Some dude once came up to me on my college campus, and blurted, "Have you heard the good news?"
I said, "What good news?"
"Christ has risen!" Was his answer.
Who cares? I thought. Isn't that pretty much the oldest news around? It may be "good news" if you're a Christian. But even so, isn't "news" by definition something at least somewhat "new?" If it wasn't, Anderson Cooper wouldn't have to travel the world to find new stories about gorillas or hurricanes now, would he? He could just sit in his air-conditioned office at CNN, going on and on about the great news of the fall of the Tower of Babel or Alexander's victory at Tyre. But no: he works hard to give you the "news" that is "new."
So do I. And this might be old news to you, but to most people I think it's relatively new news: Coffee is GOOD FOR YOU!
For years I've been collecting all the research articles I can find on coffee, tea, and caffeine. In fact, Dr. Tofuhead consumes a lot more coffee than he does tofu. So it was in my own interest to know, is coffee really "good?" I've found research articles demonstrating that coffee reduces asthma symptoms, dissolves bile stones, decreases the risk of developing diabetes, increases alertness and performance on mental tasks- the list goes on and on. I've also found loads of relatively unsubstantiated claims in medical guidelines suggesting that coffee causes heartburn, insomnia, dehydration, anxiety, heart palpitations, migraines, and high blood pressure. So what's the bottom line?
The largest study on coffee that I know of just came out this week, and the results were rather shocking. The study looked at the absolute holy grail in medicine: "all cause mortality." "All cause mortality" basically gets at the question, "does this stuff kill you faster, make you live longer, or neither?" It's the most sought-after statistical phenomenon in studies of drugs, diets, exercise regimes, or any other instrument we might use to alter human health. It's also a phenomenon that is frightfully affected by a huge number of variables, and therefore any study attempting to evaluate the affect of something on "all cause mortality" needs a massive number of subjects, a boatload of high-powered statistical analyses, and some very smart people drawing the conclusions.
Without boring you, let me just say this: the big study published this week showed that coffee, even in large amounts, does not "increase mortality;" in other words, coffee does not kill you faster than no coffee. What was more impressive to me was the fact that the more coffee subjects drank on average, the LOWER their overall mortality. That is to say, coffee appears to make people live longer, especially when consumed in large amounts. The subjects in this study who had the lowest risk of dying were those who drank, on average, 6 OR MORE cups of cofee per day! Shocking!
Some caveats: the authors of the study were merely out to prove that coffee did not kill you faster; so they note that they cannot draw firm conclusions that coffee prolongs life. They note that the study "suggests" this effect, but that the life-prolonging effects of coffee "warrant further investigation." They also demonstrated that coffee is probably good for your lifespan, but they did not examine whether it's good for your life- in other words, they did not study the potentially ill effects of coffee that are not fatal. Can coffee give you a longer life that is fraught with heartburn and insomnia? This study did not get at that, or similar questions.
Now it's time to bust some
MYTHS ABOUT COFFEE
1. Myth #1: Coffee is a diuretic. This is just plain wrong in so many ways. Coffee is not a diuretic. If you were dying of thirst, you could rehydrate yourself with coffee. A diuretic is a substance that causes a "net loss" of water from your body. Fortunately, there are only a handful of true diuretics.
2. Myth #2: Coffee causes migraines. No, the LACK OF coffee can cause a migraine, if you usually have lots of coffee in your system.
3. Myth #3: Coffee causes high blood pressure. Nonsense. It just doesn't. Numerous studies have failed to show any significant effect of coffee on blood pressure.
4. Myth #4: Decaf coffee still has a significant amount of caffeine. The truth is, decaf coffee has a completely insignificant amount of caffeine.
5. Myth #5: Coffee causes heartburn. Even I have a hard time letting go of this one. But gastroenterologists from across the country will tell you, the research simply fails to show that coffee causes, prolongs, or exacerbates heartburn.
6. Myth #6: Coffee can sober you up faster. I'm not sure a ton of people still believe this one- at least, I hope not. Coffee will not make you any less drunk any faster. It can make you into a more slightly AWAKE, but equally impaired, drunk person.
WHY IS COFFEE SO GREAT?
-It is full of antioxidants.
-According to the new study, it may have anti-inflammatory effects.
-It appears to reduce cardiovascular death, i.e. heart attacks.
-In addition to antioxidants, it is a rich source of minerals.
-It may decrease the risk of developing diabetes or gallstones.
-It looks, smells, and tastes wonderful.
-It can wake you up, give you energy, and increase your mental focus or "attention."
-EVEN IF YOU DON'T WANT TO DRINK CAFFEINE, decaffeinated coffee has all the above benefits, except the last one- it can't wake you up or give you energy. But it's true: DECAF COFFEE HAS ALL THE HEALTH BENEFITS OF REGULAR COFFEE!
As I see it, that last fact simply means that coffee really has something to offer everyone. Not everyone likes to be heavily caffeinated all day, like I do: I respect that. I do not in the least frown on people who order massive coffee drinks with decaf coffee or nonfat milk.
3 comments:
This is one of my favorite articles so far, as it deals with a topic very dear to my heart (coffee) and does so far more in-depth and informatively than any of the myriad articles I have read about coffee. I also love learning about things like "all cause mortality." You are the only science person I know who seems willing and able to explain these concepts clearly to lay people.
I would only quibble with a couple minor points, and perhaps my arguments are irrelevant since they are not based on scientific study, but personal experience.
1) Re: anxiety and insomnia, whether there is scientific proof or not I feel comfortable attesting that excessive caffeine can cause nervousness and, definitely, insomnia. This is based on the fact that if I ingest caffeine after around 3PM or so, I may fall asleep okay but then I wake up way earlier than I do if I don't consume caffeine.
2) Re: Myth #4, I read a study somewhere (I will try to find and forward to you) where they sampled decaf from a bunch of different places (Starbucks, Peets, Duncan Donuts, etc) and the levels of caffeine varied widely; in all cases they were much much lower than caffeinated coffee, but not in every case was the level completely insignificant. I think it would be fair to say than in ALMOST ALL decaf, the level of caffeine is insignificant.
I am also not quite clear on the diuretic thing, because I know if I go beyond my two morning mugs I end up peeing about every five minutes or so. But I might not be understanding the concept.
I couldn't find the study I found before but this:
http://www.energyfiend.com/2007/10/the-complete-guide-to-starbucks-caffeine
is worth noting insofar as the largest decaf drip coffee at Starbucks contains a non-negligible 30mg of caffeine; not tremendous but surely more than the 3-5 mgs per cup people find when they analyze a cup of "standard" decaf drip. If someone was used to that low level of caffeine in the decaf and then went to Starbucks one day and ordered a decaf, they might not know they were about to ingest 10 times the amount of drug they are used to.
What this really points out is how extremely high the level of caffeine is at Starbucks compared to what people have thought of as a regular "cup o' joe." If you do a Google search on "caffeine content," almost ALL of the info charts and articles and scientific studies will put the caffeine content of a cup of "brewed coffee" at around 60-120mg; this compared to 415MG!!! for a large brewed coffee at Starbucks. So I guess it's not surprising that their "decaf" would contain 1/4 to HALF the caffeine content of what is considered standard for a "regular" cup of coffee.
I hope that the scientists who do these studies on coffee and caffeine will take into account the actual amounts of caffeine in the coffee most people are consuming these days.
What about tea?
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