If faced with the question, “How much coffee is too much?”
many people would rephrase the question:
“Can you ever drink enough coffee?”
The answer, of course, is that how much coffee a person
should drink is a completely individual matter. However, the science shows that
the most profound clinical benefits of coffee, including living a longer life,
don’t kick in until daily consumption hits the three-to-four cup per day level.
In general, the benefits start to drop off at five cups per
day, and by day six, the law of declining marginal utility is in full effect.
A group of researchers decided to take on the ‘how much is
too much’ issue by conducting a retrospective population-based study. The data was extrapolated from the Aerobics
Center Longitudinal Study. The team
looked at roughly 40,000 subjects between the ages of 20 and 87. Results were
published in Mayo Clinical Proceedings.
The results showed that 28 cups of coffee per week was the
absolute threshold for healthy coffee consumption---at least in people under
55. The results were baffling.
What about all of the data from well-controlled,
statistically rigorous studies showing that drinking coffee significantly
reduces the risk of type 2 diabetes, various types of cancer, depression,
Alzheimer’s disease and even gout.
After re-checking their assumptions, the scientists looked more
closely at the data, especially the data from the 1970’s. Their goal was to
check for confounding factors, meaning things that might skew the data like smoking
cigarettes or drinking alcohol excessively. Unfortunately the original data set
was skewed with coffee drinkers, who also smoked cigarettes---but this confounding
factor was not factored into the analysis.
Clearly by age 55, heavy smokers were already starting to
die off. So it seems that coffee is beneficial across the board, though there
are people who are not constitutionally suited to consume coffee. They are in
the minority, but you know when you know. One thing, however, is 100% certain.
Smoking cigarettes should be in the ‘never do this’ category.
Here’s to a lot of coffee drinking in 2017!
