Caffeine vs Type II Diabetes 445
OctaneZ writes "New research out of the Harvard School of Public Health indicates that coffee may lower your risk of Type II Diabetes. Men who drank 6 cups of coffee a day lowered their risk by 50%, while womens risk dropped 30%. The release also includes audio discussions about the suprising findings."
Re:cool (Score:5, Informative)
coffee not caffine (Score:2, Informative)
Yeah, but... (Score:3, Informative)
Insulin resistance seems to be correlated with obesity. I'm not saying you can't be fat and drink coffee... but most of the "looks like a crack addict with his coffee fix" people I know are thin.
Diet Soda? (Score:3, Informative)
Caffeine? Coffee? Tea? Coke? (Score:3, Informative)
Correlation does not equal causation.
Is it caffeine? Is it coffee? If it was caffeine, would it make sense to do more tests on other caffeine laden beverages? Tea, for example. But wait, maybe tea has some effects to help against diabetes too. Hmm...caffeinated soft drinks. But maybe in sodas, the effects will cancel each other out because of the high-fructose corn syrup, if, caffeine is indeed the factor.
Coffee and tea both have "lots of antioxidants" does that mean they are both good against diabetes? Is that what it means? lots of antioxidants = anti-diabetic?
Re:Diet Soda? -OT- (Score:5, Informative)
There actually is a pretty good rationale for low carb dieting. I'll try to sum up two major lines of evidence:
First, carbs didn't make up a large part of the human diet until the invention of agriculture about 10,000 years ago. Sugars and starchs are simply not available in large consistenet quantities to hunter/gatherers dominant for the previous 90,000 years. Studies comparing the remains of pre-agricultural people and agricultural people show that diabetes and heart disease only appear in populations once agriculture is introduced. The correlation was shown not to be an effect of lifespan. today, cultures such as the Inuit exist on nearly carb free diets and show a similar absence of diabetes and heart disease.
Second, carbs are nearly instantaneously converted to glucose by the digestive system. Where the digestive system easily discards unneeded fat and protein, glucose enters the blood stream very quickly. Excessively high glucose levels are toxic to the brain, so glucose triggers an insulin response. Insulin triggers the fat cells to remove glucose and store it, and it triggers the liver to remove glucose and store it as cholesterol. By removing the carb component of the diet, the body needs to produce its own glucose. The glycogen response triggers the fat cells to release stored glucose into the blood stream and it triggers the liver to convert cholesterol to glucose. Low carb dieting causes the body to spend most time in a glycogenic state, which means the body is burning fat and cholesterol as fuel. Hence, less fat and cholesterol.
Re:Sugar consumption (Score:2, Informative)
The problem is there is a finite amount of insulin that can be produced, and it appears that with excessive food consumption, the body loses its ability to accurately determine how much insulin is necessary at a given time. No one knows how or why this happens.
What is known is it is impossible to acquire Type II diabetes if you have less than 5% body fat. A person of normal weight has zero chance of acquiring the disorder.
All the discussion of refined sugar is simply a way to mask the simple fact Type II diabetes is a disease caused by vice, and that vice is gluttony.
Re:Just a joke. (Score:3, Informative)
The difference is coffee has no conclusive health risks, whereas cigarettes have many definite health risks.
Addiction in and of itself only matters when the addiction can become a problem in and of itself. Not drinking coffee one day will not result in your completely losing your mind and screaming for hours on end like heroin withdrawal can. In fact, it won't even make you as obtuse as nicotine withdrawal.
Re:Diet Soda? -OT- (Score:4, Informative)
Great, encouragement for overweight, hyper geeks (Score:4, Informative)
Ok this is not a troll/flame but by all means mod me down, it's only /.
First, caffeine is highly addictive and weight/diet control when addicted to caffeine is extremely difficult, because it interferes with the epinephrine cycle, which in turn regulates blood sugar and blood pressure.
Second, caffeine is widely shown to substantially interfere with REM sleep, the only part of the sleep cycle which provides meaninful 'rest'. This is the particularly insidious element of the addiction: Less REM sleep -> greater 'reward' from consuming caffeine.
