
Coffee drinking linked to lower mortality risk again - colund
http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/11/coffee-drinking-linked-to-lower-mortality-risk-again/
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parasight
I fight nasty withdrawal symptoms like severe headache, fatigue, and rheumatic
pains right now after not drinking coffee for two days. It feels like a really
bad flu. From experience I know that this will be better very soon.

That is the reason why I want to give up coffee completely. I don't want to be
addicted to a substance. I don't like to get headache or feel tired only
because I choose to not drink coffee for a day. Maybe there will be a day when
I can not get a coffee.

I don't drink that much coffee. A pot of coffee in the morning and usually 2 -
3 espressos during the day. I guess I am sensitive to it.

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barry-cotter
> I don't drink that much coffee. A pot of coffee in the morning and usually 2
> - 3 espressos during the day. I guess I am sensitive to it.

That is a lot of coffee. I have an Americano in the morning. If I have two
it's not great for my stomach and if I have two in the morning I really better
not have one again until five. If you're drinking it as your drink rather than
as a stimulant try switching to tea.

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dasboth
I agree, I'd say that's a lot. I have two shots a day (either espressos or
americanos, usually one of each) and I find that if I have a third I always
feel terrible. I get agitated and jittery, so I guess that's a way to control
my intake because I always stop at 2 now.

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yojo
I'm skeptical that it is sound to just throw out smokers and make a claim
about coffee health benefits.

By taking people that use a lot of one common addictive substance (caffeine)
and none of another (nicotine) they might just be selecting people with low
potential for addiction/high will power. I believe those kinds of people might
have lower mortality rates for reasons other than coffee consumption.

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polyfractal
It's very common to remove smokers from studies like this (anything looking at
mortality). Smoking increases your chance of so many health issues: heart
disease, lung cancer, COPD, high blood pressure, stroke, aortic aneurysm,
general infection due to chronic inflammation, etc etc. It's well documented
and pretty unambiguous. If you smoke, your risk of all the above increases
dramatically. Which means as a researcher you can't leave these people in a
study looking at mortality rates since they would confound the results too
much.

Basically, the risk of confounding your results with smoking-related mortality
is a bigger problem than biasing your population with fewer people who consume
addictive substances.

 _Source: I 'm an ex-molecular biologist, my significant other is a PA._

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paulddraper
That's not what confounding means, from a stats perspective.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confounding](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confounding)

Excluding smokers can cause a confounding variable, not the other way around.

A better choice of word would be "obscure", as including them will make it
harder to reach significance (though the end result should be the same, if the
variable was not confounding).

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polyfractal
Oops, sorry, you're right. It was very early this morning and pre-coffee when
I wrote that, was paraphrasing colloquially instead of technically (and not
thinking) :)

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andrewvc
These studies that equate lower mortality with good for you ( that is always
the implication ) are quite harmful I think. When people say "I just read
something that says coffee is good for you again" that's where the harm is
done. This says only that you may die a little later in life, the question of
whether it is good for you is alltogether separate. Now it may be that things
that make you live longer are generally good for you in the comprehensive
sense, but there are better ways to measure that.

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google15
Fascinating study, and the journal article is free online[0]. It's an
observational study, but of a single occupation and large N, with many other
factors accounted for[1]. My take is that coffee, like other psychoactive
substances, contains powerful chemicals that are likely to have _some_ effect
on total mortality. I will stick to my two cups a day.

[0]
[http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/early/2015/11/10/CIRCULA...](http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/early/2015/11/10/CIRCULATIONAHA.115.017341.abstract)

[1] _The regression models included calendar time in 2-y intervals as the time
scale, and were stratified by age in years. In the multivariable analysis, we
further adjusted for body mass index (BMI), physical activity, overall dietary
pattern (aHEI), total energy intake, smoking status, sugar-sweetened beverage
consumption and alcohol consumption, all of which were updated from follow-up
questionnaires._

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wobbleblob
How did they correct for people who reduced their coffee use because of
failing health? I mean, have they proven once and for all that drinking coffee
is good for you, or just that healthy people drink more coffee?

