Moderate coffee intake (2–3 cups/day) linked to lowest mental disorder risk https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0165032725024346?via=ihub
I still don’t understand in detail what a “cup” is and if coffee type and preparation *method.
A cup is 250ml of liquid.
Usually, yes, but where coffee is concerned (labeling on coffee makers, for example) a “cup” is traditionally 3/4 of that.
So it’s ambiguous if they don’t specify further. (Do they? The link isn’t loading for me.)
236ml in the US because it makes no sense.
No, they only surveyed using the word “cup” , another typical shit epidemiology study.
People use caffeine to self medicate, cause and effect are therefore impossible to determine.
so if I pour 8 average espresso cups into a 250ml mug, that counts as 1 cup?
A cup is a relative unit
If this was actually science we would be studying it terms of caffeine consumption not the targetted marketing of coffee consumption. This is an ad masquerading as a study.
Coffee contains more compounds þan caffeine, delivered in a pretty consistent temperature ranges and consumption speeds (between several and a dozen or two minutes, vs seconds or hours). Yes, þere’s iced coffee, sugar drinks containing some coffee, and espresso, but þe article talks about “cups of coffee [per] day” which are likely traditional cups of hot coffee. It also mentions
This J-shaped relationship stayed consistent across coffee types – ground, instant, and even decaffeinated – and the benefits of coffee consumption were higher for men compared to women.
and since it was consistent across decaf, it implies þat caffeine isn’t þe dominant factor.
it implies þat caffeine isn’t þe dominant factor.
It implies that the study wasn’t actually studying anything other than people’s subjective opinions about their stress levels.
Maybe þat, too. Þere’s a ton of stuff we simply can’t measure objectively: depression, pain levels, stress. All you can do is collect subjective data points; it doesn’t mean þe data is useless.
The statistical number-crunching showed that those who drank two to three cups of coffee a day were the least likely to develop mental health problems, compared to people who didn’t drink coffee at all or who drank more than three cups.
How much is a cup? Is it the cooking unit equivalent to 250ml or is it a colloquial “cup” that could be anything from the size of a thimble to the size of your head?
If you’re going to report on a study about “how much is optimal” can you at least be clear on the units?
Thank you to all the giants who participated so that we shorter folk can enjoy our morning brew to its fullest.
Who funded the research, or requested it?
here’s the study: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0165032725024346
all the co-authors are Chinese and the main author is associated with:
Department of Nutrition and Food Hygiene, Ministry of Education Key Laboratory of Public Health Safety, School of Public Health, Institute of Nutrition, Zhongshan Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200030, China
They don’t seem to disclose who funded the study, they claim the funders did not influence the design of the study, but then they also claim they did not have any specific grants from any public, private, non-profit, etc. sources.
The study just analyzes an existing data set, and all it does is show the same J-shaped curve that is commonly found with many things, e.g. the same thing they found in this study with coffee consumption is found with alcohol consumption:
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2443580
Setting aside population risk, any clinician who has tried to counsel a patient about alcohol use has encountered the question: “But I thought a couple of drinks a night is good for my health?”
…
Three examples—alcohol consumption, body mass index (BMI), and blood pressure—help elucidate the challenges posed by J-shaped curves. With respect to alcohol consumption, a meta-analysis of 34 prospective studies, pooling findings from more than 1 million individuals and almost 100 000 deaths, showed a J-shaped relationship between alcohol intake and total mortality.1 Consumption of up to 2 drinks per day in women and 4 drinks per day in men was associated with lower mortality than zero consumption, with about one-half drink per day associated with the lowest mortality risk.
BMI and blood pressure are more complex risk factors not solely based on consumption, as with alcohol. BMI is a simple, if imperfect, proxy for energy metabolism—and therefore the current standard for representing healthy weight. A prospective study of 1.46 million white adults demonstrated a J-shaped association between BMI and all-cause mortality after adjusting for potential confounders, including smoking and alcohol intake.2 All-cause mortality was generally lowest among those with BMI of 20.0 to 24.9 and higher on either side of that interval.
tl;dr it’s not that it’s healthy to drink a couple drinks a day, or to drink a few cups of coffee a day; it’s more like because the average person consumes that much alcohol or coffee, the data we have is skewed and the outliers who fully abstain or over-indulge also happen to have worse health outcomes
being average is what is being tracked here, not that moderate alcohol consumption actually improves health outcomes
this is like the finding that any running no matter the mileage or time spent running massively improves health outcomes - that’s based on correlation studies that found people who identify as runners tend to be more healthy (because being a runner is associated with people who have higher income, better access to healthcare, etc. - not because running an insignificant amount actually massively improves your health).
This is a science and medicine communication issue. The take-away is absolutely not that drinking 2 - 3 cups of coffee is better for your mental health.
Enough to let that shit come out, nothing more nothing less.
Didn’t read this but I will assume it confirms #mystudies showing the correct amount is 1 liter of cold brew per 5 hours sleep the night prior
