Coffee Drinkers Are More Likely To Live Longer. Decaf May Do The Trick, Too (npr.org) 230
Coffee is far from a vice. There's now lots of evidence pointing to its health benefits, including a possible longevity boost for those of us with a daily coffee habit. From a report: The latest findings come from a study published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine that included about a half-million people in England, Scotland and Wales. "We found that people who drank two to three cups per day had about a 12 percent lower risk of death compared to non-coffee drinkers" during the decade-long study, says Erikka Loftfield, a research fellow at the National Cancer Institute. Participants ranged in age from 38 to 73. The association held up among drinkers of decaffeinated coffee, too. In the U.S., there are similar findings linking higher consumption of coffee to a lower risk of early death in African-Americans, Japanese-Americans, Latinos and white adults, both men and women. A daily coffee habit is also linked to a decreased risk of stroke and Type 2 diabetes.
drink up! (Score:2)
Re: drink up! (Score:5, Insightful)
selection bias. people who worry about drinking coffee live shorter lives.
I was thinking there could be some of that going on. I wonder though if its more likely to be related to other hobbies, such as cycling, or running where people drink coffee along with a physical task that involves a coffee break. So could be the exercise rather than the coffee. Would be like saying "wearing sports clothes extends your life" just because those who do athletics wear sports clothes.
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selection bias. people who worry about drinking coffee live shorter lives.
I was thinking there could be some of that going on. I wonder though if its more likely to be related to other hobbies, such as cycling, or running where people drink coffee along with a physical task that involves a coffee break. So could be the exercise rather than the coffee. Would be like saying "wearing sports clothes extends your life" just because those who do athletics wear sports clothes.
They would certainly want to normalize the data for lifestyle differences. It would be interesting if they found a correlation between coffee drinking and an active lifestyle or even a healthy diet.
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the study did not look at other lifestyle indicators - it was meant to see across 500k individuals was caffeine life extending...they found out that coffee of any sort was life extending. other lifestyle changes also extend life and that has already been proven.
They found caffeine/coffee drinking correlated with longer life. Correlation is not causation, and normalizing for other correlations can help in determination of cause. If coffee drinkers on average are also people that live healthier lives on average, then that might be the cause.
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Re: drink up! (Score:4, Interesting)
you obviously did not read the study...the study did not look at other lifestyle indicators - it was meant to see across 500k individuals was caffeine life extending...they found out that coffee of any sort was life extending. other lifestyle changes also extend life and that has already been proven.
I read what I could, and from what I read they made no attempts to normalize against those other known lifestyle indicators. They may have, as it would be very important to drawing a conclusion about causation, but I didn't see it stated. If you have a proven lifestyle indicator that correlates with coffee drinking, than it might not be the coffee that extends life.
If they grouped people according to lifestyle, and saw the caffeine correlation within those groups instead of across them, then you have a more solid basis.
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they weren't looking to see if coffee led to extended life - how many ways do I have to say that? it was study on caffeine metabolism that happened to show coffee extended life. are you unable to process that?
Yes, I can process that. But what they were looking for doesn't matter. What they conclude matters. They can't draw the conclusion of causation simply due to correlation.
If I do a study to determine if people who own golf clubs are wealthier than those who don't, and along the way I happen to discover people who own golf clubs are better golfers than those who don't, I can't conclude that owning golf clubs makes you a better golfer, even though it correlates. I'd have to study other factors such as pract
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Re: drink up! (Score:5, Interesting)
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the headline and article concluded that - not the study...big difference. but the gist is correct, drink coffee live longer. exercise live longer. drink more water live longer.
I agree they showed drinking coffee correlates with living longer. They haven't shown it is a cause. That case could be strengthened by a study which determines if there are other known lifestyle differences that also correlate with coffee drinking and then normalize with that data.
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Decaffeinated coffee is NOT caffeine-free coffee. (Score:3)
The exact effect of caffeine by itself seems problematic since the same trends in reducing mortality, albeit to a lesser degree, was true for those who drank decaffeinated coffee.
Not really.
Decaffeinated coffee is NOT caffeine-free coffee. Often it's not even really decaffeinated.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
A controlled study of ten samples of prepared decaffeinated coffee from coffee shops showed that some caffeine remained.[1]
Fourteen to twenty cups of such decaffeinated coffee would contain as much caffeine as one cup of regular coffee.[1]
The 16-ounce (473-ml) cups of coffee samples contained caffeine in the range of 8.6 mg to 13.9 mg.
