Heavy Coffee Consumption Linked To Increased Risk of All Causes Death
Researchers report that heavy coffee consumption, defined as more than 28 cups of coffee per week, is associated with an increased risk of all-cause mortality among men.
For men and women 55 years of age and younger, the association between heavy coffee consumption and all-cause mortality is more pronounced.
Typically, people have been concerned that coffee could be unhealthy, particularly caffeine . If you give a massive acute dose of caffeine, you raise your pulse and blood pressure, and that can be toxic. So years ago, people had the thought that maybe coffee could be a bad or unhealthy thing to be drinking.
Previous studies had suggested an association between heavy coffee consumption and all-cause mortality and coronary heart disease, but many of these older studies are compromised, because heavy coffee drinkers were also smokers, two habits that went hand in hand. When adjusted for smoking, the coffee didn’t appear to be very toxic, said Lavie, and most of the later studies suggested that coffee consumption wasn’t harmful.
In fact, there are some potential benefits of coffee, although these data are not particularly strong. There are studies suggesting coffee might protect against heart failure, diabetes, stroke, and other conditions.
A Cup Is 8 oz, Not 20!
It certainly looks like people who report intakes of low amounts of coffee are not getting significant harm.
Despite the limitations of the study it certainly looks like people who report intakes of low amounts of coffee are not getting significant harm, and that’s up to about 28 cups a week, which is a decent amount of coffee. He pointed out that a cup of coffee as measured is an 8-oz cup, and not the supersized 20-ounce cups typical of Starbucks and other coffee chains.
Overall, there was no association between coffee consumption and cardiovascular mortality.
“Explaining why, we can try to tease stuff out, but I don’t really have a good reason to explain why noncardiovascular mortality is increased,” said Lavie. “And noncardiovascular mortality includes a lot of different things–it includes cancer and mortality from suicides and accidents and infections. Why would a high amount of coffee increase noncardiovascular mortality, particularly in young people? The mechanism is not clear. It might be only an association. It may not be that coffee caused the death. This is the case with studies that aren’t randomized, and we’re never going to get a randomized study of something like coffee.”
Honestly, for myself, I like my coffee and could easily go some days having a sixth cup of coffee. My own limit is 2 cups, rarely 3.
Still, Lavie said, there are strengths to the analysis, including the long-term follow-up, the number of participants, and the fact they were able to adjust for cardiorespiratory fitness. For people who like coffee, including himself, Lavie said the study suggests coffee is relatively safe if people limit themselves to less than four cups of coffee per day. For those who consume more, Lavie said the research is not intended to scare anyone, but it can’t hurt for people to think about the association.
Most days now I’m sticking with two or three cups. And honestly, for most people, it’s a habit. There’s something for the first or second cup, but if you’re drinking it all day long it’s really just a habit. And if you have a signal for increased mortality, and you know about that, it might make people think or stop after the third cup.
via Blogger http://chiropractic-lane.blogspot.com/2013/08/heavy-coffee-consumption-linked-to.html
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