NIH Study Finds That Coffee Drinkers Have Lower Risk of Death 234
parallel_prankster writes "Older adults who drank coffee — caffeinated or decaffeinated — had a lower risk of death [full paper is paywalled, at the New England Journal of Medicine] overall than others who did not drink coffee, according to a study by researchers from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health, and AARP. Coffee drinkers were less likely to die from heart disease, respiratory disease, stroke, injuries and accidents, diabetes, and infections, although the association was not seen for cancer. These results from a large study of older adults were observed after adjustment for the effects of other risk factors on mortality, such as smoking and alcohol consumption. They also found that the association between coffee and reduction in risk of death increased with the amount of coffee consumed. Relative to men and women who did not drink coffee, those who consumed three or more cups of coffee per day had approximately a 10 percent lower risk of death. Researchers caution, however, that they can't be sure whether these associations mean that drinking coffee actually makes people live longer."
I kinda thought risk of death... (Score:5, Informative)
... was roughly one in one. Guess I was wrong.
Risk of death (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Risk of death (Score:5, Funny)
and the risk of death around me increases if I don't get my coffee.
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I intend to live forever. So far so good. --Stephen Wright
Re:I kinda thought risk of death... (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, Jesus H. Christ. This comment comes up on every story dealing with mortality risk, and it's getting kind of old. Look, the hazard rate function [wikipedia.org] is not that hard to understand. Educate yourself instead of making the same worn-out joke over and over again, okay?
Re:I kinda thought risk of death... (Score:4, Informative)
Alright Sheldon Cooper, we all get it. And you move your bowls at 8:20.
Re:I kinda thought risk of death... (Score:4, Funny)
Okay, I'm going to make a computer and car analogy.
Suppose that on every single story that mentioned RAM in any context, there were guaranteed to be a hundred comments along the lines of "Isn't the Ram a pickup truck?" Some of these comments would be meant as in-jokes, but most would be absolutely serious. The people making the comments (a self-selected group of intelligent, technically minded people who are, supposedly, interested in the world around them) would absolutely refuse to understand, no matter how many times it was explained to them, that the word "ram" has multiple specific meanings, and that only one of those meanings is relevant to the conversation at hand.
Wouldn't you get just a little tired of this?
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You should know it's all a part of the Slashdot environment...
Citation needed...
In soviet Russia...
I, for one, welcome my new overlord...
Just how it is. Roll with it.
Re:I kinda thought risk of death... (Score:4, Funny)
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ROFLMAO
Auto correct is fun!
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This is the second time I saw that typo in this thread.. I thought it was some new meme I hadn't heard about
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2857157&cid=40030605 [slashdot.org]
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Oh, Jesus H. Christ. This comment comes up on every story dealing with mortality risk, and it's getting kind of old. Look, the hazard rate function [wikipedia.org] is not that hard to understand. Educate yourself instead of making the same worn-out joke over and over again, okay?
Funny you should mention Jesus Christ. I wonder how much coffee that guy drank!
*offtopic*
According to the link in your sig, the government is shrinking. Wonder were that extra $1.5 trillion is going.
*/offtopic*
Re:I kinda thought risk of death... (Score:5, Interesting)
If you want the canonical term that's used in a statistical or medical context, just say "mortality". We'll all understand perfectly what you mean, and there will be no snickering. You don't say "mortality risk" because that would be redundant. It makes you look like you don't know what you're talking about. (Of course, if you want to create that impression, you're on the right track.)
Another conventional term is "death rate". Both "mortality" and "death rate" refer to the relative frequency of deaths in a given population under given conditions.
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"... less likely to die from heart disease, respiratory disease, stroke, injuries and accidents, diabetes, and infections, although the association was not seen for cancer."
Fuck that. I'd rather have a heart attack than cancer.
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Damn you, Mr. QuickFingers!
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... was roughly one in one. Guess I was wrong.
No... The probability of death may be roughly one in one, but that's because such wording provides a context whereby there is no time constraint unless one is stated.
"Risk of death" on the other hand implies a context where time is not a constraint but a factor. Lower risk implies it is less likely to happen sooner.
Maybe that's just my professional background that leads me to think of the distinction, rather than a general truth, though it's also standard in personal health analysis and reporting so the co
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Speak for yourself- so far, I'm immortal.
