Caffeine Prevents Liver Disease 294
DC Jeff writes "The Washington Post reports that drinking two cups of coffee or tea daily may reduce the risk of liver disease. From the article: 'The study of nearly 10,000 people showed that those who drank more than two cups of coffee or tea per day developed chronic liver disease at half the rate of those who drank less than one cup each day.'"
Caffeeine bonus (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Caffeeine bonus (Score:4, Funny)
Jj-just l-lay o-off, k-k'?
Now in the Health Food Aisle: Jolt!
That's because..... (Score:5, Interesting)
There's the rub (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:There's the rub (Score:2, Insightful)
So basically 80% of
Irish Coffee, for the best of both? (Score:3, Interesting)
A.C. commented that it's probably because of the diuretic effects of caffeine making you drink more liquids, which was also my first guess. However, it could equally well be incorrect - caffeine tends to dehydrate you more than the liquid in the coffee or tea replenishes, so unless you're careful to make up for it with w
Sweet! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Sweet! (Score:3)
Re:Sweet! (Score:3, Funny)
I don't think I'm actually going to count on Mountain Dew for any longevity properties, other than for the "copious amounts of fluids" I get from it. Right now, I'm mostly just a filter for Yellow dye #5. :-)
Damn! (Score:2)
Re:Damn! (Score:2)
Redbull and Vodka! (Score:2)
Re:Sweet! (Score:2)
Re:Sweet! (Score:2)
O Rly? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:O Rly? (Score:5, Insightful)
Good question!
It seems that any industry can produce a study which says their product is healthy/benificial in some way. But they never tell you the adverse health effects. I would not be supprised if the tobacco industry would run a news story saying smoking decreased colon cancer by .0001% in the population. Too bad it would kill 100X as many from lung cancer.
This reminds me of the 80's when everyone was saying how bad butter is, and to switch to margarine or die of a heart attack. 10 years later, researchers said margarine is unhealthy and butter is better. I remember the same debate about eggs, until some researcher enlightened us to good cholesterol. LOL, I guess it took someone to fly to France to watch 80 year old men eat eggs fried in butter before they asked "What's going on here".
I am going to take my grandmothers advice, she is still alive in her 90's. She told me when I was young to get 8 good hours of sleep each night. Don't stay up past midnight, wake up early and ready for the new day. And everything is good in moderation, never take too much of anything. The only thing she said to avoid was smoke and drugs, and people who smoke or use drugs. The last bit of advice was that tomorrow is always a new day, no setback should foul your mood. It is pretty simple advice, but I think she was 100% correct.
Re:O Rly? (Score:5, Informative)
--Aristotle, the Nicomachean Ethics.
Re:O Rly? (Score:2)
Its better to burn out then to fade away. Also, please discard your CD/record collection as most of that music wouldnt be around without the help of delicious delicious drugs. Im not saying living to 90 is bad, but if you havent woken up in a pool of your own vomit, on your front lawn, with a chick you dont even remember meeting, can you say
Re:O Rly?--yeah, really (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:O Rly? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:O Rly? (Score:2)
Exactly. Misinterpreting statistics like these is incredibly easy. Did you know that taking large amounts of cyanide cuts the chances of you dying of cancer by 100%? And nuclear explosions make you immune to measles. After all, statistics show that nobody who has had a nuclear bomb drop on them has ever contracted measles afterwards. You can't argue with the numbers.
Forget coffee! (Score:2, Informative)
Nope (Score:4, Informative)
What kind of health benefits can people expect to receive from drinking coffee? According to Martin, "Predominantly in epidemiologic studies, there have been associations between coffee consumption and lowered rates of certain illnesses, like suicide, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's, Type II diabetes, colon cancer and heart disease." (Epidemiologic studies are often historical trials that are not considered definitive by clinicians.)"
Re:Nope (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Nope (Score:5, Informative)
Depression is the illness usually leading to suicide.
Re:Nope (Score:2)
an interesting claim (Score:2)
Re:Nope (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Nope (Score:4, Funny)
It's terminal.
