Drinking coffee offers no real benefit, say eggheads

one small problem

Um... individual differences (whether genetic or environmental) are all the rage these days. I wouldn't be surprised if the largest bias in the study arises at the recruitment stage. It might not be random who becomes a coffee drinker and who doesn't. Individual differences in alertness during the diurnal cycle are well known (cf. late owls and early-birds). It is only on top of this that the physiological addiction effects happen.

Now, can those of you who actually bothered to read the study enlighten the rest of us on this point? Ta.

Absolute gibberish.

Tell 'em to join me for my morning cup of freshly ground, black gold. I guarantee they'll be bouncing off the walls, not more than 30 mins later..

Hmm..

People have different sensitivities to caffeine;

I drink around 5-6 cups of Clipper Organic Arabica coffee every day. I've noticed that it does help on a morning but has no significant impact during the day. Often tired by home time. I *do* notice a big difference if I have a cup of ground M&S/Costa/Cafe Nero (not Starbucks - which I think is poor coffee as is Nescafe and most other freeze dried instant coffees). With those coffees I notice a definite increase in heart speed and alertness. I don't drink as much on a weekend and have a coffee comedown which can be bad. I once had a week off coffee and noticed less headaches etc so it does have some physiological impact.

My friend can't drink coffee. He once drank a can of Coke and was left wired for 2 days (unable to sleep). He now avoids all caffeine.

@gabor1

I think you might be onto something there.

variations in peoples diurnal cycle can certainly cause problems when attempting to work around an artificially induced sleep cycle.

I've done shift work aplenty in my time. While I've known some to have no problems with swing-shifts, I certainly didn't adjust well to going to bed while the sun's blazing outside.

without resorting to prescriptions I found a few beers in my artificial evening would help send me off, while a couple of brews in the 'morning' would perk me up.

While shift work is an extreme example, I can say that I've always been a bit of a night owl, whereas my sister struggles to stay up past 8pm.

Alas, tolerance buildup quickly becomes a problem.

Coffee

Am I the only one who doesn't actually like the stuff anyway? I mean... it's sharp, bitter and pungent. Anything coffee-flavoured is normally disgusting anyway (and always the last chocolate left in the bottom / the last Revel left in the bag) and coffee itself is just stronger-flavoured than that (seeing as most "coffee-flavour" is actually coffee, unlike other flavours).

And, yes, I am living with an Italian who insists on drinking a ridiculously tiny cup of highly-concentrated, coffee-smelling mud every morning (made in a little espresso kettle that steams water through tightly-packed coffee grounds - the "proper" ones are normally put on the hob, but she also has an electric one that looks identical).

And for some reason I'm always the odd-one-out in the IT department because everyone else seems to live on it. You know what? My coding doesn't need the distraction of strong-smelling, staining, spillable, drinks used purely to prop addicts back up to their "normal" state after 5-10 mins of "brewing" the damn stuff. I'm much happier with a Coke (diet, sugar-free, extra-sugar, I care not), Fanta, or just water - at least it *tastes* vaguely pleasant, not like I've licked the bottom of a lid of a very hot jar of marmite.

I've worked in IT departments where everyone else is dependent on the stuff and in those circumstances you consume a lot of it yourself (otherwise they JUST KEEP ASKING and that's more destructive to your computing than just having a cup of coffee put beside you and you ignoring it). At no point did I actually feel any desire to actually drink the stuff myself, worked there for about a year drinking several cups a day because people kept making them for me and I never once decided to make one for myself (I never even made myself one when it was my turn on the "coffee-making rota"). Stopped working there, still didn't see the need to have one. In fact, I don't think I've had one since and that was 3-4 years ago now.

It tastes horrible. Stop drinking that crap. At least drink something that *tastes* nice if it's going to be damaging / addictive to you. To quote Crocodile Dundee - "Well, you can live on it, but it tastes like sh**".

The article's tone...

Was it parodying talk of 'climate change deniers', a phrase which the media seems to have started using to put those who aren't convinced of man-made global warming in the same public standing as holocaust-deniers?

Or was it just me?

Self-selection in the survey

Of course there is bias in the survey. I, for one, wouldn't take part in it because I intensely dislike the stuff (I don't like the taste or the smell, and yes I have tried Blue Mountain, some American friends were convinced that it was just that I hadn't had "good coffee").

I generally avoid caffeine, apart from a an occasional mug of Yorkshire tea in the morning with breakfast and occasionally if I actually need the boost. So I do feel the 'kick' from it. But I have a lot of friends who really are "no use until the second (or more) cup of coffee" in the morning, and who don't notice an additional one because their systems are already sodden with the stuff.

Roast your own, it tastes much better

I roast my own coffee, and the taste is far above the Starbucks swill. Seriously, the coffee that you get commercially has been stale for quite some time. Coffee goes stale after two weeks, and by the time you get it, the coffee was roasted months ago. If you can use a popcorn popper, you can use a home coffee roaster.

I can do no better than to give you

"Caffeine makes my neurons twinkle." - Bonnie McCafferty, in an editorial piece in the Chicago Tribune several years ago.

Title

I dislike the smell/taste of coffee myself, but I think the "tests" they conducted must have been some form of rubbish. I more fancy a dose of caffeine with some form of herbal coctail that (traditionally/arguably) preports to enhance mental function (I phrase it this way to not name any particular product). With this, I definately must admit it works very well. I went on the stuff during school years of early-morning classes (I'm a night owl), and not only did I not feel narcoleptic, I found myself able to think through programming tasks and such better. Of course, even now, having it in the morning still works beautifully, so perhaps I'm just "returning to normal" with the added herbal benefit...but I think the increased heart-rate/blood pressure helps with the drowsiness.

To each their own. You can offer me a cup of swill, but I will not drink, for I have better (for me).

Not quite

I gave up caffeine cold turkey some years ago, and, two weeks later, when the sharp stabbing pains in my head finally stopped recurring, I counted myself completely weaned. Some time later, I became addicted again because I found that my body clock wanted a nap in the mid-afternoon, a habit which is typically frowned upon by the humorless, suit-wearing Powers That Be, so I started drinking caffeine again to get through those dips in my circadian rhythms. A one-off test like that cited in the study fails to address how coffee gets people through the work day by allowing them to overcome the compulsion to slip into blessed unconsciousness and leave behind the hideous tedium of their quotidien lives.

Skxawngs

Most likely the reserachers and their subjects are drinking swill such as Maxwell House because their too cheap to buy the quality stuff like Kona, Panama, Guatamalan or Jamaica Blue Maoutain.

Cheap shoes will hurt you feet and crap coffee will always be just brewed rotgut.

drat

I suspect I'm a caffeine addict - I must drink at least ten cups of coffee a day, but usually it's just a better quality instant due to lack time, although sometimes I fire up the filter machine and it's definitely a more intense experience, although it takes me some time to get through a packet of ground coffee - Now I've read the other comments, I really should investigate self-roasting; just do a bit at a time as I need it.

Hmmm

If anything, this is an example of pseudo-science. Its amazing how one can "prove" any point they wish with statistics and an active imagination.

What's sad is that anyone would even give this crap the light of day. How can one sit there and claim to have scientific proof that something that occurs every day for billions of people, simply isn't happening? Next they'll claim that Marijuana doesn't get you stoned, its just withdrawal from being "not-stoned".

Really, there should be stiff penalties for people who waste resources in these kinds of ridiculous endeavors. How about more time curing disease, feeding the hungry and solving our energy problems, and less time trying to invent new problems for people to worry about.