We Just Love to Hate Coffee

[Guest guest]

>

> April 10, 2002

> NUTRITION NEWS FOCUS

> " Nutrition news is important. We help you understand it! "

>

> Today's Topic: We Just Love to Hate Coffee

>

> If anyone can figure out why researchers think coffee causes every

> problem in the book, let us know. Coffee has been linked to heart

> disease, cancer, and abortions, and all these have been discredited by

> further research. The latest is that coffee increases blood pressure

> according to a report in the March 25, 2002 edition of the Archives of

> Internal Medicine.

> < http://archinte.ama-assn.org/issues/v162n6/abs/ioi00946.html >

>

> Over 1,000 men were followed for 33 years. Drinking one cup of coffee

> a day raised blood pressure by 0.19 mm of mercury. And there were

> more diagnosed cases of hypertension in the coffee drinkers than the

> nondrinkers (28 versus 19 percent). But when all the results were

> adjusted statistically for known risk factors such as body-mass index,

> cigarette smoking, alcohol drinking, and physical activity, the effect

> of coffee disappeared.

>

> HERE'S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: Think about this

> ... baseline coffee drinking was established when the men were medical

> students ... maybe they drank lots of coffee to stay up late studying.

> Maybe they changed their habits over 33 years. Now think about this

> ... a blood pressure machine only reads to the nearest mm of mercury,

> so is extrapolating to fractions justified? Finally, think about this

> ... after accounting for confounding variables, there was no effect of

> coffee on blood pressure. But the news media kicked this story around

> for many days.

>

>

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