Re:Nope (Score:2)
It is a cure for inmense suffering and anguish that is 100% real to the individual who suffers from it.
Cheers,
Adolfo
Re:Forget coffee! (Score:2)
Re:Forget coffee! (Score:2)
What ill-informed garbage.
Americans get the vast majority of their antioxidants from drinking coffee. It's full of them.
Re:Forget coffee! (Score:3, Informative)
"All coffee has is caffeine." (bold mine). As in, coffee contains caffeine and nothing else. I can see how you missed the "is" part, I missed it the first time I read it.
Re:Forget coffee! (Score:2)
Actually... (Score:2)
-everphilski-
Re:Forget coffee! (Score:2)
Great News! (Score:5, Funny)
Dude, I'm going to live forever!
Re:Great News! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Great News! (Score:2)
Re:Great News! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Great News! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Great News! (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps this study could've been labelled: "Having monogamous relationship and no sex prior to marriage decreases men's probabilities of having prostate cancer". But well, the same could be said about AIDS. But something tells me that this idea will be rejected by the public right away.
Re:Great News! (Score:3, Insightful)
finally, an explanation (Score:4, Funny)
Hey, it sounds better then that bumper sticker, "The liver is evil and must be destroyed"
Re:finally, an explanation (Score:2)
Nah, that's just about transfer of addiction, the entire goal of the 12 step program. They attempt to transfer your addiction to [whatever] to the group. Coffee itself is addictive, so that's just a hook to keep you getting pulled in.
Kafaanethanoltsi - A life back in Balance (Score:5, Funny)
Caffeine in the morning to awaken the mind and refresh the liver. Alcochol at night to knock 'em both back down again for a good night's sleep.
Aiee! (Score:2)
irish coffee (Score:5, Funny)
Now where's my Bushmills and Jamaica Blue coffee beans?
Re:irish coffee (Score:2)
I always say... (Score:3, Insightful)
There is no "trick" to living longer, just use commmon sense.
The trick is... (Score:4, Insightful)
Interesting (Score:2)
Damn the French... (Score:4, Funny)
Red Wine = Lower risk of heart disease
Coffee = Lower risk of Liver disease
Turns out the smug buggers were right all along to laugh at the latest health craze from the US.
If it's caffeine that counts... (Score:2)
If so, then the Microsoft campus should the most liver diesase-free spot on Earth.
Re:If it's caffeine that counts... (Score:3, Funny)
Which bears the question... (Score:2)
Or is it simply that any liquid intake you have that's coffee or tea is liquid intake that's not beer?
-F
breakthrough in science... (Score:5, Funny)
In other news, stupidity (and the blind belief in statistical based research) causes cancer.
Re:breakthrough in science... (Score:2)
Showing that things are not random can show causality. You need to just look at the data (and many sets, sometimes) from different angles to rule out any alternative hypothesis.
How do you think any genetic studies are conducted?
Causation connection....??? (Score:2)
Caffeine Credits (Score:2)
At the very least the people who bet my blood through my donations will be safe.
How many people do you know with chronic liver (Score:2)
So does this mean... (Score:2, Interesting)
Coffee --> Good for the liver
Does this mean that Kahlua cancels itself out? If so, I'm going to get trashed tonight!!
Caffeine is your friend (Score:3, Funny)
Good news, to be added to the possibility that caffeine is is linked to protection from Parkinson's disease [harvard.edu]. Makes those first couple of mugs of coffee taste that much sweeter... well, that and 2 heaping tablesoons of sugar and all the packets of Splenda® I can find.
Good news all over the place (Score:2)
Today coffee saves my liver
Now some math with coffee:
2 cups to improve my memory
2 cups to save my live
Just doubling the dose to be on the safe side= 8 cups of coffee in a day should be ok I guess.
And off again to the next topic.