In another study of popular brands of decaf coffees, the caffeine content varied from 3 mg to 32 mg.[18]
An 8-ounce (237-ml) cup of regular coffee contains 95-200 mg of caffeine,[19] and a 12-ounce (355-milliliter) serving of Coca-Cola contains 36 mg.[20]
Both of these studies tested the caffeine content of store-brewed coffee, suggesting that the caffeine may be residual from the normal coffee served rather than poorly decaffeinated coffee.
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I wonder though if its more likely to be related to other hobbies, such as cycling, or running where people drink coffee along with a physical task that involves a coffee break.
Who is going to get all hot and sweaty doing a physical activity, and then go drink a hot cup of coffee as a refreshment? That is a rather silly idea. Caffeine actually increases your thirst [livestrong.com].
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Yes. This is utterly obvious.
"My doctor says not to drink coffee, now that I have (cancer|high blood pressure|been infected by a xenomorph)."
So many crap studies show the same thing. Same with wine, same with beer, etc. Often the studies aren't crap, but the reporting on them is.
See the chocolate study hoax as an example: https://www.npr.org/sections/t... [npr.org]
More Coffee - Less Sugary Soda (Score:5, Insightful)
That's how it works.
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That's how it works.
Let's stop with the bullshit already.
People don't drink actual coffee anymore. They drink iced-mocha-caramel-chocolate fuckuccinos that make sugary sodas look like a fucking green smoothie by comparison. That's how this "works".
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That's still two sugars above what you should be drinking.
Re:More Coffee - Less Sugary Soda (Score:4, Insightful)
What the hell is up with /. recently? Not that it was always an utopia of constructive and civil accord, but now every topic is filled with ignoramuses who can't write a sentence without spewing curse words and aggression. Are you all like this at work as well? Or just feeling brave on the internet? The level of discourse is tragic, but maybe it's a sign of the times.
Re:More Coffee - Less Sugary Soda (Score:5, Funny)
I can't speak for the others you motherfucker, but I'm only brave on the Internet. In real life, I run away from butterflies. Those random flight patterns are really frightening!
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A reference would be appreciated rather than an assumption that everyone in this study was drinking sugary processed coffee.
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People that actually like coffee drink espressos, and if they go the milk route, they get a flat white at worst.
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People don't drink actual coffee anymore. They drink iced-mocha-caramel-chocolate fuckuccinos
Those aren't people, those are animals. Though people in Europe would claim that Americans never actually ever drank coffee and despite all the associated health risks at least the iced-mocha-caramel-chocolate fuckuccinos is remotely palatable :-)
Buy an espresso machine already.
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Seems pretty likely. I would like to know how beer instead of coffee stacks up here... ;-)
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That's how it works.
Unless it replaces diet soda, as in my case.
Diet soda is even more unhealthy than regular soda though- so replacing diet soda is still a net positive in terms of health.
Re:More Coffee - Less Sugary Soda (Score:4, Informative)
Different chemicals may cause different issues, but all sweet drinks cause the same hunger response. Sweet on your tongue makes you eat more -- seems to be true for all primates. We know this from monkeys studies.
So diet drinks increase your caloric intake -- it's not the drink itself which does it, but the calorie intake goes up just the same. Drink diet soda, and get fat. Maybe not as fat as on sugar drinks, but certainly more fat than on water.
Re:More Coffee - Less Sugary Soda (Score:4, Interesting)
There's increasing evidence that fake sugar is worse for you than real sugar. My understanding is that the fake sugar affects the sugar receptors in the rest of your body the same way it does the ones in your tongue, which makes it prone to induce type II diabetes- almost exactly the opposite effect from what you want.
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There's three or four major "fake sugars" though, so I wouldn't make a generalisation just yet. Maybe one kind only affects the sugar receptors in your tongue but not the sugar receptors in the rest of your body, etc.
I can drink diet stuff with sucralose just fine, but anything with the others and I feel like crap afterwards.
Maybe different people react differently to the different fake sugars, too.
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The type II diabetes is garbage science if there's actually any science actually behind the claim. As someone with hypoglycemia (diabetes is known as hyperglycemia, btw), let me explain.
