Does Coffee Reduce Mortality Risk?

[manojr]

From the URL in the original post: "Those who drank at least two or three cups a day were about 10 percent or 15 percent less likely to die for any reason during the 13 years of the study".

When reading such statistical summary, remember that Correlation does not imply causation.

 

[SW VandeCarr]

.

Correlation does not imply causation[/URL].

That's true for nearly all population based studies. You can only make inferences which can be strengthened by controlling for likely confounding factors. In this case, it's possible that patients with conditions that impact longevity (such as high blood pressure or certain heart conditions) would be advised not to drink coffee and avoid other other stimulants. If such subjects were classified as non coffee drinkers this could increase the risk of dying during the study in that group assuming their longevity was impacted negatively by these conditions.

In general, you need to specify what kind of study would be a sufficient empirical demonstration of a causal relationship. For some adverse drug reactions, if withdrawal of the drug results in resolution of the presumptive effect and reintroduction of the drug results in a recurrence of the effect and this was repeatable, most would accept this as a demonstration of a causal relationship.

This is a very special circumstance and would not be ethical in many situations. As for the study under discussion, how would YOU study a possible causal relationship between coffee drinking and longer survival vs non coffee drinkers. The authors make no claim of causality and warn against such an interpretation.

 

[mistygreen]

Yes,I also heard that coffee lower the risk of death.I drink almost 4-5 cup of coffee daily.I think taking sufficient amount of coffee is good for health.

 

[mcknia07]

I love my coffee! I know the withdraw symptoms and they suck! Been there, done that, and I don't want to go back. I like all coffee and teas! I need the caffeine, although, I'm hyper enough without it :) just adds to the fun!

 

[Pythagorean]

Adenosine antagonist. So is theobromine. Mmmm, theobromine. One of the best drugs in the world.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Adenosine antagonist. So is theobromine. Mmmm, theobromine. One of the best drugs in the world.

I had to google:

Theobromine (theobromide[3]), also known as xantheose,[2] is a bitter alkaloid of the cacao plant, with the chemical formula C7H8N4O2. It is found in chocolate, as well as in a number of other foods, including the leaves of the tea plant, and the kola (or cola) nut. It is in the methylxanthine class of chemical compounds,[4] which also includes the similar compounds theophylline and caffeine.[2] (In caffeine, the only difference is that the NH group of theobromine is an N-CH3 group.) Despite its name, the compound contains no bromine—theobromine is derived from Theobroma, the name of the genus of the cacao tree, (which itself is made up of the Greek roots theo ("God") and brosi ("food"), meaning "food of the gods")[5] with the suffix -ine given to alkaloids and other basic nitrogen-containing compounds.[6]

 

[Pythagorean]

Haha, food of the gods, I never realized that. It's so obvious from the root words.

 

[manojr]

As for the study under discussion, how would YOU study a possible causal relationship between coffee drinking and longer survival vs non coffee drinkers. The authors make no claim of causality and warn against such an interpretation.

I agree that authors did say "Now, Freedoman stressed that the study doesn't prove coffee can make people live longer. A study like this can never prove a cause-and-effect relationship".


But, in my opinion, people tend to forget or do not understand such warnings, and remember what they prefer/like to: "It's a big new study that found that people who drink java appear to be less likely to die prematurely than those who don't."

I would like to add that, in such studies, individual experiences do not count, what matters is overall result in group of people. For example, you must have heard smoker saying, in support of his smoking, that his neighbor has been heavily smoking for years and he is still alive at age of 90. What smoker does not realize that half-life (analogy) of group of smokers is much lesser than that of group of non-smokers.

I expect that members on this forum are rational enough to understand statistical nature of the study and draw right conclusion, but I am sure there are lot of visitors who may misunderstand.

One comment on that report has also pointed is out, and nicely summarized of what many people think: "Caffeine does what, now? Yeah. Make that a double latte, heavy foam."

 

[zoobyshoe]

I agree that authors did say "Now, Freedoman stressed that the study doesn't prove coffee can make people live longer. A study like this can never prove a cause-and-effect relationship".


But, in my opinion, people tend to forget or do not understand such warnings, and remember what they prefer/like to: "It's a big new study that found that people who drink java appear to be less likely to die prematurely than those who don't."

