Coffee drinking inversely associated with mortality | Hacker News Reader

Coffee drinking inversely associated with mortality

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20 pointsjgalvez16 comments

Anything that sick people do less is inversely associated with mortality. The "controlling for blah blah blah" stuff can't be believed---are the researchers succeeding at controlling for everything that affects health? Not even close.

If you see a claim about food and health that doesn't spend a huge amount of time talking about the researchers' experimental or quasi-experimental approach, just ignore it.

Nutritional science is very hard for a variety of reasons, including due to experimental deficiencies and political motivations. But that doesn't mean people should ignore articles like this.

It's an unfortunate reality that Americans must deal with the fact that the food industry has a massive amount of influence over the FDA and USDA, and historically, the industry has used this clout to preserve their profit margins as the expense of our health and well-being. An example of this is the "food pyramid" whose 2011 replacement MyPlate is still not terribly accurate.

It can take years of studies like these to pressure law makers into forcing scientific consensus onto an industry who firmly believes the FDA is there to put them out of business. Without articles like this, it's unlikely that Congress would ever both to address issues with our food supply.

>Anything that sick people do less is inversely associated with mortality.

All the more reason to do it more. Even if there isn't a casual relationship, why adopt the lifestyle of the sick?

Ray Peat proven right once again.

http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/caffeine.shtml

Interesting article, although I wonder why this line:

    Coffee inhibits iron absorption if taken with meals, helping to prevent iron overload.

is spun as a positive. Most people I know with iron problems skew the other way: they are anemic because they don't get enough iron through food.

Ray talks about that here:

http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/iron-dangers.shtml

I, too, always thought of iron as something people would be missing often, but as it turns out, conditions related to excessive iron (and estrogen and PUFA) are much more common. Ray's argument, in a nutshell, is that iron-supplemented foods and just about everywhere (due to an excessive worry of providing too little) and this contributes to the overdosing.

https://freetheanimal.com/2015/06/enrichment-theory-everythi...

Except iron deficiency (and resulting anaemia) is much more common in women than in men [1]. Coffee intake should likely be reduced for women with iron deficiency issues, and avoided altogether for children and adolescents.

I say this while having my morning coffee.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21934611 and others

Iron deficiency might be the most common of deficiencies worldwide, for sure, but there are very few studies addressing the widespread chronic iron excess in a wide range of daily product consumption in developed countries.

So switching your iron sources to hand picked, natural ones while including a moderate amount of coffee in your daily diet (and not taking them together) seems like the way to go for me.

Leading causes of death in the US :

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/282929.php

#1 is heart disease

Causes: excessive alcohol consumption, smoking, no regular exercise, stress

I could be wrong but no exercise seems to be the main culprit based on what the disease actually is. Given that coffee increases your heart rate may suggest a causal link.

Edit: Link to the actual study from the article https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/articl... the comments are worth a look.

From near the bottom of the comments:

> And if you have high cholesterol and you don't want your coffee adding to the problem, you need to use a paper filter to trap the cafestol, a compound in coffee that raises LDL cholesterol levels.

I use paper filters because it makes cleanup a breeze. Interesting to know there is a health benefit.

> Caffeine is a drug and every drug has its downfall. So in my opinion I would need more evidence based medicine to prove that caffeine offers a benefit to decrease mortality.

Given how many industry health studies have been secretly funded by industry leaders, with a financial interest in finding health benefits, these "pro-coffee" results seem suspicious.

> Given how many industry health studies have been secretly funded by industry leaders, with a financial interest in finding health benefits, these "pro-coffee" results seem suspicious.

My perception is the opposite. It took decades for us to start seeing positive coffee studies. My belief is that drug companies actively campaign against health-promoting agents all the time, like coffee and aspirin.

In Brazil, for instance, every doctor will warn AGAINST caffeine, there's a huge anti-coffee sentiment in the medical community and I'm not sure how that came to be.

Ray Peat has been for many years the only voice urging us to reconsider these things.

http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/caffeine.shtml

http://raypeat.com/articles/aging/aspirin-brain-cancer.shtml

You might want to read:

http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/caffeine.shtml

I prepare my 1L bottle of coffee with 2tbsp colagen too:

http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/gelatin.shtml