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1970-01-01

Its not so straightforward. Caffeine consumption has been shown to reduce the chance of dementia.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7836063/

1. Can't be sure that the effect of caffeine is more worth it than the possible impact on sleep. Better sleep probably has a wider range of benefits compared to caffeine.

2. Might not have to be one or the other - just make sure caffeine consumption is very early in the day

It's not necessarily 0 or 1 is it? E.g. a "short espresso" in the early morning hours at least from my sleep tracking / particular (heavy) physiology doesn't make a difference vs when I'm off of caffeine (on weekends usually). I'd start with dropping afternoon coffee and experiment backwards from there.

Without reading this paper but having read a bunch of this research in the past, it’s definitely inconclusive due to poor quality data. The people who don’t consume caffeine category too often includes those with major health issues that prevent them from doing so.

Your link literally says: “ Epidemiologic studies have provided inconclusive evidence for a protective effect of caffeine consumption on risk of dementia and cognitive decline.”

That doesn’t sound very convincing.

Context is key. You've just cited the concept under challenge. The summary and conclusion literally says it "may reduce the risk of dementia and cognitive decline, and may ameliorate cognitive decline in cognitively impaired individuals."

All these studies seem like cope.

You drink coffee because it makes you do more things at work / you are a slob without it because of addiction. You are not drinking it because it might make you better in bed or have less dementia in 50 years.

On the other hand we all need to sleep so doing it properly is a net positive

Caffeine is really not unhealthy. It's one of the most studied supplements ever. If you drink one cup of coffee before noon you will be perfectly fine.

>if you drink one cup

If you only shoot heroin once a week you will be perfectly fine

How many people resist the urge and only shoot heroin once a week?

We are humans, not perfectly diligent robots.

The first thing you say to a person with eating disorders is to throw all the junk food from their home. It’s close to impossible to resist even the “simple” temptation of food.

It’s much easier for a person to never start drinking coffee in the morning to “wake up” than starting and then quitting

Caffeine is not heroin. Caffeine has proven benefits.

Given your entire comment is one massive strawman argument I will ignore the rest of it.

Actually, I have to side with the original commenter on this. A great deal of today's public health issues in the first world stem directly or indirectly from people being unable to properly moderate use of a good thing. That's why I switched to decaf - I'd have to drink 10 times the amount of coffee I normally do to get an equivalent dose.

Decaf has its own issues. Read up on the residues left in coffee after it’s been through the decaf process.

> Caffeine is not heroin. Caffeine has proven benefits.

Heroin has proven benefits, this is why they give it to you at the hospital.

Given your entire comment is a massive lie I will ignore the rest of your replies

Ah yes, heroin and caffeine are equivalent, that's why we see all those caffeine addicts lining the streets of San Francisco looking for their next fix.

If you want to have an honest discussion, stop using these terrible analogies and bring actual scientific evidence.

This mentality of finding these shallow similarities and drawing these insane conclusions indicates that someone has very low intelligence.

This is your "deep" thought process

1. Caffeine is a drug

2. Heroin is also a drug

3. Caffeine can have negative effects on people when used in excess

4. Heroin can also have negative effects on people when used in excess!

ergo, caffeine is as bad as heroin

There's a Starbucks in town whose unfortunate positioning has led to a great increase in wrecks (it's just past a hill, on a fairly busy road with speed limit of 40mph, and it doesn't have enough space for a large drive thru so cars are backed into the road).

> ergo, caffeine is as bad as heroin

Never said this.

Perhaps if you didn’t “ignore” the rest of my comment you would have understood the point :)

I just turn off coffee machine at noon and that is it. How hard can it be for you?

It's like website blockers for productivity: eventually you realize you can just undo the work you did and go back to business as usual, especially if there's an excuse ("I need this youtube video on software architecture for my research, so I'll just unblock youtube and...")

>How hard can it be for you?

maybe ask the 100 years of scientific publications about human behavior and addiction?

You are constructing very weird strawman here. Me and a lot of my friends have beer in the fridge or some stronger spirit on the shelf and yet they don't get drunk first thing in the morning before work. Similarly I don't observe them gulping liters of coffee at 10 pm. There are always people who have harder time moderating their addictions, but absolute majority seem to be able to control their caffeine consumption just fine.

> absolute majority seem to be able to control their caffeine consumption just fine.

According to whom? Data says otherwise

https://www.statista.com/chart/19524/cups-of-coffee-drunk-by...

"One cup" of coffee doesn't mean anything by itself since the effects depend on both genetics and tolerance. Do you have data that confirms that majority of adults either consume so much coffee that it causes unwanted side effects (sleep problems) or that they want to reduce their consumption and struggling to do so due to the dependency?

I usually consume two double espressos per day (both before noon) and don't have trouble falling asleep afterwards.

There are different intensities of addiction. Heroin addiction is not comparable to caffeine. And we each respond differently to addictive substances.

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