Too much sugar causes type II diabetes because to process the sugar your body has to excrete large amounts of insulin. If it doesn't do this, the sugar builds up in your blood and you die. The problem comes in that your body becomes resistant to insulin the more you have in your blood. Thus you need more and more insulin
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This is why, when I get a soda from a fountain, I take care to get 50% Diet Coke and 50% regular Dr. Pepper.
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Do you have some sources for that increasing evidence?
Coffee makes some drinkers immortal? (Score:4, Funny)
From TFS and TFA: "We found that people who drank two to three cups per day had about a 12 percent lower risk of death compared to non-coffee drinkers."
Wow. I gotta start drinking coffee.
Or, could it be a poorly worded sentence that the writer jumped on?
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Yeah, lol, I see what you mean. But keep in mind the line from Fight Club:
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
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Some of this could be ascribed to not falling asleep at the wheel, and to socialization factors, of course.
With the amount of coffee and dark chocolate I eat (Score:2)
Re:With the amount of coffee and dark chocolate I (Score:5, Funny)
I should be immortal.
Well, if you haven't died yet- perhaps you are.
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Denial [imgflip.com] also works.
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Addiction (Score:5, Funny)
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Even though caffeine is a fairly weak drug, this shows the power of addiction.
Caffeine addicts need that morning cup 'o joe so badly that they'll tell the Grim Reaper to bugger off and wait until they've had their coffee. Apparently it works!
Not everyone is addicted to caffeine. I also wonder how much of the impact of caffeine is psychological. (you expect coffee to wake you up, so it does).
I love coffee, I dink a lot, but I find myself most unaffected by caffeine. It doesn't wake me up or give me energy- nor do I have any withdrawal symptoms, I sometimes go a week without coffee if I run out and can't find a good deal somewhere...
I love to drink coffee right before bed, it's warm and calms me and helps me sleep.
The only symptom I get from d
Re:Addiction (Score:4, Informative)
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Stimulants can have a calming effect on people with ADHD.
I've never been diagnosed but I have long suspected that I have ADHD.
Re:Addiction (Score:4, Funny)
I have also never been diagnosed, but
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I know people with ADHD who wouldn't even read to the end of your comment...
Wow, your experience mimicks mine (Score:2)
Re:Wow, your experience mimicks mine (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm naturally an insomniac, although becoming less of one as I age. My kids now have the same problem, other people in my family have had the same problem. Insomnia runs in the family. When I was a teenager going through my early 30's I would live on a three day cycle. Night 1: no sleep and not feel tired the next day; night 2: 1 or 2 hours sleep max, but I do feel tired in the morning; night 3: sleep like a log- body reset.
It was an endless cycle of those three days. In my 30's I started drinking more coffee- and found I started sleeping more often- my 3 day cycle became a 2 day cycle... and then sleeping most nights; these days there is probably only on average one night a week I don't sleep at all. Usually when I don't sleep it's on a night I don't have coffee before I go to bed.
Mentioned it on the phone to my mother one evening and she said that she had the same reaction to coffee. She doesn't sleep unless she has her coffee. I think there is some genetic link there somehow. Caffeine effects some of us differently with the opposite reaction.
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Even though caffeine is a fairly weak drug, this shows the power of addiction.
Caffeine addicts need that morning cup 'o joe so badly that they'll tell the Grim Reaper to bugger off and wait until they've had their coffee. Apparently it works!
Not everyone is addicted to caffeine. I also wonder how much of the impact of caffeine is psychological. (you expect coffee to wake you up, so it does).
I love coffee, I dink a lot, but I find myself most unaffected by caffeine. It doesn't wake me up or give me energy- nor do I have any withdrawal symptoms, I sometimes go a week without coffee if I run out and can't find a good deal somewhere...
I love to drink coffee right before bed, it's warm and calms me and helps me sleep.
The only symptom I get from drinking coffee (besides yellowing teeth) is it makes me poop; that's probably not the caffeine though but something else in the coffee. Nothing gets me running to the bathroom in the morning like a cup of coffee. If I drink my coffee late, I poop late. If I drink it early, I poop early.