When you are diagnosed with hypertension, diabetes, heart disease etc, you
tend to get the advice to drink less coffee. Older people start drinking less
coffee as their health declines because it makes them jittery.

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cageface
As much as I love coffee and I'm happy to hear that drinking it is actually
healthy, I think I'm just personally too sensitive to caffeine for it to be
beneficial overall. My baseline stress level goes way up even with one cup a
day and I have a much harder time falling and staying asleep.

For some reason tea doesn't affect me as much.

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chrisballinger
I've heard that the L-Theanine [1] in green tea is responsible for a calmer
caffeine effect. Although I haven't tried it, I've heard that you can get the
same results by taking a supplement before your morning coffee.

1\.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theanine](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theanine)

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sbank
I second this, and have used it for years with caffeine for this exact reason.
By itself it also has an anti-anxiolytic and calming effect, and has been used
to treat ADHD as well.

If you want to try it out, make sure you get Suntheanine. A dose that works
for many is twice the theanine than caffeine, but YMMV.

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dghughes
I drank a moderate amount of coffee but it gave me heartburn both the acid and
the caffeine caused my GERD to be bad so I cut back and switched to decaf now
my GERD is 99% gone.

But I may quit since it's decaffeinated using methylene chloride which doesn't
look very gut friendly or maybe I just discovered a cure for GERD.

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rikkus
Choose coffee which has been decaffeinated using a safe process such as Swiss
Water. There are even some beans which taste very close to proper coffee after
decaffeination.

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dghughes
I agree but the Swiss water decaf method is hard to find or that method is not
stated (So I assume it's the cheap way). I really don't drink enough to go out
of my way finding it.

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rikkus
In the UK Swiss water decaf is everywhere - maybe 50% of decaf. I buy my
coffee through Amazon UK and there are lots of 'safe' decafs there.

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tmlee
As much health benefits coffee has, always take then freshly brewed black.

Tasty and prevents too much of sugar fat intake.

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privacy101
Both fats and sugars are helpful too, if you don't abuse them (probably the
same for coffee).

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thatswrong0
(Certain) fats yes.. but sugar? I can't imagine that it's helpful in any way.

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azm1
well you get suger in bread, fruits etc. You don't have to eat sweets to get
daily intake of sugar(For example brain needs sugar for it to work).

Brown sugar is definitely better as a sweetener compare to the white refined
sugar as all the healthy parts are stripped.

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orbifold
The brain needs glucose to function not sugar, which is one glucose and one
fructose.

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dpratt71
In everyday English, when someone mentions sugar, they are probably talking
about sucrose aka 'table sugar'. And you are correct that sucrose consists of
a glucose and fructose molecule bonded together.

In a more...official or scientific context, "Sugar is the generalized name for
sweet, short-chain, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food." as
Wikipedia puts it. That means that sucrose, glucose and fructose (and many
others) are all considered to be sugar.

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mkagenius
Now my brain is confused.

It says, drink lot of coffee but what about caffeine addiction?

Also, should I filter the coffee as it increases LDL cholestrol? Some even say
cholestrol is not that bad.

Also, is 5-9% better mortality rate worth considering?

What about other stuff people with better mortality consumed? Did you know the
effects of those substances on mortality?

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meowface
Substance addiction would not necessarily affect mortality.

In fact, addiction isn't necessarily bad for health at all, if you reliably
feed it every day, and the beneficial effects outweigh the negatives one. For
example, consuming moderate amounts of caffeine every day, but always at least
6-8 hours before bed.

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mkagenius
3-5 cups seems too much to finish 6-8 hours before bed time. Seems like you
will need to have coffee every two hours.

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timClicks
Really? I can have three cups before I leave for work some mornings..

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motosynthesis
As stated in the article, we can't be certain of causation. I tend to prefer a
simpler approach.

The simple act of moving lowers the risk factors for cardiovascular disease.

5 cups of coffee per day is going to get most people moving.

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semi-extrinsic
> 5 cups of coffee per day is going to get most people moving.

You could even hypothesise that people who live more hectic lives (and thus
move more) are likely to drink more coffee.