In other news... (Score:2)
Coffee drinkers have twice the rate of kidney failure than non coffee drinkers.
gasmonso http://religiousfreaks.com/ [religiousfreaks.com]Re:In other news... (Score:2)
See? You can't win with these scientific studies. That's why I drink Irish Coffee, there is a neglible chance that my liver will be saved, but if not, at least I will be too drunk to notice otherwise.
With tradeoffs (Score:3, Interesting)
Armchair doctors says: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Armchair doctors says: (Score:2)
A lot of people take coffee to perk them up a bit- the caffeine triggers stress reactions that pull glucose out of storage in the liver and elsewhere and put them into circulation where they are picked up by the brain (the brain's preferred fuel in glucose).
So that would tend to deplete the liver's glycogen stores.
Now, when you come along and drink alcohol on top; alcohol tends to inhibit the chemical that turns fru
Hmm... (Score:3, Funny)
Kind of reminds me of my senior year in college, when I realized most of my vitamin C came from the screwdrivers I drank.
Repeat after me (Score:2, Insightful)
Repeat as necessary.
Re:Repeat after me (Score:4, Insightful)
Unless you've shown that for all (and I mean *all*) distinct states of a system, some event B happens only after some other event A. And even then, you run into some hard realities about the tenuous definition of "causality".
Re:Repeat after me (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm really glad people doing actual science don't do things like see penicillin reducing the numbers of bacteria and say, "Yeah, but correlation does not prove causation. I'm going to go ahead and bleed you some more."
Re:Repeat after me (Score:3, Insightful)
I take it very few people on Slashdot DO science for a living. I have a paper in nature genetics this month (well, on line, it'
Re:Repeat after me (Score:4, Insightful)
Cripes, I never said do no further research. That's called a "straw man fallacy". I was addressing the common tendency of the media to present correlation as causation. A simple correlation should not even be news outside journals for the field in question.
This link might help. [wikipedia.org]
Incidence (Score:5, Insightful)
The incidence of liver disease among non-hepatitis infected people is incredibly small. If you take all comers it is 12th among cause of death (lower than suicde) according to the NIH (pdf of causes of death) [cdc.gov].
Because even if the result is statistically significant, if not that many people die of it (~2500 in 2003), then the harm caused by this drug (caffine) may not outway the rare case it saves (and yes, I understand if you're the one it is significant, but this is public health)
For instance "Zipia reduces aliens ripping out of your abdomen by 99%" sounds very impressive, until you look at how many people this would affect (there were the 4 alien movies plus spaceballs). So everyone should not start using zipia, which undoubtably will cause some bad side effect, versus those few actors who would be saved.
Other effects (Score:2, Interesting)
Water loss leads impaired kidney function, and loss of vital nutrients, i.e., calcium. http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/columnnn/nn03110 3.html [colostate.edu]
So unless your the rare geek who staggers each $caffeinatedDrink with two glasses of water and a Flinstones vitamin - your on the loosing end. But what the hell, everything will kill you in one way or another...
Strive for equilibrium (Score:2)
Again, irresponsible medical reports (Score:5, Informative)
These studies are generally aimed at foods or products that are generally considered to be unhealthy or otherwise, the people making these products are in a defensive position to try and validate their existence.
The problem is that there are those people just waiting for an excuse to over-indulge in these products. If drinking 2 cups of beer a day prevents cancer, then by drinking 12 I will live to 100, right?
Often people just read the caption without reading the entire article, or in many cases, the finer points of the study are excluded to a terse clipping of the conclusion without preventing the facts, those facts usually explaining how overindulgence could cause adverse medical problems. This is the case here in Slashdot where many people simply read the blurb without delving into the hyperlinked article.
Also, these studies are usually contradictory to other studies. Recently it was reported on Slashdot that drinking even one cup of coffee was linked to some kind of adverse health issue. The studies conflict each other, meaning that the truth of the matter is never effectively conveyed by both parties. People that love coffee will be quicker to believe that it is more beneficial to them then those that don't drink it, who would quote coffee is harmful to you.