Immortality might be fun right now but I bet the black hole era and following heat death of the universe are going to be seriously boring.
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Sure, but by the time the immortal guy has to reinstall windows 2120 because of driver issues, the rest of his existence will be devoted on how to commit suicide.
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Speak for yourself- so far, I'm immortal.
The risk of death decreased by 10% at three cups per day so drink 30 per day and you'll be really immortal.
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Headline (Score:5, Funny)
NIH Study Finds That Coffee Drinkers Have Lower Risk of Death.
In other news, death is avoidable.
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Extrapolating ... (Score:2, Funny)
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No no, you have a lower chance of dying.
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You mean a lower chance of dying before someone that does not drink coffee; you still have 100% chance of dying until immortality drugs are created, but even then you may still die in a traffic accident or from my brother-in-law's farts, which I'm fairly certain is the most toxic gas on the planet.
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Hmm, I only drink around 12 cups per day so I'll have to improve that.
My prof dranks coffee like water (Score:2)
He stayed up late working on his experiments, then got up early to teach the 8 o'clock class.
He was very jittery.
I can't see how this is "good" for you and reduces risk of death.
Re:My prof dranks coffee like water (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't see how this is "good" for you and reduces risk of death.
And yet, the data says it is. This is why we do science, because not everything is obvious, and sometimes tests come back with unexpected results. That's how we learn things.
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Except science is based upon MULTIPLE studies that can be replicated (with same results), not just one. I am questioning the validity of this ONE study and doubt other studies will sustain it.
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No, the data says that it reduces the risk of certain causes of death. They didn't measure whether it has an effect on expected lifetime. A shot in the head would make all those risks zero, but it's not something that will make you live longer.
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Also, it states that coffee drinkers showed a lower rate of death due to accident and injury. This SCREAMS correlation.
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You do what you gotta do (Score:2)
Coffee got me through my undergraduate years. I worked nights (11:00 pm to 7:00 am), went to classes until early afternoon and then slept until time to get up for work. Probably drank 10 to 15 cups of coffee a day. The worst was the day I noticed my desk shaking and it was my own left arm twitching.
Still drink abot six cups a day of the "real stuff" (not decaf). Love the taste of coffee. I'll even drink decaf in the evening just so I can enjoy the taste. I got "the habit" long before college from my pa
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Sometimes things that are harmful in one way can help in other ways.
Taking coffee as an example, it is known that heavy coffee consumptions
stunts breast development in women. As it happens, the same effect also
reduces her risk of developing breast cancer.
Meanwhile, on the West Coast.... (Score:5, Funny)
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I'm confused...In the State of California, coffee is know to cause cancer or when in the State of California, coffee causes cancer. That is some pretty selective cancer and one state I think I'll avoid in the future....Whew!
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A week later, it was no longer there, and they put up a note saying "Whoever stole our coffee maker, please give it back."
My guess is that it was a lawyer for the university, on nightly patrol for something that wasn't properly labeled as being likely to give you cancer. He saw the sign, mutt
I think by now we should deduce (Score:2, Funny)
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Fiber (Score:2, Informative)
It's just all the extra fiber they get from the coffee. [scientificamerican.com]
Statistics, statistics... (Score:5, Interesting)
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And I'm sure the researchers who conducted the study, the agencies that paid for the study, and the editors and peer reviewers who read the paper before publication never ever once thought of controlling for risk factors. You'd better contact the NEJM and NCI immediately and tell them what idiots they are to have missed something so obvious. I'm sure they'll be blown away by your critique.
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Which would yo
Re:Statistics, statistics... (Score:4, Insightful)
So your explanation would be that people growing old and sick tend to give up coffee, but keep smoking and drinking alcohol? I guess it's possible, but I it's not obvious to me why that would be.
Risk of Death (Score:3, Insightful)
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starbucks (Score:2)
Control for sugar (Score:5, Interesting)
My guess is that people who don't drink coffee more likely DO drink sugary sodas.
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Quite right (Score:3)
Of course those of us who drink massive quantities of coffee won't die from heart disease, respiratory disease, stroke, injuries and accidents, diabetes, or infections. We'll die by lunging at the coffee machine early one morning, slipping on the wet floor, then failing to catch our jittery selves because we're busy protecting the ceramic mug our child gave us fifteen years ago.
