Comments on: Is coffee good for you?

By: expat

expat — Fri, 18 May 2012 13:43:47 +0000

Re:longitudinal studies. It seems to me that the longer the studies are, the less controlled they can be. I have ignored most of this stuff for a long time. As to coffee, when I drink too much, I have stomach acid problems. There is a natural control for a lot of things if you listen to your body and tune out the dieticians.

By: Ron

Ron — Fri, 18 May 2012 12:13:02 +0000

These stats are designed to drive you crazy. Just remember . . . Figures can lie and liars can figure. And boy do they!

By: RigelDog

RigelDog — Fri, 18 May 2012 11:23:00 +0000

I do not drink coffee but I am 100% convinced that it is safe…and probably an overall plus to one’s health. Jillions (yes that is a scientific measurement) of people have been drinking coffee for a very long time and they keep trying to find some kind of problem with it and they never can. It’s fine. Probably not a good idea to drink lots of cups when you are pregnant, and I never let my kids have caffeine until they were well into their teens.

By: waltj

waltj — Fri, 18 May 2012 06:56:37 +0000

My view is that most things taken in moderation–coffee, alcohol, red meat, refined sugar, exercise, maybe even the occasional cigar–won’t hurt the majority of people (I don’t use tobacco in any form, so I don’t know for sure about the cigars, but the rest I’m pretty confident about). Moderation is the key. Drink 1-3 cups of coffee per day, and you’ll probably be fine; 10 cups, and you’re pushing it. A steak or burger a couple of times per week, no problem; Big Macs at every meal, not so much. But as Steve D says, everyone’s body chemistry is just a little different, and what’s ok for me may not be ok for you.

What seems to be the real killer these days is portion size (again, moderation, or lack thereof). I returned to the U.S. last summer for a short time after living overseas for a number of years, and I was stunned by the amount of food and drink I got in restaurants, especially fast food ones. “Small” fries and drinks were about twice the size that I remembered before I left. Super-size? Fuggeddaboudit. I lost my appetite just looking at a gut-bomb that big.

By: Curtis

Curtis — Fri, 18 May 2012 03:40:14 +0000

Unless, of course, it was a LONGITUDINAL study. You see, that word, that long, long word, is science and specific and you are an idiot? Don’t understand that word? Ha ha. Longitudinal means something you don’t understand. You’re stupid. We’re smart. A study was done, a longitudinal study. Relating to the Earth man, and ecology, and why we’re all here man. So groovey, let the professor speak cause he’s the new priest, man, the new I AM.

By: Patrick

Patrick — Fri, 18 May 2012 03:30:06 +0000

When I hear anything that starts with words along the lines of – A new study has shown that X is good/bad for you – I just tune it out. I’ve heard too many studies that later turned out to be discredited to worry about that stuff any more.

By: Parker

Parker — Fri, 18 May 2012 02:15:24 +0000

The real question is how much did this study cost our grandchildren, given that the study, along with everything DC does, was conducted with 45% borrowed money? Live free, drink _____, or die!

By: Smock Puppet, 10th Dan Snark Master

Smock Puppet, 10th Dan Snark Master — Fri, 18 May 2012 01:25:00 +0000

>>> You know, I’m getting really tired of getting “whipsawed” by each new study saying exactly the opposite of the one before it; “its good for you,” its bad for you,” “it’ll kill you,” ” its the f’n fountain of youth.” Trust me, not only are you not the only one to notice, some people are starting to call out "Shenanigans" on some parts of the "scientific" establishment (quotes because what they are doing is most emphatically not science by any means) The Scientific Method & Its Limits - The Decline Effect Also: A Great Idea: The Reproducibility Project . And then there's this great, though peripherally related, XKCD . Don't lose faith in science yet... I personally think the whole thing is a subtle effort by the more openly active PostModernists looking to destroy our inheritance of Western/Greek Culture to destroy public faith in science.

By: Oldflyer

Oldflyer — Thu, 17 May 2012 22:56:09 +0000

Oh, but the government could fund programs to train daisy petal pickers; and subsidize farmers for not putting acreage into daisy production.

By: Oldflyer

Oldflyer — Thu, 17 May 2012 22:54:33 +0000

Actually, when I was a kid, coffee grounds were a fair bit of the slop that got fed to the hogs. That was in part because a lot of coffee got drunk; but, I never once saw a hog turn up her nose at the grounds. Well, to be perfectly candid I never saw a hog turn up its nose at anything.

I think Steve D is on the right track. The upside of adopting his method as national policy would be that billions of $$ would be saved. The downside, of course, is that multiple thousands of researchers would be put out of work, and many gov’t supported research labs would be shut down.