Third, caffeine in *Coffee* is among the most widely used drugs, becasue coffee is the 2nd largest commodity market on the planet (trailing far behind oil but still far ahead of all other 'foods'). So yeah lots of people take coffee regularly and lots are addicted to caffeine.
As pointed out above, it's entirely possible that a fair fraction of the benefits found in the study are attributable to the anti-oxidants in coffee, coffee also contains a bunch of other alkaloids besides the caffeine.
Finaly, the myth that caffeine is required to do geek/technical work is just that, a myth. Wired, jittery programmers don't do well at sustained/quality output (ymmv). When I need to work really extended hours, caffeine is the first thing I eliminate. I can, at a pinch work thru technical problems for 24-hour or longer stints, caffiene will just interfere more once serious fatigue begins to set in, learned this nearly 3 decades ago :-).
All of which I've learned over the years to avoid by trying to plan work out so that emergency sessions aren't needed, I'm to damned old to put in that kind of burnout time on a regular basis.
Re:Sugar consumption (Score:5, Informative)
Less than 5%?? If you are female, you would have so many other health problems to worry about at that point that not getting diabetes wouldn't do you much good!
Even for males, that's so low as to be almost unachievable...
To be healthy, a woman _needs_ at least 10% body fat, and men at least 5%, and to get that low you need to be working really, really hard. Ideal percentages body fat for _athletes_ run more like 12-18% female / 6-15% male.
Even if you ignore the 5% figure, a person of normal weight has a low but not non-zero chance of developing type ii diabetes.
Re:Sugar consumption (Score:4, Informative)
You're taking the "blame the patient" position. It's been debunked.
One notable characteristic of type II diabetes is the loss of the post meal insulin pulse. This pulse of insulin keeps blood glucose in check immediately after a meal. Without it, your blood glucose rises sharply after a meal and then falls. Swinging blood sugar levels lead to sugar & carbohydrate cravings. You can have these, and not be fat. The disease can actually induce the vice. Cause and effect are not always what they seem. You might find my other posts in this topic interesting.
Re:Diet Soda? -OT- (Score:2, Informative)
it dosn't always work (Score:4, Informative)
He has since cut out caffine, trimmed down, relaxed, and his blood sugar is very stable.
There are side effects of caffine, such as anxiety which could easily encourage diabetes.
Caffeine and type II Diabetes (Score:2, Informative)
No, this is a good study (Score:2, Informative)
It's nothing of the kind. This is a serious epidemiological study, and them scientists are actually pretty smart, y'know. Problems like these were formally recognised about a century ago, and there are ways to (mostly) avoid them.
True, this is an observational study rather than an intervention study or controlled experiment, but most large epidemiological studies like this do correct for things like age, sex, deprivation, health, etc. to reduce the effect of such biases.
That's not to say there isn't some selection effect that isn't controlled for which is causing the effect and has nothing to do with coffee. But the next step is that some pharmaceutical company will try and isolate the compound which has the preventative qualities and run a double-blind clinical trial to verify it's efficacy. Then we'll really know. This study is just the start. All that said, you've got a much better chance of reducing your risk of type II diabetes by reducing your weight and exercising than by running a 12-cup-a-day lifestyle.
MOD PARENT UP -- plus more (Score:5, Informative)
This AC makes a good point that you can't lump all carbs together. What really causes the problem in today's diets is that most food is processed very heavily. Grain products have the bran and germ (the most nutritious parts) stripped out of them. Fats have been extracted from their raw sources using heat and chemical solvents which fundamentally change the character of the fatty acids (typically breaking down any double bonds between carbon atoms and allowing more hydrogen to get attached leading to saturated fats). Grain products that retain most of the original nutrition such as barley, wild rice, whole wheat bread, etc. should not be lumped together in the class of 'evil' carbs. The heavily processed sugars and starches in our typical diet are bad because they are simply empty calories.
