP1A2)

~~~
jooke
Where on this page does it say that having this mutation makes coffee less
harmful?

------
cletus
So the article touched on this briefly but I think it's a point worth
exploring: a big problem with many sources of caffeine is also that sugar
confuses the issue. Many people have an excessive amount of sugar with their
coffee (personally I find coffee revolting and 4+ sugars is the only way I
could cope if I were forced to drink it).

Other caffeinated drinks (eg sodas) are either sweetened (sugar or HFCS or
have artificial sweeteners.

So about a month ago I decided I was drinking too much caffeine. I'm talking
600-700mg a day. I should also point out that my variance with and without
caffeine is pretty low. In college for example I tried once to take caffeine
pills to stay awake to cram. Not sure how much I took but it was enough that
my hands were shaking. I still fell asleep just fine. Some people really do
seem a whole lot more sensitive to this than I am.

Anyway, my reason wasn't coffee in particular but sugar. For years I've drunk
artificial sweetener sodas and ignoring any other possible side effects I
think the big problem is that they still taste sweet so it seems like they
still feed the craving loop for sugar without containing any sugar.

It's early days yet but I think I can already notice some difference. Like I
had ice cream tonight that I've had many times before and it tasted too sweet.

Anyway I think it's impossible to talk about caffeine consumption without also
considering sugar consumption because they really do go hand in hand.

Caffeine is a stimulant and seems like it can be used to enhance some
activities including athletic ones [1].

[1] [https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/03/how-
athle...](https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/03/how-athletes-
strategically-use-caffeine/283758/)

~~~
jacalata
> Anyway I think it's impossible to talk about caffeine consumption without
> also considering sugar consumption because they really do go hand in hand.

Not for everyone - there are people who drink coffee black with no sugar
(especially espresso drinkers).

~~~
erikbye
Yep. I only drink black coffee, no sugar, and I don't eat sweets, cookies, or
anything. In fact, I mostly don't consume anything but coffee from I wake up
until dinner time, 6-7 PM.

~~~
blueprint
So you're repeatedly having coffee on an empty stomach? That can't be good for
you.

~~~
erikbye
Haven't noticed any of the supposed side-effects doing so could cause. For a
while, not eating for hours was also supposedly bad for you. Then fasting
started to show benefits. It turns out traditional dietary advice might not be
worth jack shit.

[https://www.coffeeandhealth.org/topic-overview/coffee-and-
di...](https://www.coffeeandhealth.org/topic-overview/coffee-and-disorders-of-
the-stomach/)

One study found a slight increase in acid reflux when drank on an empty
stomach, a problem I don't have, other than that there does not seem to be any
associations with gastritis, ulcers, or dyspepsia.

~~~
blueprint
Yes, intermittent fasting is said to be quite good for organisms. Maybe a form
of hormesis. I'm unfortunately not in a position to comment much on caffeine's
health effects aside from various interesting and likely true points of
speculation but I find what you shared interesting and do not doubt for a
second that medical science (including nutrition, and immunity) is not
properly understood except by a rare handful who have the ability to see
things whole.

~~~
erikbye
I believe coffee has a lot of beneficial properties, but I have a slight
concern regarding caffeine as it reduces CBF. That might impair cognitive
functions. Supposedly you can mitigate some of the vasoconstriction with
flavonoids.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/19219847/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/19219847/)

------
emptybits
Observation: Coffee studies often report (in headlines and abstract and body)
consumption in terms of _cups_.

At best, this refers to a standardized 250 ml or 8 oz measuring cup
(unfortunately, still rarely what "a cup of coffee" generally means to those
who read these headlines and adjust behaviour as a result).

At worst, the term is used to allow for ambiguity and variance expected in
self-reporting.

I recognize there are many other variables that are even harder to measure
than beverage volume, like mg of caffeine or diterpenes or antioxidants. But
"cups" just seems so loose.

Related question: Is there a somewhat accurate amateur method of measuring
caffeine content? I vary my beans and roasts and method a fair bit for fun and
taste. e.g. various beans, light vs medium vs dark roasts, varying apparatus,
mass of beans per "cup", filter types, and brewing time. I would like to have
insight into how much caffeine I'm consuming.

~~~
DiabloD3
Ahh, now here comes the fun part. There is no standard.

250ml is 8.5 ounces. Some places in Europe standardized on this.

A cup of anything else is 8 ounces.

A "cup of coffee" (the actual unit) is 6 ounces, and this is the standard
everywhere where 250ml isn't, and we're not in Japan; but even though the US
follows the 6 ounce standard, the USDA considers a cup 8 ounces on their
nutrition table.

Japan has standardized on 200ml (or about 6.7 oz).

