Drinking 3 cups of coffee linked to preventing multiple diseases | Hacker News Reader

Drinking 3 cups of coffee linked to preventing multiple diseases

studyfinds.org

41 pointsStratoscope52 comments

This is published by a website that needs to be visited in order to justify its existence. Like the majority of the web these days.

Small signals in study data are overhyped and extrapolated to make general sweeping conclusions.

I’m not saying coffee is either bad, or a miracle substance.

I am saying everyone and everything on this planet craves relevance.

> doesn’t necessarily mean you should start — especially if you’re sensitive to caffeine or have been advised against it by your doctor.

So those who may be prone to heart problems are advised to not drink caffeine, and then we find that those who don't drink caffeine are more prone to heart problems. Yep.

not drinking coffee leads to a vicious cycle that kills thousands each year

That's something that I've worried about with these studies. Even if doctors don't warn patients, friends and family will sometimes actively discourage coffee and caffeine consumption among those with high blood pressure.

It undoubtedly has some effect, but hopefully the study has controlled for that.

>reduce the risk of developing cardiometabolic multimorbidity in individuals without any cardiometabolic disease,

Get funding for a study, run multiple regression against a large set of interviewees, find an outcome which satisfies the proponent, spin the results: people who drink coffee and do not have heart disease or diabetes get fewer heart disease or diabetes later, ergo, caffeine reduces the risk. People, this is not a double-blind study. It was biased from the start.

Drinking 3 cups of coffee might also make you more prone to doing things when you should be resting, staying in the wage-slave 9-5 grind for longer, etc. Personally, I think it's better to rest.

9-5 is for amateurs, I prefer 9-11

Very true, once you're senior enough, couple of hours of focused effort is enough to make decent (visible) progress.

I prefer 7-11

Only in Japan or Thailand.

Coffee seems to be healthy today, unhealthy tomorrow, and healthy again next week. Though if there's any truth in these kinds of studies I've gotta be damn near invulnerable

A bit of low-level background radiation is good for your health too...

Is it just as simple as exposing yourself to enough poison/radiation to kill weaker pathogens but not enough to hurt yourself too much?

Wait until you hear the news about eggs.

… and butter.

Same as eggs, butter, meat, etc, etc. The only constant seems to be that refined carbs are basically prepackaged obesity if you’re lucky or diabetes if you aren’t.

I think social media and pop journalists flip flop on those issues, but the converging lines of evidence over the last half century have not.

It just seems like the evidence is back and forth when one tweet summarizes a mendelian randomization study on LDL cholesterol and CVD outcomes, and then the next tweet is a guy with one million followers explaining how butter cures cancer. But it shouldn't be very confusing once you filter out the latter in favor of the former.

> butter cures cancer

You jest, but there's some small (<10%) cohort of cancers for whom minimizing available glucose will significantly slow their growth (obviously not stop or reverse), allowing more time for other treatments. Tumors in general tend to be highly glycolytic, and making the body's fuel mix oriented toward fatty acids and ketone bodies may help in these cases.

so keto cures cancer, not butter specifically

I feel like I rarely see anything negative about it, TBH. The last one that I remember reading was actually about decaf, due specifically to the decafeination process.

Two doctors discussing a patient who has been revived out of cryostatis after many years:

    Dr. Melik: This morning for breakfast he requested something called "wheat germ, organic honey and tiger's milk."
    Dr. Aragon: [chuckling] Oh, yes. Those are the charmed substances that some years ago were thought to contain life-preserving properties.
    Dr. Melik: You mean there was no deep fat? No steak or cream pies or... hot fudge?
    Dr. Aragon: Those were thought to be unhealthy... precisely the opposite of what we now know to be true.
    Dr. Melik: Incredible.

-- Sleeper (1973)

As a coffee drinker I take a mild interest in these things and I'm not sure I've seen any studies saying it's bad for you in the last few decades. Is there one you know?

People love to find problems with stuff so I'd imagine if there were problems they'd be publicised. My intuition is coffee doesn't actually have much effect on health either way.

I’m probably committing sacrilege but I drink a lot of instant coffee. Sorry…

It’s never clear if these coffee benefits apply to instant coffee or only to fresh brewed coffee. Has anyone see/read anything on instant coffee and health benefits?

This study refers to caffeine so it should apply. But coffee has numerous other compounds.. I think even decaf coffee is beneficial.

isn't instant one of those words that negates what follows?

I think the ethics committee would block any large-cohort study that required participants to drink instant coffee.

Wikipedia says it has less caffeine and less antioxidants, so probably less beneficial. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant_coffee

Here's a similar study that answers your question: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10282813/

> Drinking 1–5 cups/day of ground or instant coffee (but not decaffeinated coffee) was associated with a significant reduction in incident arrhythmia, including AF. The lowest risk was at 4–5 cups/day for ground coffee (HR 0.83; 95% CI [0.76–0.91]; P <0.0001) and 2–3 cups/day for instant coffee (HR, 0.88; 95% CI [0.85–0.92]; P <0.0001).

tl;dr Yes it has similar benefits, maybe slightly worse than "ground coffee" (I wish they had broken it down more granularly)

Thanks, exactly what I was looking for.