A balanced diet really is the way to go because your body needs so damn many things to work well and counteract the effects of other things you eat. I know some people don't bother eating fruits because they 'can get their vitamins from a pill'. Fruits provide much more than vitamins, however. Pectin, for example, helps your body deal with excess cholesterol. Atkins' dieters love to eat tons of fat and brag about how healthy they are. I know someone who eats fried eggs and bacon every morning for breakfast. Listen, that is not healthy by any stretch of the imagination. First of all, frying eggs hydrogenates them (if you love eggs, try soft-boiling them so that they yolk isn't exposed to the air). Bacon is cured and processed and filled with saturated fats. Good nutritional practices are not as simple as 'eat more fat and less carbs'.
Many of us have seen first hand how people follwing the Atkins and other fad diets lose weight. But the real key to being healthy (as opposed to just fat loss) is to eat a balanced diet filled with fresh, nutrient-dense foods. You can eat a fair meat of meat on such a diet but you had better (a) trim off excess visible fat, and (b) suppliment with essential fatty acids (omega-3 and omega-6 acids found in flax oil, hemp oil, nuts, seeds) to provide your body with the ability to deal with all the cholesterol and saturated fats you'll be taking in. Don't shy away from all carbs but make sure that any carbs you DO decide to take in are from nutrient dense sources. Never eat any type of bread except for 100% whole wheat. Don't use jasmine, white, basmanti or other highly processed rice -- use brown rice, wild rice, or barley. Skip pasta. Don't go crazy on fruits but definitely include some of those every day. And vegetables are essential. That's probably the most nutritious stuff you can find.
Bottom line: good nutrition is quite complicated. Much more so than you will ever hear about in USA Today or CNN. The best thing you can do is eat a balanced diet and reduce your consumption of highly processed foods. I'm not saying you have to run out and starting buying organic produce (lord knows I sure don't) but do realize that our modern society has traded nutrient value of foods for ease of processing and consumption.
GMD
Wrong. (Score:2, Informative)
That statement is false. I shall explain why. Insulin. Didnt you learn about Insulin in medical school Mr.Doctor? Insulin spikes when you have refined sugar. If you eat 20 steaks your insulin will rise very slowly, and theres less of a chance of insulin overdose.
Diabetes type 2 occurs due to insulin resistance caused by overdose of insulin. Your bodyparts simply fail to respond to it thus you have type 2 diabetes and you must take an insulin shot and change your diet.
What changes do doctors usually prefer? CUT OUT THE REFINED SUGARS. Eat lots of small meals per day with no sugar and your insulin levels will stay stable. Without spikes eventually your blood sugar level stablizes.
All food is broken down into glucose, even fat.
Rice breaks down faster than a steak. Dextrose is like drinking pure liquid glucose so of course it goes straight into the blood stream.
That glucose then exists in your blood stream where it is used, and excess glucose is stored as fat. This is the function of insulin, it is the opposite of adrenalin. Rather that convert stored fat to energy, it does the opposite.
Someone with insulin resistance (which is most of us Americans), in response to high glucose it may not go to fat cells, instead the insulin level rises higher and higher until they feel shaky, or tired when the insulin level suddenly crashes.
The problem is there is a finite amount of insulin that can be produced, and it appears that with excessive food consumption, the body loses its ability to accurately determine how much insulin is necessary at a given time. No one knows how or why this happens.
This happens because of refined sugars. The sugars put the body totally off balance.
What is known is it is impossible to acquire Type II diabetes if you have less than 5% body fat. A person of normal weight has zero chance of acquiring the disorder.
Thats such bullshit. There are atheletes with type 2 diabetes. It depends on a lot of factors. Want to test it out? Ok try this. Every morning for a month drink about 16 ounces of dextrose. I guarentee you that you'll eventually become insulin resistant.
Bodyweight can reduce your risk because if you are a smaller person your body will produce less insulin even when you spike, but if you spike greatly enough for long enough you can still get type 2 diabetes. This is why Asians and African Americans get diabetes while if you measure their bone structure and weight, they arent usually known for being the over weight race of people.
All the discussion of refined sugar is simply a way to mask the simple fact Type II diabetes is a disease caused by vice, and that vice is gluttony.