What SHOULD be measured is _not_ liquid volume, but bean weight (measured in
grams; even Ameicans measure it in grams when they're the type to weigh it
instead of just throwing ambiguously heaped tablespoons in); and _then_
shifted according to that blend's particular caffeine content (outside of
specialty products with high-caffeine bean variants, caffeine content can vary
about +/\- 50% depending on the origin of the beans (roasting does not effect
caffeine content meaningfully, although the myth lives on)).

------
pixie_
There's enough anecdotal evidence here to fuel a study in it of itself. I'm
surprised there isn't an app out there where you can opt into any number of
studies. Surely there's potential for an app like this.. Anyone want to get
together and build it?

* edit - maybe it's just an app where you like 'Facebook' all your medical history, and post daily diets, health issues like headaches, acne, etc...

All the data is public and accessible by anyone to trend. There would be no
usernames though, everyone just has a guid and all the guids can find people
like themselves and chat with anonymity.

~~~
touristtam
Open for massive fraud as an elective system which might be very damaging for
the endeavor itself and could completely discredit it.

~~~
pixie_
We have an open position for you on the team to use machine learning to root
out fraud ;)

------
dghughes
I only drink one cup per day and I only started when I was in my early 30s so
I guess I'm not getting much out of it.

Some people like me are very sensitive to caffeine. I wonder if we the jittery
ones process caffeine slower and could that be a disadvantage.

Acrylamide due to roasting isn't a great thing either.

Hot liquid ingested every day may be a risk for throat cancer.
[https://www.cancer.org/latest-news/world-health-
organization...](https://www.cancer.org/latest-news/world-health-organization-
says-very-hot-drinks-may-cause-cancer.html)

~~~
Moto7451
Your link’s first paragraph states coffee is usually consumed at temperatures
below the risk threshold. A couple paragraphs later is states that coffee has
been removed from their list of beverages they’re worried about.

~~~
dghughes
But that information seems to change every few years. The acrylamide is the
newest twist created during roasting, even cold brew can't escape acrylamide.

For me, I have to be careful drinking coffee because I have GERD if I drink
too much coffee my throat spasms and at night I cough up stomach acid while
asleep. It gets into my lungs and over time damages lung tissue.

Even for coffee roasters, the people near the coffee are at risk of lung
damage from whatever roasting coffee emits.
[https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/investigations/2017/09/2...](https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/investigations/2017/09/26/cdc-
finds-workers-coffee-facility-wisconsin-increased-respiratory-symptoms-
abnormal-breathing/699422001/)

------
theatraine
I wonder what the health benefits are for different caffeine metabolizers
(i.e. for different CYP1A2 genotypes). The source article only mentions that
slow metabolizers have a higher risk of hypertension, but is that outweighed
by the other benefits?

------
bitL
4 cups of coffee in a row don't do anything to me and adding more makes me
asleep. I guess I am one of those for whom coffee is just one of ways to stay
hydrated and nothing else. Similarly alcohol, it doesn't affect my thoughts
just coordination, I am not more open/brave/socially whatever with it. I guess
I should be a monk...

~~~
maxxxxx
I used to be like that until my 30s but suddenly it changed. Now I can't sleep
if I drink just one cup. It also makes me uncomfortably hyper.

------
spraak
Many people in this thread are sharing that coffee/caffeine doesn't work for
them, and then others are replying that it must not be true, there's
scientific evidence!!11 Look, one scientific study doesn't mean it will work
for everyone. It's very likely that there is plenty of counter evidence
available, as with almost every study. We all live by our own personal
guidance, and that's fine if it doesn't hurt anyone. Coffee or not, it's great
what works for you. But those replying here saying that person's personal
experience mist be wrong, are just rude and ignorant.

~~~
ojbyrne
This isn’t just one study, it’s a meta-analysis of “over 200” studies.

------
saryant
If I drink that much caffeine I get _very_ sensitive to anxiety attacks.

~~~
inDigiNeous
Yeah I used to think anxiety attacks were something I could not get, but then
I got into a stint of drinking 1 (!) cup of coffee daily when I was under
pressure to get some boring work done, and made a habit out of that for maybe
3 months.

During those months, I experienced anxiety attacks for the first time in my
life. I did not realize at first that long term (for me, 3 months) coffee
consumption slowly helped drive myself towards constantly doing more than I
realistically had the energy to do, somehow triggering these very anxietic
episodes couple of times, where I was feeling like I was in danger, it was
hard to breath, and I was panicking, I really didn't know what was happening.

Later I realized coffee did this. There are studies of coffee putting the body
into a state of fight-or-flee constantly, rising the heart rate and making
people very jumpy, so that might explain why this happened.

Also, I've been noticing that drinking coffee tends to over focus my focus on
one task and not see to whole picture, so it is very easy to go in one
direction too far with a project for example, and just start fine tuning
whatever little details come at me, when more better would be to see the big
picture again and change directions.

I can hardly see how coffee is a good thing on a global scale, except for the
work force who want to do stuff that is not otherwise interesting.

------
andr3w321
Drinking decaf ~one week a month is a good way to reset your tolerance