I would like to add that, in such studies, individual experiences do not count, what matters is overall result in group of people. For example, you must have heard smoker saying, in support of his smoking, that his neighbor has been heavily smoking for years and he is still alive at age of 90. What smoker does not realize that half-life (analogy) of group of smokers is much lesser than that of group of non-smokers.

I expect that members on this forum are rational enough to understand statistical nature of the study and draw right conclusion, but I am sure there are lot of visitors who may misunderstand.

One comment on that report has also pointed is out, and nicely summarized of what many people think: "Caffeine does what, now? Yeah. Make that a double latte, heavy foam."

This post has an awful lot of words in it. I can't be bothered. I am simply happy to know the article assures that if I drink enough coffee I will be immortal.

 

[Darken-Sol]

if i have coffee in the morning i feel less of an urge to strangle co workers. it might prevent others deaths

 

[meldraft]

Most people I know drink coffee because of stress. They also think it's good to have a smoke along with it, so I wouldn't think that healthy people drink coffee more that the rest

 

[DaveC426913]

Well whether or not it does decrease risk of death, I can tell you a lot of Torontonian pedestrians think it makes them immortal.

My wife has made a game of counting the number of people who dash across 4 lanes of heavy downtown traffic, always clutching a cup of Charubucks in their hand like some sort of force field generator.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Well whether or not it does decrease risk of death, I can tell you a lot of Torontonian pedestrians think it makes them immortal.

My wife has made a game of counting the number of people who dash across 4 lanes of heavy downtown traffic, always clutching a cup of Charubucks in their hand like some sort of force field generator.

 

[DrChinese]

From the URL in the original post: "Those who drank at least two or three cups a day were about 10 percent or 15 percent less likely to die for any reason during the 13 years of the study".

When reading such statistical summary, remember that Correlation does not imply causation.

Cthugha pointed me to a great study:

False-Positive Psychology: Undisclosed Flexibility in Data Collection and Analysis Allows Presenting Anything as Significant (2011)
http://psy2.ucsd.edu/~dhuber/Simmons_Nelson_Simonsohn_2011.pdf

Using traditional research techniques to perform an actual study, the authors "prove" 2 intentionally ridiculous ideas:

a) listening to children's songs makes you feel older.
b) listening to the Beatles' When I'm 64 makes you actually younger.

It is time to raise the bar on studies like that of the OP. Either that, or I am going to spend all day drinking coffee while listening to "When i get older, losing my hair...".

 

[meldraft]

^^ hahahaha this is awsome

 

[SW VandeCarr]

Interesting, but isn't this is only a demonstration of the "garbage in, garbage out" principle? There have been many well conducted epidemiological studies that have changed both medical practice and the general behavior of the US population for the better. "For the better" is the evidence for better outcomes in treatment based on decreasing rates of cardiovascular mortality and increased longevity.

http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/92/11/3350.full

Do you still think tobacco smoking doesn't increase your risk for lung cancer (among other nasty things)? Note "increase in risk" is the way to phrase it. "Cause" only applies to individuals, not populations. Unfortunately, populations of humans are not the same as populations of undifferentiated particles. So what causes cancer in one person may not necessarily cause cancer in another. This is seems obvious enough, but apparently is not the common wisdom here.

Regarding this coffee study (which involved over 400.000 subjects in a large NIH study) I have my own reservations. I gave an example of confounding in an earlier post. The authors excluded people with a history of stroke, but not hypertension (high blood pressure). This could confound the study if people with hypertension were less likely to drink coffee and were classified as non coffee drinkers.

On the other hand, a clear dose-response relationship seems to exist. The more cups per day (up to 3), the greater the putative protective effect. This is not commonly seen in studies of this type. It's more commonly shown in n=1 studies. This is fairly good evidence there is an effect in the population. However, no one can claim drinking more coffee will extend your life or mine.

 

[zoobyshoe]

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

C'mon, it's clearly a miracle drug:

http://io9.com/5802717/coffee-now-doubleplusgood-also-it-prevents-cancer

 

[ApplePion]

The effects of coffee are highly dependent on whether you have genes for fast or slow metabolism of caffeine. For example, people who have a particular slow metabolism gene have a greatly increased risk of heart attack if they drink coffee, while people with two of the analogous fast genes have a lower risk:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?cmd=Search&db=pubmed&term=16522833