Also Genetics, and refined sugar. Would you like to prove your theory out?
Propose a study, let your subjects all be under 5% bodyfat, let each subject eat only rice and drink kool aid every morning for a year. Then measure their insulin levels after they do this.
If there is no spike, you are right and I am wrong. If they do spike like most humans do, well they'll eventually get diabetes.
Re:Sugar consumption (Score:3, Informative)
I have trouble with the word "abuse", since insulin production and sensativity varies widely from person to person. The symptoms of "insulin abuse" creep up on you. You don't recognize it when it happens, and it's not very different from what a "normal non-abusing person" is doing.
The biggest clue for me was ravenous hunger 4 to 6 hours after a high carb meal. Even then I only found out due to a presurgical screen after an accident. As it progresses, its easier to "abuse". I can "abuse" my insulin right now by eating two slices of wonder bread. 99% of the people on the planet would have no problem with this.
I'm not disagreeing with you, but your nomenclature tends to imply blame. It's not like Type 2 diabetics spent their younger years in back alleys with belts around their arms shooting glucose in their veins. Although, thanks to our modern high carb processed food diets, the net effect was the same.
Re:Great news! (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Wrong. (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, looking some stuff up in a table I have here, jasmine rice has a GI of 109! For reference, table sugar (sucrose) has a GI of "only" 61, and a white bagel (complex carbs in bagels, remember) has a GI of 72. Sure, refined sugars are bad, but there are many things that are worse. Hell, even raisins have a GI of 64.
Skimming over your post, I'd agree with everything you said if instead of simple sugars or refined sugar you said high glycemic foods.
PS - "healthy" cheerios: almost everone has seen the ads. They have a GI of 74 so they're worse than table sugar if you don't consider fiber or vitamin and mineral content.
Re:Diet Soda? -OT- (Score:4, Informative)
I don't have time to counter you point by point, but here are some corrections to your corrections...as well as some corrections to my original statements.
First, I confused glycogen with glycogon. Glycogon is the hormone that generally "opposes" insulin.
- Carbohydrates are not stored in fat cells.
Not directly - depending on the availablity of glucose, the body will convert acetyl byproducts of glucolysis into fat, or further metabolize it. More below:
- *Fat* is stored in fat cells, generally as triglycerides.
- Glycogen is stored in the liver and in muscle tissue, not in fat cells.
I was probably unclear, but I didn't mean to make that claim. Glycogen in the liver is the primary storage of excess glucose. When glucose is not abundant, the body will further metabolize the byproduct acetyls from glucose metabolization via the citric acid cycle. When glucose is abundant, the body will instead process excess acetyls into fats and cholesterol via lipogenesis. Fat and cholesterol production are based upon glucose availability; they store the leftovers energy from glucose metabolization, whereas in low glucose states those leftovers would be more completely metabolized.
- The body is incapable of producing its own glucose.
Ever hear of glyconeogenesis? It is the process by which the liver synthesizes glucose from fatty acids.
My best guess as to how Atkins works is that it triggers ketosis, a pathological metabolism characteristic of advanced untreated Type I diabetes. Under conditions of carbohydrate deprivation, the body hydrolizes triglycerides, using the glycerol to fuel the brain (necessary because fatty acids can't cross the blood-brain barrier, but glycerol and carbohydrates can). The fatty acids that are left over are thrown into a metabolic scrap heap, where they are eventually broken down into ketones, e.g. acetone, nail polish remover. If your breath is sweet when you're on the Atkins diet, that's probably the reason. The "glycogenic state" description sounds like an attempt to paint a pretty face on a pathological metabolism. I'm not sure Atkins is any better than tapeworms as an approach to dieting.
Ketosis is indeed a state that many low-carb diets try to maintain. Keep in mind that there is no evidence that ketosis itself is, in and of itself, a "pathological metabolism". If a person is ingesting enough carb to serve the bodies energy requirements, ketosis is indeed a symptom of something amiss. However, if the person is attempting to burn fat, ketosis is the optimal state.
Re: RIGHT (Score:2, Informative)