~~~
Fnoord
This doesn't make sense. Caffeine has a half time of 4 hrs (3-7 according to
this source [1] but lets assume 4 for the sake of argument). So if you consume
a cup, in 4 hours, you got 50% of caffeine remaining. If you then drink
another cup, you go from 0,5 to 1,5 and after 4 more hours you are on 0,75
which is 75% of your first dose. We're then 8 hours in the day. 12 hours into
the day you're on 0,375 and at that point you're winding down.

If you'd drink one week a month decaf (assuming you can enjoy the taste. I
dislike it) you get caffeine withdrawal the first day, and the other days you
don't. But as soon as you start consuming coffee again, you also get
withdrawal symptoms because the half time is ~4 hours.

The way I deal with it which is the correct way is limit coffee intake to 2-3
cups a day in the morning/afternoon. None in the evening because it will cause
sleep deprivation.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffeine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffeine)

------
tjohns
Personally, I've found drinking that much coffee is very likely to give me
headaches, and has even given me a couple ocular migraines over the years (not
fun). Not to mention making me feel terrible once the caffeine starts to wear
off in the evening.

Add in the caffeine withdrawal afterwards, and I've decided that it's best to
just avoid caffeine altogether. Overall, I feel like I have more energy now...
but it does require being more careful about getting enough sleep.

~~~
wbkang
Haha for me it's the opposite. Caffeine cures my migraine the same way
rizatriptan does. They are both vasoconstrictors and help reduce my throbbing
migraine.

------
GnarfGnarf
Go easy on the coffee. You'll discover it has caused you acid reflux, long
after you can do anything about it.

Also: sugar masks the flavor. Good coffee tastes best with just cream.

------
open-source-ux
There's an excellent, clear summary of this study on the NHS website:

[https://www.nhs.uk/news/food-and-diet/drinking-3-4-cups-
coff...](https://www.nhs.uk/news/food-and-diet/drinking-3-4-cups-coffee-day-
may-have-some-health-benefits/)

------
kakaorka
I feel like I have a real problem with some scientific studies on the human
body, which apparently link things to specific outcomes and later on reverse
those links and sometimes even linking the opposite to the same outcomes. As a
researcher myself, but not in a biological field, I believe more and more that
it is just insanely difficult to understand the complex interactions inside
our bodies. This doesn’t mean that I’m against this type of research, on the
contrary, we need more and more studies.

~~~
Theodores
Right, so it is 11 a.m. - who is for coffee? So I pick up the tray, go down to
the kitchen, make everyone a cup of tea/coffee/defac-coffee and pick up a can
of some fizzy drink for that guy who lives off energy drinks instead of
coffee.

In the kitchen I have a joke with the guy from accounts as well as have a
really positive buy-in for the new 'aggregated accounts' plan. I have some
chat with the cleaning lady, she smiles, I smile. Someone else gets doors for
me, I say please and thank-you. Finally beverages get served by me to my
colleagues. Everyone is happy.

On the way to and from the kitchen I have got the blood circulating, not a
very big walk, certainly not a gym workout, but all moving is good in the
sedentary office world. Yes, it does take a lot of muscles to smile, and just
with the light convo needed to get to the kettle and sink I have had a little
workout. Unlike press-ups I can put my heart into a smile.

So what happens if I am in a mood and can't be bothered to make tea for the
rest of the team? I sneak into the kitchen and make a coffee just for myself.
Or if it is the weekend and I am home alone, with no interaction with people
during the consumption of coffee.

On aggregate I do make coffee and it be a social thing rather than a loner
thing. We are social animals and the act of sharing coffee is probably better
for our well being than whatever is in the coffee. I don't think it is
possible to do studies without the bigger social picture.

So could claims that 'coffee is good for you' stack up, even with the above?

In my anecdata there is also the girl I sit next to that is not in the 'tea
round system'. She makes her own drink, and will tend to have a jogger style
water bottle at hand at all times. She will also make her own infusions -
ginger tea etc, but not a round for everybody. Because she just serves herself
then she is not in the kitchen for as long as me, not needing to converse to
complete the task (no tray). Furthermore, she does not get to greet everyone
in the team, or to have that special thought for them, e.g. mug colour
preference, tea/coffee strength etc.