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Really??? (Score:3)
This sounds like it could be correlated to other lifestyle choices. e.g., People who have a routine or work in an office and drink coffee are safer than other occupations.
It's really hard to control for all of the other possible factors.
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You would expect diabetes to be higher in sedentary occupations, because Bob knows that a lot of office workers are fat bastards.
"Coffee drinkers were less likely to die from heart disease, respiratory disease, stroke, injuries and accidents, diabetes, and infections, although the association was not seen for cancer. "
Did they weight it with known Asthma Risk? (Score:2)
PR department gone wild (Score:2)
Maybe Coffee drinkers take less risk (Score:2)
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The study was 400,000 people - that is a pretty massive sample size, and covers any amount of coffee and even decaf coffee, which contains very little caffeine. My family follows this exactly - if I use my grandparents as an example, my dad's side drank no coffee and both died of natural causes at 83 and 87. My mom's side both drank coffee (grandma decaf) and died at 94 (complications from a broken hip) and 95 (natural causes). Both of my grandpas were farmers, and had relatively sedentary housewife wives,
Including liquid candy bars? (Score:4, Funny)
I assume they mean people who actually drink real coffee, and not those that drink mocha-frappa-whatever liquid candy bars.
HAHAHA (Score:4, Funny)
Have Lower Risk of Death? (Score:2)
Lower than usual 100%
Key components (Score:4, Insightful)
The study made me think whether some other drink would work as well (or better)? Fruit juice, cocoa, tea, even plain water? What's the secret component(s)?
As the text also notes:
"The mechanism by which coffee protects against risk of death — if indeed the finding reflects a causal relationship — is not clear, because coffee contains more than 1,000 compounds that might potentially affect health," said Freedman.
Coffee is known to be rich in antioxidants, so that could be one sporadic blind guess. But yeah.
Their findings can also be stated as... (Score:3, Insightful)
People who live longer have a higher risk of being coffee drinkers.
Correlation is not causality.
I'm okay with this study... (Score:2)
Who submitted this? (Score:3)
parallel_prankster writes
a.k.a Juan Valdez [wikipedia.org].
Don't drink coffee (Score:2, Interesting)
I stopped drinking coffee a few years ago and feel a lot better. It upsets my stomach. It made me a lot more tense. I tended to sleep badly. Waking up at 5am. Headaches during the day. Generally felt misserable. It took about 6 months to kick off. Coffee is an adiction. And a pretty bad one. I can not understand these studies, probably funded by the coffee makers. Because generally if you drink coffee you will feel awful.
So be a coffee achiever (Score:2)
Re:Already debunked. (Score:4, Insightful)
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"The investigators caution that coffee intake was assessed by self-report at a single time point and therefore might not reflect long-term patterns of intake. Also, information was not available on how the coffee was prepared (espresso, boiled, filtered, etc.); the researchers consider it possible that preparation methods may affect the levels of any protective components in coffee. "
It's an Epidemiology study, which looks at patterns. Which can be helpful in locating real effects but find
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Was it corrected for reply bias? There could be a correlation between being a healthy coffee drinker and likelihood of submitting a self-report.
Or could it be that rich people, who are healthier for other reasons, also can afford to drink coffee more than someone who's dirt poor or spends his money on booze? An average of three cuppas a day at average price would mean $4 per day, or $120 per month, which not everyone can afford.
Or that coffee consumption is higher in geographical areas where people are he
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Stop buying coffee from coffee shops, for one -- if you buy ground coffee and use a drip or percolating coffee pot, it's absurdly cheap. 4-5 cents a cup, iirc. I've got a coffee grinder and french press, but I buy bags of beans as opposed to freshly roasted because those.. those are absurdly pricey, honestly. At least around here. Works out to about 60 cents for my pot of coffee, which is about 3 cups of deliciousness. Jumps to about 1.50 a pot if I get the fresh roasted beans, which still isn't that b
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The fact that they say the results showed a decrease in death due to accident and injury is a pretty good indicator that this is correlation as opposed to causation. It would be a pretty big leap to claim that coffee will save you from falling down the stairs.