People metabolize caffeine at different rates, based on genetics. I find myself completely unaffected by any form of caffeine except coffee, which seems to keep me going for a short spell of 10-30 minutes. I suspect that there is some other compound in coffee that slows my metabolism of the caffeine, but could be wrong. Either way, it’s quite possible that you metabolize caffeine at a very rapid pace and feel no effect. I could drink an energy drink with 2-3 times as much caffeine as coffee and fe
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I admit to having an addiction to coffee, however, calling it an "addiction" is a bit of hyperbole. Last year, I decided to stop drinking coffee; I had a mild headache for a day, which in the afternoon I cured with an ibuprofen tablet. After that day, no problem. A couple months later (after smelling some exquisite espresso), I decided the benefits of not drinking coffee didn't outweigh that heavenly flavor. So, I went back to drinking it.
Honestly, though, stopping again would be no great feat. It's not cra
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I admit to having an addiction to coffee, however, calling it an "addiction" is a bit of hyperbole. Last year, I decided to stop drinking coffee; I had a mild headache for a day, which in the afternoon I cured with an ibuprofen tablet. After that day, no problem. A couple months later (after smelling some exquisite espresso), I decided the benefits of not drinking coffee didn't outweigh that heavenly flavor. So, I went back to drinking it.
Honestly, though, stopping again would be no great feat. It's not crack cocaine or heroin.
In one extended hospital stay where I could not eat (its fun being tube fed), I had the pleasure of caffeine withdrawal and well as withdrawal from the morphine they had given me the first few days. The morphine was worse, I was miserable. The caffeine headache was gone after day 3. The best part was starting all over again. I was drinking 4+ cups a day before, I used the opportunity to limit myself to 2 a day, which has since creeped up to 3 but holding steady there for 10 years.
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Some people can get addicted to coffee, some get addicted to coke and others get addicted to pepsi.
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Black Coffee (Score:3)
When you put in Cream and Sugar in it. I expect you counteract many of its positive effects. Like with a lot of healthy foods, you should be ingesting it without other ingredients.
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When you put in Cream and Sugar in it. I expect you counteract many of its positive effects.
Sugar yes. Cream no.
Fat gets a bad rap. It's carbs that you should avoid. Keep your blood sugar (and insulin) low. Don't feed the cancer trolls.
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Fats are good, however we don't need too much of them, are still bad. It is still a caloric rich ingredient, which is why we like the taste, thus why we like cream and sugar added to coffee. We have evolved to want to eat the most caloric rich foods we can, this was because Calorie Rich foods were expensive, in terms of effort for calorie. It wasn't until we can process food with machines where we were able to ingest more calories then what we used.
Sugar is nearly all calories, cream has a lot of calories
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The problem with dichotomous thought.
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The real trick is what is considered moderation and excess.
For some things like smoking, the level that is safe if probably too low for people to get the enjoyment out of it, so it isn't worth trying.
Also our body is in constant conflict on what it needs to survive all the time. We need to breath Oxygen to keep those chemical reactions running, However we need to have foods that have anti-oxidents as to slow down these reactions as to prolong our life.
Another correlation... sigh (Score:2)
The latest findings come from a study published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine that included about a half-million people in England, Scotland and Wales. "We found that people who drank two to three cups per day had about a 12 percent lower risk of death compared to non-coffee drinkers" during the decade-long study, says Erikka Loftfield, a research fellow at the National Cancer Institute
And what other factors did they control for? Age, income, working conditions, gender, diet, age, and many other things can affect longevity. This sounds like yet another idiotic study that found a correlation and jumps to the hasty generalization about its implications. The abstract [jamanetwork.com] provides no indication any effort was made to control for other possible causes. The real question is whether coffee is the proximal cause or if it is just a convenient correlation result due to other factors.
I'm also curiou
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provides no indication any effort was made to control for other possible causes
Control for other causes among 500K participants over the entire breadth of the island of Great Britain? What do you want??
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Well, 100% of the participants drive on the wrong side of the road so, yes, control for other causes would be preferred.
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Decaf result is interesting (Score:4, Interesting)
The result showing decaf might have a similar effect is possibly the most interesting point in the study. It suggests that the effect is from something other than caffeine, which would mean there's more interesting chemicals in coffee.
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The result showing decaf might have a similar effect is possibly the most interesting point in the study. It suggests that the effect is from something other than caffeine, which would mean there's more interesting chemicals in coffee.
Coffee is extremely complex chemically. There is a lot to coffee besides just the caffeine.
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The result showing decaf might have a similar effect is possibly the most interesting point in the study. It suggests that the effect is from something other than caffeine, which would mean there's more interesting chemicals in coffee.
