Daily Caffeine Protects Your Brain 325
Chroniton writes "The BBC has a story that many Slashdot geeks will be happy to hear: the caffeine from a cup of coffee a day can help prevent Dementia, by blocking the damage of cholesterol. (At least in rabbits) This is in addition to the already-known protection against Alzheimer's Disease. More research is needed to test the effect on humans."
Re:god damn it (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:god damn it (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, yeah... (Score:3, Insightful)
This week a glass of wine a day prevents altzheimers, last week that was classed as binge drinking and caused high blood pressure.
This week sausages cause cancer, no doubt next week they'll help prevent MS.
It's all a load of old cock. And no doubt a load of old cock either causes or prevents heart disease (depending which week you take your old cock).
Re:god damn it (Score:4, Insightful)
Studies on eggs have show that they make no difference and infact a bit more exercise would help a world more than changing you diet.
Re:god damn it (Score:5, Insightful)
like it's going to stop anyone drinking it anyway...
These things take time. Looking at one study alone can be interesting, but it's stupid to take that study's findings as gospel truth.
Re:god damn it (Score:5, Insightful)
Nobody is going to live forever because of some nutritional change. If you eat a wide variety of fresh unprocessed foods you'll do fine. Everything in moderation.
Re:Yeah, yeah... (Score:5, Insightful)
Most medicines, after all, include side effects.
A single factor of many (Score:5, Insightful)
But, it leeches calcium from your bones.
Still, it avoids erectile dysfunction.
However, it destroys a good night's sleep.
Yet it can keep you thin.
But, it might make you take up smoking...
And so on, forever and ever, until people admit that even scientists recognize the world is more complicated than a single factor at a time.
Re:Hmm yes (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:god damn it (Score:2, Insightful)
The world is not black and white (Score:4, Insightful)
The bottom line is everything can potentially be a cure or a poison depending on proportion (Even water can be a mortal poison).
The truth is that we still suck when it comes to nutritional science. Mostly because it's hard to do proper science when your subject lives as long as you do.
exercise (Score:3, Insightful)
Back on the "all things in moderation" kick, exercise certainly seems to be one of them, but in this case I think "moderation" for exercise is indeed a higher dose than most of us consider. I've heard that marathons are actually hard on the body, and shouldn't be done too often, and I suspect that hard-core bodybuilding is a bit much, but most of us never really approach excessive exercise.
Re:Yeah, yeah... (Score:2, Insightful)
For example, the front page of this Monday's Metro (a free morning paper distributed across the UK) was "A Sausage a Day Increases cancer Risk by 20%". It wasn't just sausages, but all processed meat (bacon, salami, etc.). There was no mention of what the % risk of getting stomach cancer is, but I think that a fair few members of the general public would read that as the risk increases from, say, 5% to 25%, rather than the 5% to 6% increase that it really is.
Food, drink and drug "scare stories" are a weekly occurrence here, particularly pushed by a section of the UK press (Express and Mail being the worst) and breakfast TV. It just has the result that people switch off. Pregnant women have recently been advised not to drink at all, whereas the previous advice was "one or two glasses of wine is fine". The evidence hasn't changed, but because of the "binge drinking epidemic" the advice has and it's top of the news programmes and on the front pages.
Re:exercise (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that folks generally have this view that they could never run a marathon, so why run at all (extend that to any given sport)? The answer is to recognize that pretty much anyone can improve their fitness from where it's at today, and it's amazing to see how quickly the body can become accustomed to an increased level of activity, so long as the increase is kept within reasonable bounds. Being more fit makes just about every daily activity more fun and less stressful, and it amazes me that in so many of the 'self-help' TV shows that are on the tube these days, they turn to surgery for what is really just a lack-of-exercise problem.
Re:god damn it (Score:3, Insightful)
This isn't entirely true. The general public doesn't give enough consideration to their health in general. Neither diet NOR physical activity are given enough attention as we all eat far too many refined carbohydrates and saturated fats AND lead sedentary lives that just aggravate the situation.
I know people who lead physically active lives (typically having physically demanding jobs), are not the slightest bit overweight (quite lean builds in fact) and by outward appearances look physically healthy...but they skip breakfast, and eat cheeseburgers and fries for lunch and supper every day and smoke moderately. They get sick more often and are the types of people who have digestion problems and end up being the people in conversations like "HE had a heart attack? But he looked so healthy!"
Diet certainly IS very important. The problem is that we eat very badly, and when we focus on diet we don't eat balanced diets--we go on "extreme atkins" or try to eat like Jarod or eat carefully, artificially-portioned pre-packaged meals like Nutrisystem so we can lose weight and "look nice".
Diet is JUST AS IMPORTANT as physical activity; you CANNOT say "Oh, I work out every day so I can eat just about anything". Though physical activity provides the most impact on metabolism and many other health factors, it is DIET that has the largest impact on weight. Think about it: It takes mere seconds to a couple of minutes to eat a chocolate bar, which cancels out the calories you expend on 20 minutes of medium-to-intense cardio activity. It's well known that losing weight and/or increasing % of lean body mass has a notable impact on harmful cholesterol...so if you want to lose weight and be more healthy don't use exercise as an excuse to eat those sugar and fat-laden chocolate bars.
Re:god damn it (Score:3, Insightful)
Coffee is a great example: a while back someone did a meta analysis and found the studies were basically a wash. Do what you want in moderation. I like to roast my own coffee, grind it immediately prior to brewing, french press it nice and strong and drink it with a lot of cream but no sugar. I don't drink every day but when I do I want to really enjoy it.
Besides, whats the point of indulging if you dont indulge? Diet ice cream? Give me a break!