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RE: The Health Benefits of Coffee
Very exhaustive post.
A 2014 Meta-analysis in the American Journal of Epidemiology by Crippa et al reported significant reduction in all causes of death associated with consumption of 3-4 cups per day.
3 cups a day seems like a lot. Some people have gotta get their medicine though.
The rumour is though, every couple of years the pendulum swings with coffee, red wine and chocolate. Sometimes the science says they're healthy, sometimes it swings back to unhealthy. So, sometimes it seems like these studies can be a pick and mix, where you can choose what facts you want... What do you think; is the evidence really that strong in favour of the health benefits?
3 cups is nothing for me lol!
The evidence is that strong now and has been for a while. I don't see how it can be reversed in relation to the topics above - the probability is very low - not zero - it can never be zero but as close as you can get.
The problem is the previous dogma was based on anecdotal evidence in many cases and people used to cherry picked the odd anomalous study that didn't really fit with the overall trend but fit the old narrative. Some of the recent trial have been absolutely huge and have eliminated a lot of confounding factors. In science you can never be a 100% certain.
Much of the research is based on observational studies which is not as powerful from an evidence stand point as a placebo controlled trial. Then again it would be difficult to randomly assign people to drink coffee or not and stick to it for several years and continue following them up which is what would be required to do similar kinds of health studies using RCTs.
We might still get the odd contradictory study due to design errors or mistakes in interpreting the data but I think that it is highly unlikely that we will get a reversal in regards to the conditions that are mentioned.
That said as I state in the post coffee is a mixture of many compounds and there may yet be some diseases for which the risk is increased but we have not detected it yet. As always nature and health is complex.
Is coffee some sort of magical cureall? No. Is it a part of a healthy diet with some beneficial properties, the research says yes. Should you go out of your way to consume tons of coffee? No probably not, but if you like it you should at least drink it knowing its certainly a healthy option.