Hacker News Reader

Comment by fumufumu | Hacker News Reader

Is this a valid study? (most dietary studies are pretty poor)

Is it the lack of sugar or is that people who don't put sugar in their coffee have a bunch of other things they do? Maybe people who don't put sugar in their coffee are less likely to eat donuts. Maybe people who don't put sugar in their coffee are more likely to workout. Maybe people who don't put sugar in their coffee are more like to have better genes for T2D and that same collection of genes makes the predisposed to not put sugar in their coffee.

I'm not saying sugar isn't bad. It is! (I don't put sugar in my coffee) But, 1 teaspoon a cup doesn't sound like enough to have a measurable impact without knowing that everything else about the people is the same.

Reminds me this podcast

https://podcast.clearerthinking.org/episode/252/gordon-guyat...

View on HN

I agree with you that dietary studies, particularly radically new findings, should be considered with appropriate skepticism.

But it sounds like you're dismissing all science out of hand! What are we left with then - truthiness?

Is there any indication that this study is a poor one? It seems to have a lot of positive indicators. It also generally agrees with what we already "know" about both coffee and about sugar.

> I don't put sugar in my coffee

We're on the same page. AeroPress?

Regardless of how valid the study is, it is most likely useless.

These kinds of studies have been done for decades and type 2 diabetes rates have only gone up.

There has been clear evidence for decades that obesity and high carb diets increase risk of diabetes. Comparing tea to coffee or Skittles to m&Ms is a useless research project as far as diabetes goes. Because it is extremely unlikely that someone will discover that the cure for diabetes was a small change in lifestyle like that.

It’s a study with Walter Willett and Frank Hu, who are probably the most highly regarded nutritional researchers working in the field.

Here’s a great video about how these researchers are using big data to reveal insights into nutrition: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8JQtwLNKXg

> Is this a valid study? (most dietary studies are pretty poor)

Is this a valid question? most critiques without any supporting evidence are pretty poor

really? "most" dietary studies? so 'most' of what we know about nutrition and diets is pretty poor? In the past 75 years there was no real nutrition science done?

The authors affiliations are below[1], are you saying they have no idea how to conduct a valid study? Why are you dismissing a study out of hand, with anecdotes and cliches, instead of reading it and commenting on what's actually published?

Why are you anti-science?

[1]

Department of Nutrition, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, United States

Department of Preventive Medicine and Public Health, University of Navarra—IdiSNA (Instituto de Investigacion Sanitaria de Navarra), Pamplona, Spain

Department of Nutritional Sciences, Temerty Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Toronto 3D Knowledge Synthesis and Clinical Trials Unit, Clinical Nutrition and Risk Factor Modification Centre, St. Michael’s Hospital, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Department of Epidemiology, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, United States

CIBER Fisiopatología de La Obesidad y Nutrición (CIBERObn), Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Madrid, Spain

Channing Division of Network Medicine, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States

Maybe putting sugar into your body without fiber has never happened in the history of human nature, and it's fool-hardy.

Maybe eating honey has never happened in the history of human nature, and it's fool-hardy.

Not much of eating it alone!

But, good point I forgot about.

Also: Does the addition of milk to coffee nullify or reduce its antioxidant effects, the way it reportedly does to tea?

Does "antioxidant" there just refer to tannin, really? If you like tea strong, it's necessary to add some milk to bind to some of the tannins so it remains drinkable and doesn't try to turn your esophagus to leather.

> it's necessary

This is silly, many societies drink tons of strong black tea without polluting it with milk or sugar, and do just fine. (I come from one, and have never had any problems with my esophagus — maybe it has already turned into leather without me noticing?) It does often cause nausea on an empty stomach, though, so filling it with something first might actually be useful.

Hi Kazakhstan! Yeah, I guess one can adapt, but I think there's such a thing as excessive antioxidants, is all I'm saying. Neutralizing some percentage to taste isn't going to stop you getting the healthsome goodness of tea, along with its fluoride for cavity protection (and possible lead or cadmium content, just to even things out).

you don’t need milk per se. you just need something that your body can digest alongside the tannin. i love strong tea and have had to be saved more than once from cramping and dry heaving from tannin overload.

I don't think so. I remember hearing about it when some study came out, but can't find the exact reference.

Try a search on "milk neutralizes beneficial compounds in tea"

One result: https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/the-benefits-of-tea-wit...

> Is this a valid study?

It’s a very American study. Who puts cream in their coffee?! And what about cappuccinos? (Almost all of my coffee consumption is cappuccinos…)

>Who puts cream in their coffee?!

Lots of people all over Europe too

Europeans doing this is something new to me. Where in Europe is it common?

The Viennese often add whipped cream on top.

Austrians do it ("einspänner" and "melange") - Germans and French will have that (called "wiener" style or "vienois"). Italians have their "Espresso con panna" (literally: "Espresso with cream") - would also use. The Swiss will often take their coffee with cream too. In Czech republic it's "kafe se šlehačkou", in Greece it's common in capuccinos or added at will to black coffee.

Whipped creme is perhaps the most common form (cream + sugar whipped).

Not sure about "half and half" though, think that's just an American thing / product.