Would it? I'd think that sleepy people might have more accidents than those who refuse to do anything before they've had their joe.
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The average cost of a cup of coffee is $1.38 (or was, a couple of years ago). Average. Not lowest possible.
Also, those who have the least can not afford to make a pot, because they don't have a home to plug the coffee maker in, or if they do, can't pay the electricity. So they drink less coffee. Telling them to brew a pot so they can have their three cups a day is a modern equivalent of asking why they don't eat cake.
Re:Already debunked. (Score:5, Informative)
Even though a larger proportion of coffee drinkers may engage in those activities (I'm not saying they do, but let's grant it, for the sake of argument), if you control for the different variables, you can still draw correlations out of the data. For instance, a coffee drinker who also smokes may, on average, live longer than someone who smokes but doesn't drink coffee as well. Likewise for red meat, less exercise, etc.. They're not suggesting that coffee drinking cancels out the effects of all those other things. They're merely suggesting it may provide some benefits over similar people not drinking coffee.
You've alleged that their controls are terrible. Please elaborate on how, exactly, since they explicitly mentioned controlling for smoking in the article, which was one of your points.
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For instance, a coffee drinker who also smokes may, on average, live longer than someone who smokes but doesn't drink coffee as well. Likewise for red meat, less exercise, etc.. .
This approach may be applicable for a study looking at factors, where we have a good idea how tho weight the contribution of each factor. The people who did the study not only did not to verify that the statements were true, they didn't even bother to follow up with the same question one more time while the study was running. How do they know that a snapshot they took back in 1996 was still true for the population in 2000, 2005 and 2008?
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The snapshot doesn't need to be representative of the population since they're not extrapolating from their sample group to the population at large. They're merely establishing correlation between coffee drinking and longer life. You don't need to weight the different factors either. You could simply map them in an N-dimensional space (where N is the number of factors + 1 for lifespan) and see where the coffee drinkers clustered compared to everyone else. Which isn't to say that they did it this way, merely
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Well, whatever it was, the key ingredient was actually the chocolate coating.
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Re:100% (Score:5, Funny)
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Water is ok, same for that leg thing.
The problem is that it has been proven that people who breathe oxygen in any concentration are guaranteed to die.
Re:Drink coffee? (Score:4, Informative)
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it should be noted that coffee also shares about 11 of the same chemicals as rat poison...[citation needed]
I guess the shared chemicals aren't what makes rat poison harmful then, given the amount of people who drink coffee like their lives depend on it. Also, FTFY.
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I nominate this for sloppiest criticism ever (Score:2)
I've been on slashdot for over a while now and this has got to be the blatantly sloppiest headline I have ever seen. If there has ever been a headline that has made the case for the need for a professional editor this has got to be it.
Everyone has a 100% of death, coffee drinker or not. For (insert diety's sake) would slashdot please hire at least one professional editor? How about an intern? I understand unemployment among college students is too high right now and interns are cheap!
I'm sure many of a college student would jump at a change to edit for a site like slashdot for an intern's salary. Seriously, an intern could do a better job, I've got them at my work place and they a little motivation goes a long way....
While there are terms more clear than "risk of death", I see two major problems with your criticism:
1. Many people have already made the exact same comment, but more clearly and succinctly.
2. The evidence suggests that Slashdot editors, while perhaps having some faults, should not take criticism from you on grammar and language clarity seriously.
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2. The evidence suggests that Slashdot editors, while perhaps having some faults, should not take criticism from you on grammar and language clarity seriously.
Not a valid complaint. Just because someone isn't good at a task doesn't mean that they cannot recognize someone else's incompetence. My 8 year old son can point out that the guy running the stop sign is a bad driver. That neither indicates that he is a better driver, nor does it make him wrong. Most tasks take far less skill to identify whether it is done well or not than they do to actually perform well.
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Everyone has a 100% of death
Yes, now re-read the headline making sure to remember that everyone knows what you just said, and instead of being a twat who sees something that interpreted one way doesn't make sense and then jumps into the comments to complain, re-interpret in a way that does make sense (i.e. as "premature death from the factors listed in the summary") like every human does automatically without even having to consciously think about it who isn't a Slashdot Pedantard.
Thank you and have a nice day.