So, anecdata, but, if coffee and the sharing of coffee is important, then the
claims that 'coffee is good for you' could stack up but it not be
causation/correlation on the caffeine, even if that appears to be the case.

------
eartheaterrr
Can coffee still be more beneficial than harmful if you suffer withdrawal
effects? I have some co-workers who get headaches if they try to have a
morning without coffee.

~~~
shmerl
That's a known thing. Drinking coffee blocks adenosine receptors (which affect
tiredness). In result, they increase in number to compensate that. So if you
stop drinking coffee, the increased number of receptors causes more intense
feeling of tiredness. If you stop drinking coffee for a long time, the number
of receptors adjusts back down.

------
nabla9
previously:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15679522](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15679522)

The relative risk vs coffee consumption curve fist goes below 1.0 (no coffee =
1.0) and reaches minimum around 3-5 cups then starts to increase slowly again.
cardiovascular disease and stroke risk go above 1.0 after 9-10 cups per day.

The study mentions that results may not apply to unfiltered coffee (eg, French
press, Scandinavian boiled, or Turkish/Greek coffee). Other studies have shown
that cholesterol-raising factor in coffee does not pass a paper filter.

NOTE: Cholesterol increasing effect in coffee is not from dietary cholesterol.
It comes from cafestol and kahweol (diterpenes). They seem to have adverse
effect to cholesterol regulation in the body,
[http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev.nutr.17.1.3...](http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev.nutr.17.1.305)

------
polskibus
Consider supplementing drinking coffee with taking l-theanine. You can read
more about the benefits at
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Nootropics/wiki/beginners/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Nootropics/wiki/beginners/)

Magnesium replenishment also helps, esp. with >2 cups of coffee / day.

~~~
inDigiNeous
L-Theanine is great when combining with coffee, but at least for me when I've
experiment with this combination, if doing it routinely, it really can start
to deplete maybe the serotonin levels or something in my brain, because I
start to feel more dull in a way, it's hard to describe, it's kinda like this
slight fuzziness.

Just for more info, I've been experimenting with 200 mg of L-theanine combined
with one cup of coffee. Not something I would take in long periods, but
definitely useful for those stints where you just have to get something done
and need the stimulants.

L-theanine is good also for relaxation alone, and calming the nerves down, I
sometimes take it by itself if I feel too anxious also.

~~~
polskibus
That's interesting, your findings are contrary to what's generally reported. I
haven't found data confirming any negative side effects for l-theanine
including prolonged use. I suppose it all depends on an individual and dosage
of all stimulants.

~~~
inDigiNeous
Yeah, it's interesting to hear that people have no side effect. It's not
anything really substantial, but there is definitely some side-effect. I'm
used to being really sensitive to any substances though, for example I
couldn't drink 3 cups of coffee a day, that would drive me totally hyper.

But after all, that calming effect has to come from somewhere with L-theanine.

------
bschwindHN
We seem way too focused on whether coffee is good or bad for our health.

All I know is it tastes fucking delicious, it makes me feel good, and we've
been drinking it for generations. If I die earlier because of it, then so be
it. At least I'll have had an enjoyable coffee-drinking life.

~~~
DanBC
> If I die earlier because of it, then so be it. At least I'll have had an
> enjoyable coffee-drinking life.

On the other hand if coffee drinking causes strokes you could live for years
with severe impairment.

~~~
bschwindHN
I'll take my chances and just not worry about it :)

I don't think I've ever heard of a person in old age lamenting, "If only I
hadn't enjoyed coffee so much!"

Cigarettes on the other hand...the effects of those are a lot more clear-cut.

------
maxxxxx
I don't know. When I drink more than 2 cups my sleep suffers and even my
personality changes. I get pretty hyper and less patient. With my girlfriend I
can tell immediately whether she has had coffee just from the way she talks.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Try to cut off the caffeine consumption by 3pm and your sleep should not
suffer (based on the half life of caffeine and average human adult body
weight).

Disclaimer: I consume ~4 cups of coffee per day between 8am and 3pm and get ~8
hours of sleep per night.

~~~
enthalpyx
The CYP1A2 gene affects how quickly you metabolize caffeine. Stopping at 3pm
may not be enough.

~~~
toomuchtodo
I’ll check my CYP1A2 SNPs on 23andme in the AM and report back.

~~~
35bge57dtjku
I'm not sure if that's sarcasm or not. Maybe I'm just not hip.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Not sarcasm at all. Last time I checked, 23andme reports if you’re a fast or
slow caffeine metabolizer. I just don’t recall offhand which I am.

------
biggc
How big is a "cup" of coffee in this study?

~~~
xellisx
Typically my "cup" measures 2 cups based on the coffee pot.

------
epx
I hope 10 cups a day are ok :)