Lastely, these studdies generally ignore other serious health issues that might go along with the consumption. Like the fact that most people take cream and sugar in their coffee. Many people in Canada love their double/doubles (2 creams and 2 sugars). This study suggests that drinking two cups of coffee a day has positive health effects, but for those that like cream and sugar in their coffee, this means drinking in addition to the coffee, one will consume 4 servings of high fat cream and 4 teaspoons of suger. The high fat in cream and excessive calories of the sugar are sure to be more harmful to your health then whatever positive effects the coffee may have on your health. Those that feel more is better will consume more high fat cream and high calorie sugars which will exponentially have a negative effect on their health, in addition to ignoring disclaimers by the study that too much coffee could have a detrimental effect.
Finally, there are those people who consider themselves well learned and so propose that its the caffine in coffee that is beneficial, so drinking a couple cups of cola should also be beneficial, or popping a couple of caffine pills or those high-caf beverages. The study mentions that drinking 2 cups of coffee or tea a day is beneficial, but the Slashdot article only says that Caffeine prevents liver disease, a discrepancy in the facts presented.
In any case, one should never blindly use these articles as an excuse to continue or start a bad habit. There are MANY healthy ways to prevent Liver Disease, drinking two cups of coffee a days to cure a hangover after consuming an excess of alcohol the previous night probably won't have a positive effect on your liver.
What's in the drink? (Score:2, Interesting)
I think a good follow-on study might be to try caffeine pills vs placebos - although since we're talking about preventing disease rather than curing it, that study could take a generation or more.
Maybe (Score:2)
Perhaps.. (Score:2)
questionable article (Score:3, Informative)
In general, coffee is quite a bit more caffinated than tea. Brewed coffee is around 135mg, instant around 95mg, whereas the most common teas (lipton green, instant black, etc) have about 35-40mgs. So statements like "one or two cups of coffee OR TEA" puts the targetted intake anywhere between 70mg and 270mgs per day. How useful.
Beer/Coffee Ratio? (Score:3, Funny)
This Study Brought To You By.... (Score:3, Funny)
I think the preferred liver-cleansing (Score:2)
Just be sure to cool it to roughly body temperature first.
$medical_group study this week shows that... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Sod That! (Score:5, Insightful)
And, hey, teeth are relatively easy to replace. No organ donor is even required.
Re:Sod That! (Score:3, Insightful)
From the sound of this article, this was probably a preliminary study. i.e. They surveyed
Re:Sod That! (Score:3, Interesting)
Even if there is a positive correlation (those that drink more coffee tend to have less cancer) that does Not mean that coffee is that catalyst in reducing cancer. Maybe those that are genetically less likely to get cancer share a trait where they also have a predisposed liking for caffeine.
Re:Sod That! (Score:3, Funny)
I use EMACS, you insensitive clod!
Re:Sod That! (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyways, I'm not sure caffeinated beer is a good idea. Generally speaking, unless you're really partying hard, your motor skills and level of consciousness decline as your BAC goes up... preventing alcohol poisoning. If you throw a stimulant into the mix, it might keep you drinking well past the point where you should be on the floor & passed out.
Re:Sod That! (Score:3, Insightful)
I honestly believe piling the blood with a plethrora of substances doesn't eventually do a body good. I've been utterly strung out on so much caffeine, from the days I worked 16-18 hour days for months straight, I slept fitfully and effectively went through detox every weekend, before starting again on Monday. I went through a pound of coffee a week at that time. I cer
Re:Sod That! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Sod That! (Score:2)
Re:Sod That! (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, they could just stop drinking so much alcohol...
Party Pooper (Score:2)
Re:Sod That! (Score:2)
Back when I was young and foolish (Funny, isn't it, how often the two terms are associated?) I used to like to drink a shot of tequilla backed up with Mexican Coffee. (Like Irish, but using tequilla instead of Irish whiskey.) The booze got me drunk and the coffee got me wired. Very strange, and the hangovers tended to be horrendous.
Re:Sod That! (Score:2)
It gives you wings (Score:4, Funny)