> The bottom line: A large body of evidence suggests that consumption of caffeinated coffee does not increase the risk of cardiovascular diseases and cancers. In fact, consumption of 3 to 5 standard cups of coffee daily has been consistently associated with a reduced risk of several chronic diseases.
I’m curious if not drinking coffee is associated with getting a caffeine fix from less healthy sources (sodas, energy drinks) and if that is a potentially confounding factor.
I always thought the confounding factor was that coffee keeps you productive. Meaning, drinking coffee gives you (superior) employment, which means you get decent health care. You also might gain some meaning in life from your job. You will also probably get some extra human interaction with coworkers as well.
Going to work and being a part of a large organization that works on cool products definitely “energizes” me. I have friends at work that I enjoy seeing daily. I would have a hard time keeping my job without caffeine. I could easily see all the ancillary life benefits of being caffeine addicted being the primary reason why coffee seems to be good for health in all these studies.
Some people are caffeine hyper-metabolizers. You may be one.
And no, the "standard" coffee dose is a single "double"/"cafe" cup (ie, 12oz or ~350ml total) of drip or immersion or pour-over (extraction methods vary caffeine extraction, see recent James Hoffman video on an example of how much). Drink this cup somewhere between an hour after waking up and 8 hours before going to bed.
Anything more does not increase the focusing effect of caffeine much, but does greatly increase the side effects in some individuals. Anything more than that can drive up tolerance.
3-5 cups a day (measured in single 6oz/~125ml cups) would be too high of a dose (even if taken along that prescribed timing window, not in one go), and would also be driving up tolerance; however, this approximates the standard western use of it, ie, is "normal/average".
Correlation does not equal causation is one of the most widely misunderstood sciencey terms.
It would be better phrased as "correlation does not prove causation, but it does imply a relationship"
Yes just because something is correlated does not necessarily mean they the have a direct causal relationship, and more importantly it doesn't indicate which way a possible causal relationship would exist. But it does imply that they have a relationship, either directly or that they are both driven by a third force.
You have to apply some additional logic.
What's more likely?
A) Coffee consumption causes good health.
B) Good health causes coffee consumption.
C) Some other force causes improves health AND increased coffee consumption.
D) This is a spurious correlation.
B seems absurd. Or at least would have limited measurably effect. Yes healthy people are more able to drink coffee but it seems like such an effect would be limited.
C could be the case, but with coffee consumption being a deliberate action, if you believe in free will, a seems more likely.
Yes it could also be a spurious correlation, I guess that's possible too.
In this specific case, at the very least you can conclude that coffee is not acutely harmful. If coffee _was_ acutely harmful you would expect to see an inverse correlation between coffee consumption and general health.
This is true, but when you see correlation it is a great signal to look for causation.
But my question to you, in the event of a positive correlation and not having good causation data in either direction, a reasonable person may start to act on the correlation for qualitative reasons.
For example if an initial study of the past finds cigarette smoking correlated with lung cancer, a reasonable person might qualitatively know that smoke goes into the lungs so a lung cancer cause is reasonable and use that as enough reason to stop smoking. It would be unreasonable,IMO, to say “correlation != causation” and keep smoking.
It's not 'anti-science' to choose not to take the advice of scientific officials. Their science can at best tell you what's most likely to happen, not what values and future preferences to adopt.
The middle-class world religion of personal health, safety and comfort can no more be derived from the science of our day than the Culte de la Raison could from that of the 18thC (no matter what public health and other officials may tell you).
> Denial is an undervalued life skill. When somebody declares a complicated problem, you simply decide "no it isn't" and then you move on.
People underestimate this. You can rephrase denial as "strong will". It only takes one David Goggins style person to blow the lid off what was considered "impossible".
I think this is especially great for controversial topics/problems too, if it doesn't end with some long term bad result. Coffee is good, and as long as you aren't getting hooked on needing the caffeine, its a bit of a luxury. Its good to enjoy some things in life.
I'll drink it regardless, as many as I want. I'll pretend the negatives don't exist which by means of placebo is true in my "lived experience".
Denial is an undervalued life skill. When somebody declares a complicated problem, you simply decide "no it isn't" and then you move on.