Interesting that lowest risk is at 4-5 cups for ground but 2-3 for instant.

Instant coffee like Nescafé is just freeze dried brewed coffee no? But the problem with those instant coffee is they're all dark roast and overextracted to hide the disgusting taste.

When I used to drink instant, I'd drink either a Nescafe light roast instant or Jacobs Cronat Gold, also a light roast instant.

Nescafé Tasters choice is lighter roast than the default Nescafé.

Hey! I drink instant coffee too. And I drink it room temperature. I'm not usually wanting to spend time with the coffee ritual, though I do enjoy it. So scooping some freeze dried coffee powder and having it ready to drink right away is nice.

My favorite brand is Mt Hagen. I tried Starbucks instant and found it really gross - way too sour.

Cold brew concentrate is easy as well and don't have to dissolve powder.

Cool never tried Mt Hagen

I’m not too picky with my instant coffee, which I drink in the morning, microwave water and off you go, or when in a hurry/lazy which is most of the times. I usually go with Nescafé Taster’s choice or sometimes Bru with milk (Indian instant coffee with 30% chicory)

To make up for my coffee sins, I also roast green coffee at home and use either Hario V60 or go the espresso route.

James Hoffmann has a video where he tastes different instant coffee. Subjective, but could serve as inspiration for products to try of good quality (and what to stay away from):

https://youtube.com/watch?v=8cIqLvJz8VM

I go a step further. I don't use milk for anything except coffee, so I bought a bag of lactose free skim milk powder and keep it in the freezer. I throw a teaspoon or two of that into a cup, mix in some tap water, stir it until the powder is dissolved and I have a little milk, then throw in either brewed coffee or some coffee crystals and hot water, depending on what I have on hand.

Milk powder is tastier than milk and keeps better in the freezer.

If I may suggest, try condensed milk. It’s even tastier since it has a little caramel flavor. Vietnamese “iced coffee over condensed milk” is amazing, try it if you haven’t at a Vietnamese restaurant.

I dont like condensed milk. The milk powder is a non sweet alternative. I have tried condensed milk before - it makes sense in a dessert but not in a cup of coffee, to me.

There's good instant coffee these days. Both Sightglass and Ritual Roasters instant coffees are excellent. They're great to have on hand when you're staying at a hotel that only had a Keurig in the room.

Thanks, will look for them. Where do you get it?

What about those with high blood pressure?

https://clinicalnutritionespen.com/article/S2405-4577(23)021...

Drinking coffee gives me pain below my right rib. Has anyone had this issue?

No, but if I take caffeine, pseudoephedrine, and diphenhydramine at the same time, my left armpit sweats profusely. Just the left one.

Dehydration maybe, gastrointestinal issues maybe. If it concerns you, go see a doc!

For me, a morning coffee seems to trigger a BM about an hour later - wondering if that could explain any benefits seen in the study.

A classic case of correlation but not causation. People who drink 3 cups of coffee are more likely to be active, working professionals. That is probably linked to better healthcare and lifestyles. Just a guess.

And people with health problems are more likely to not drink coffee.

This is similar to alcohol studies, where a small amount of alcohol is better than not drinking anything at (because healthy people with no bad experiences related to alcohol usually drink a bit, even if it's a glass of wine once a month. Zero alcohol policy is usually something people with health problems out history of alcohol abuse do)

Brought to you by big coffee.

your daily cup of coffee (or three) [200-300 mg caffeine] Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and stroke.

I just read the article, not the actual study, but I could think of about 10 things that put this in the "correlation is not causation" bucket if potential confounding variables aren't closely controlled for. Things like:

1. Wealth. Wealth has been shown to be positively correlated with a myriad of better health outcomes. Are moderate coffee drinkers wealthier than average?

2. Job type. Are moderate coffee drinkers more likely to be office workers compared to blue collar. Or vice versa?

3. Exercise. Do people who drink moderate amounts of coffee exercise more?

4. Caloric intake. Do people who drink moderate amounts of coffee also eat fewer calories? Of course, with this one it's hard to tease out cause and effect - can coffee have a bit of an appetite suppressant effect?

I've just learned over time that these types of nutritional studies often turn out to be wrong. Remember when we thought moderate drinking was good for you? Turns out that nearly all those studies were wrong due to other confounding variables (e.g. drinkers tend to be more social and there are a ton of health benefits from being social), and now the consensus belief is that alcohol itself is always a net negative, even in small amounts.

Unless they understand the bio mechanisms for how coffee prevents these diseases, then I call correlation is not causation.

Wow, this site was seen on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Very reputable... /s

Umm … https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/jo...

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