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."
Slashdot reaction (Score:4, Insightful)
Ignoring, of course, the fact that while drinking 6 (!!) cups of coffee a day may reduce your risk of Type 2 diabetes (if this resarch is true), it raises your risk for nearly everything else.
Sugar consumption (Score:5, Insightful)
Red Bull's full of sugar (Score:2, Insightful)
Your point is? (Score:1, Insightful)
A serious exerciser or athelete is in better shape and more thoughtful about their health in general than most people, of course they will have less type 2 diabetes.
Unrelated News: Starbucks stock jumps 63% (Score:2, Insightful)
6 cups a day?! If the test-subjects die from a heart-attack before diabetes can get them, does that really mean their risk has been lowered?
Are we sure this is not Causation but Correlation? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd start listening to the audio links and do research, but I'm stuck at this place called My Job and if anyone else can confirm this I'd appreciate it. The link given is not the official paper with its findings and I'm not sure I trust the person who wrote it.
Duh! (Score:4, Insightful)
However, high caffeine intake has other problems: impotence being one of them.
Re:Diet Soda? -OT- (Score:5, Insightful)
Whatever ever happened to a balanced diet? Atkins seems to me to be swinging the pendulum more and more away from equilibrium.
Pop culture diets: "Eat no carbs!" "Wait! You need carbs!" "Eat nothing but carbs!" "Wait, carbs are bad!" "Eat only protien!" "Eat anything but barf it up!"
rant not directed towards you, neiffer. just a rant. whatever to get your diabetes in control. People with a medical condition, maybe something like Atkins is a good thing. but for people who think they are fat, and don't want to excercise, a little more balance would seem better.
Re:Just a joke. (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know about that. I don't think there's ever been any evidence of serious long term health consequences linked to even moderately high caffeine use.
And it's not for lack of trying. Caffeine seems almost too good to be true.
As far as the lameness of caffeine addiction is concerned, coffee has been loved by generations of Sufis, who used coffee in mystic rituals and spread its use across the world; and by many important creative people who picked it up in coffee houses. Beethoven and Rossini were very heavy users by any standard. William Harvey, the disoverer of blood ciruclation, left his coffee paraphernalia to the Royal Society and is said to have declared on his deathbed that the coffee bean was the source of all true happiness (going a bit far I'd say).
Balzac was probably the champion coffee addict of all time, reaching a point of drinking over two hundred cups of coffee a day until he finally gave up and resorted to eating coffee beans directly. He did die of heart failure, but at a reasonable age for his day, and according to his physician from a congential condition.
Coffee is one of those rare pleasures that, even indulged in to the extreme remains quite benign. I'd say stop being so puritanical and enjoy one of nature's gifts.
Six cups of coffee?!? (Score:2, Insightful)
Six cups of coffee contain a total of 810mg of Caffeine [cspinet.org]. That's the same as 14 Mountian Dews. If you're drinking 6 cups of coffee a day, you won't get diabetes because you'll be dead of a heart attack at age 35!
Re:Slashdot reaction (Score:3, Insightful)
The magic point with coffee is around 6 cups a day, where the bad effects starts to kick in (increased risk of ulcers and heart-problems).
We can just hope the risk for diabetes is also reduced for less than 6 cups a day, otherwise we have to count cups to make sure the hit the magic number every single day
Re:Diet Soda? -OT- (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Slashdot reaction (Score:3, Insightful)
Uh... hate to burst your bubble cowboy, but that's MASSIVE (catastrophic, whatever you choose) heart failure that's a quick flash in the pan. My grandfather and uncle (yes, someday it'll come to take me, as well) both suffered catastrophic heart attacks and were unconscious within seconds, dead within a minute. However, one of my friends was not so lucky and languished in a hospital bed for days before another, smaller heart attack actually killed him. You could linger in agony for days at the hands of a heart attack followed by long, painful surgery to try and save you. If you happen to survive, expect to suffer for weeks during recuperation. Of course, after that, odds are good your next one will toast you regardless of it's strength.
Stroke, hypertension, etc. are also lingering and miserable things that could be brought on by OD'ing on the coffee and soda.
Re:Yeah, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
How right you are!
I am constantly dealing with Type II diabetes. (Ironically, I'm also a modest coffee drinker averaging ~ 30 oz / day)
I've found that when my weight climbs above 225, I have problems with my blood sugars. When my weight is under 220 or so, I have little to no trouble at all.
This is not an issue, except that I'm lazy. Very, very lazy. So, I end up hovering between 210-230 or so, losing weight when I start having problems with my blood sugars, and easing off when I stop.
Currently, my routine consists of talking with clients in the morning, coding all afternoon, then going for a 2-4 mile jog in the early evening with my two 14 Y.O. sons.
For me, the correlation between obesity and Type II diabetes is incredibly clear, and is perhaps the only reason why I remain a healthy 220-ish instead of the 300+ lbs. my lifestyle tendencies would lead me to.
Since I put out the effort to lose the weight to keep my situation under control, I'll probably live alot longer!
Re: RIGHT (Score:5, Insightful)
The refined carbohydrates you believe are the cause of Type II diabetes have been consumed now for over 5000 years. This is a disorder that did not even exist 100 years ago, and barely existed 40 years ago. What has changed? Until you explain THAT, everything you think you know is completely irrelevent.
Actually... We've been aware of diabetes at least since the time of the Roman Empire. "Diabetes mellitus" is actually latin for "sweet urine", which was the diagnostic test (yuk!) for the disease back then. In the past, type 1 diabetics didn't survive to adulthood. Type 2 complications take decades to develop, and may be mistaken for other things. Either way, since the average life expectancy was less than 40 5000 years ago, your point is hardly relevant. Most people didn't live long enough for the disease to develop.
I have to live with the disease. Funny... I can eat more rice than I can bread. It doesn't get digested as fast.
I'd love to see your 50 claimed references. You've done a lot of spouting off bullshit in this topic. You have your preconceived position, and you aren't going to let go of it. You're not helping anyone, and we really don't care if you want to feel smarter than everyone else.
Re:cool (Score:1, Insightful)