In Finland it's customary to have cream for coffee in "fancy" situations.

At home everyone just drinks it black or with (oat)milk. But if you want it to taste better, just add a bit of cream =)

Where? I've been most places and never encountered this. It should be noted that in the US "half and half" is popular which isn't a thing in Europe but would be referred to as "cream" by Americans.

We make the distinction between half and half and cream. If I goto a diner there's usually both light cream and half&half available for coffee in plastic mini-creamers.

EDIT: applies to NY/NJ, US

>Where? I've been most places and never encountered this

See my answer above. Did you ask for one of the styles with cream, or specifically for cream?

Espresso/cappuccino usage will increase cholesterol in blood. Consider drinking filtered coffee instead.

Is that right? You make me concerned. Could you suggest a source please? Thank you.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8995942/

Coffee does contain oils that will "increase cholesterol" (meaning increase LDL/bad cholesterol specifically). Filters reduce the oil significantly but unfiltered methods like cafetière and espresso (which is the basis of cappuccino etc) let it all through. It's something to think about if your drinking many unfiltered coffees a day. It is possible to add a filter to espresso if you brew it yourself.

For those like me: Cafetière means "French press."

How much oil relative to eating some cheese? I imagine it’s not much.

https://academic.oup.com/mend/article/21/7/1603/2738489

> Cafestol, a diterpene present in unfiltered coffee brews such as Scandinavian boiled, Turkish, and cafetière coffee, is the most potent cholesterol-elevating compound known in the human diet.

Well son of a gun, I'm on statins and drink a pint of French press a day.

This doesn’t make any sense - chemically espresso and filtered coffee are very similar. There are some subtle differences which contribute to the differences in taste between them, but it seems unlikely those make any contribution to cholesterol

Drinking a lot of cappuccinos could potentially raise cholesterol levels due to heavy milk consumption. But if you have them with skim milk, that reduces that problem.

Plus I personally have abnormally low blood cholesterol (in spite of a heavy cappuccino habit). My doctor thinks it is a harmless genetic mutation in cholesterol metabolism. At least one of my siblings has the same thing which supports my doctor’s theory.

It's the paper filter that absorbs most of the cafestol (which can raise LDL cholesterol).

One is not like the other though. How does espresso increase cholesterol, it's just water and coffee in there, just like filter?

It's the cafestol that's in the coffee: https://academic.oup.com/mend/article/21/7/1603/2738489

Filter coffee uses a paper filter and paper filters can trap most of the cafestol.

Thank you, it sounds a little like a meme, and I had never heard of it. :)

I believe this is the reason that the AeroPress uses paper filters to reduce the cafestol (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cafestol) significantly. Personally, I prefer using permanent metal filters in my AeroPress (for the flavour more than anything), but then I don't have high cholesterol so am not concerned about it and cafestol has been shown to be anti-carcinogenic and neuroprotective in animal studies.

Is it actually cream they put in? So weird, why not just use milk?

Can't make a cappuccino with heavy whipping cream it won't foam. Half and half is doable.

As for why cream or half and half, less sugar and lactose.

Whole milk works fine and is more commonly used

Can’t delete my comment any more, misread the parent comment while it was too early in the morning!

A bit of light cream is so much better in coffee than milk.

Or rather: Is it actually milk you put in coffee? So weird, why not use cream?

McDonalds puts cream and sugar in your coffee by default.

"cream" for coffee can be half and half, milk, that coffee mate sugary stuff, or powdered non dairy creamer.

When Americans put "cream" in their coffee, it's often actually milk. Especially if they are making it at home (most people I know don't keep half-and-half in the fridge just for coffee). So kind of a cousin of a cappuccino.

Why would sugar be bad?

Diabetes is a problem with blood sugar regulation which is primarily accomplished via insulin regulation. if you have a problem regulating something it is almost always best to minimize both the amount and variability of use of that thing.

The long answer is, in our time of great abundance, the most common version of type 2 diabetes by a mile is the one where blood sugar is always elevated because fat cells have stopped responding as well to insulin and insulin is also always elevated. Elevated insulin stops energy release from fat cells and keeps fat cells absorbing glucose and storing it as fat for as long as they can until they get large, unresponsive and usually start releasing inflammatory chemicals (aka they start causing you a bad time) thats when insulin jacks up further and once jacking insulin up stops working you now get classified as having type 2 diabetes. so in so far as our fat cells are not highly responsive to insulin, sugar is bad and inso far as sugar contributes to your fat cells getting unresponsive to insulin over time it's bad too (barring a famine that being at maximum fatness will help you survive).

Coffee and sugar are like oil and water: you can try all you want to mix them but they will never form a whole.

No matter how long you stir it... you take a sip, and there's a coffee flavor over here and a sugar flavor over there.

Disagree, I use a tsp of cane sugar in mine, you can't agitate it efficiently by hand and it needs to be piping hot to help it dissolute. You need something like a cheap $10 handheld milk frother/mixer or something that can get into it better than your hand going anti-clockwise. I typically add a small amount of hot water and get a thick sweet enough paste then add more hot water if I'm doing instant and for ground the same but add a strain step at the end.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com