Coffee is extremely complex chemically. There is a lot to coffee besides just the caffeine.
This. And I don't it's news that coffee can be good for you. [webmd.com] An excerpt from this page:
Coffee is a rich source of disease-fighting antioxidants. And studies have shown that it may reduce cavities, boost athletic performance, improve moods, and stop headaches -- not to mention reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes, colon cancer, liver cancer, gall stones, cirrhosis of the liver, and Parkinson's diseases.
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Who the fuck knows. Maybe it's healthy to drink hot water.
Making good coffee is a pain in the neck (Score:2)
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I used to drink coffee constantly until I had a stroke. Then they put me on blood pressure medication and told me to change my eating habits and to stop drinking coffee or anything with caffeine. I changed my eating habits and quit the caffeine then they reduced the blood pressure medication because I was too low and which worked for a little bit then it went low again and then finally they took me completely off the blood pressure medication and now my blood pressure is normal. I drink no caffeine and noth
Risk of death (Score:4, Insightful)
"We found that people who drank two to three cups per day had about a 12 percent lower risk of death compared to non-coffee drinkers"
Nope. I think you'll find if you run the study long enough that everyone has a 100% risk of death no matter what they drink.
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The way risk works is that it is computed as a probability of dying in the next time interval. A lower risk probability means that your expected lifespan increases.
What did the control group drink? (Score:3)
What did the control group drink?
My guess is soda of some kind, even if this is not measured.
Compare coffee drinkers with water drinkers (or at least drinks without sweeteners). Otherwise the test is not testing what you think it is testing.
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Coffee is almost entirely water!
But in all seriousness, I drink a lot of water once I'm done with my morning caffeine intake.
Then I should live for-friggin'-ever. (Score:2)
Or... (Score:2)
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Sitting at a desk all day has a negative impact on your health that exercise doesn't mitigate.
Decaf?! Abomination!!! (Score:4, Funny)
You must buy a plot in the Great Smokey mountains, and tend to your own coffee shrubs, that you grow in shade, you pick the berries, feed them to the civet cat you own, and take the excreted beans, roast them yourself, grind them just 3 minutes before you brew and brew it fresh using natural spring water that you fetch it yourself. That is coffee. If not, might as well drink starbucks.
Disclaimer (Score:3, Insightful)
The starbucks 1200 cal. coffee with all that artificial sweeteners and the sugar kills you.
I am a coffeee drinker, yet... (Score:3, Insightful)
A correlation is far from proving causation. It could just be that coffee drinkers belong preferentially to a more wealthy group, which enjoys better chances of living longer.
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Exactly. Do people who drink coffee live longer? Or do people who live longer drink coffee?
Because it's more sensational, the article seems to have gone with the first hypothesis and run with it for no other reason that I can find.
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I wonder if scientists use tools to account for confounding data.
who sponsored the study? (Score:2)
I heard once about a test of trucks: On a nice sunny summer day they loaded few trucks in the morning with the same weight of sand, after which the trucks had to perform certain performance tests - one truck was outstanding.
It turned out, that the test was sponsored by the winning truck manufacturer, all the trucks were loaded with wet sand and weighted immediately, however the winning truck was the last to be tested way in the afternoon of the very hot day.
I heard lots of good things about coffee from ma
funny... (Score:2)
California Prop 65.. (Score:2)
Of course in California, coffee is required to have a sticker saying it causes cancer.
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And while we are on the topic, why are most habitual coffee drinkers also smokers? Does this study then conclude that smoking is also healthy too?
I'd like to see your data on this. I know lots of people who drink a lot of coffee- I hardly know anyone that smokes anymore. There may or may not be a correlation of smokers also being coffee drinkers- but I'd be very surprised if most coffee drinkers also smoke. This is 2018, almost no-one smokes these days.
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..... why are most habitual coffee drinkers also smokers?
I don't think this is necessarily true. If I were to guess I say its probably more likely that most smokers are also habitual coffee drinkers.
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Did you grow up in a bowling alley?
Re:12% Decrease in Death-100% Increase in YellowTe (Score:5, Funny)
According to my study, 100% of the people who masturbate died within 150 years.
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Paid for (Score:2)
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Drop the fruit juice, it's mostly sugar.
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Do not worry, little one. You were told the truth. Everybody dies one day or the oth{#`%${%&`+'${`%&NO CARRIER