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High coffee consumption, brain volume and risk of dementia and stroke

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Re: High coffee consumption, brain volume and risk of dementia and stroke

#131

Post by N1H1L »

yaomingite wrote: post #83
llamaLord wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering the very early effects of dementia start to impact people sometimes decades before it becomes bad enough that they are diagnosed, it's certainly possible that extreme coffee consumption is some kind of self-medication mechanism. Anecdotally, I've seen this a lot with adults with undiagnosed ADHD (including myself until 26). Caffeine can be a (very shitty) alternative to proper stimulant medication that pe…

> Anecdotally, I've seen this a lot with adults with undiagnosed ADHD (including myself until 26). Caffeine can be a (very shitty) alternative to proper stimulant medication that people don't realise they actually need because of a medical issue. So the end up drinking 4-5 coffees a day instead. ADHD medication is among the hardest to get in the first place, and to maintain in many places. I was diagnosed as a child,…

ADHD is also very strongly linked to cigarette smoking, by the way. What I mean is that nicotine is a form of self-medication

Re: High coffee consumption, brain volume and risk of dementia and stroke

#133

Post by JohnBooty »

CorrectHorseBat wrote: post #129
JohnBooty wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vitamin/supplements industry makes billions while the pharma industry makes trillions. The pharma industry is financially shaped around big "hit" patented medications that rake in megaprofits. They are literally too big to play in the vitamin-selling market. It's kind of like how you and I might be able to spin up a profitable SaaS or other project that pulls in a few hundred grand or even a few million per year.…

I believe you're completely wrong here. A quick search tells me the markets are much closer than that. R&D cost is lower and regulation isn't as strict so I wouldn't be surprised if selling vitamins is the more lucrative business. The pharma companies haven't missed this and they are also in the business.

The point is that relative to pharma, the supplements industry has essentially zero regulation and essentially zero barrier to entry.

Anybody can get into that game, and they do, judging by the thousands of different supplement peddlers one sees on Amazon and at the local CVS. Some of them even stick around for more than a year or two.

It can be a profitable business, but it's sort of a race to the bottom. I'm a fan of supplements, but if you think that selling Vitamin D pills at Safeway can gave you power and money on par with an international pharma company selling lifesaving cancer treatments at $10,000 a pop or whatever then what are you doing talking to me on HN? Go bottle some pills and think about what kind of superyacht you'll be buying.

Re: High coffee consumption, brain volume and risk of dementia and stroke

#134

Post by d1sxeyes »

morsch wrote: post #106
d1sxeyes wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brit here, an average cup of coffee would be around 1 heaped tsp of instant coffee in a 300ml mug with a bit of breathing room, say 275ml? But that would include the milk, so maybe around 200ml water and 75ml of milk. Would vary quite a lot from person to person though.

That'd be around 57 mg caffeine. On the weak side, compared to espresso or drip coffee. You think the most common preparation is instant coffee? Kind of surprising.

In the UK? Yes. I think in the UK, most people drink most of their coffee at home rather than out at a Starbucks or similar.

Some folks have a percolator or a cafetière or a fully automatic, especially younger people, but if I were to be invited round to meet someone’s parents, I’d expect instant.

To be fair, I haven’t lived in the UK for over ten years now, I can imagine Nespresso type machines may have taken the lead.

Re: High coffee consumption, brain volume and risk of dementia and stroke

#135

Post by eurleif »

nabla9 wrote: post #2

The article is not claiming causal link, but this is still interesting. >After full covariate adjustment, consumption of >6 cups/day was associated with 53% higher odds of dementia compared to consumption of 1–2 cups/day Coffee is stimulant just like some Alzheimer medications used to treat symptoms. It would be interesting to see if people increase coffee consumption with cognitive decline.

Another potential causal mechanism might be that people in cognitive decline have their "daily cup of coffee", forget they've already had it, and then have another.

Re: High coffee consumption, brain volume and risk of dementia and stroke

#136

Post by dusted »

nabla9 wrote: post #2

The article is not claiming causal link, but this is still interesting. >After full covariate adjustment, consumption of >6 cups/day was associated with 53% higher odds of dementia compared to consumption of 1–2 cups/day Coffee is stimulant just like some Alzheimer medications used to treat symptoms. It would be interesting to see if people increase coffee consumption with cognitive decline.

I was thinking the same, it's very interesting which way the arrow points.

Am I saying that because I drink an enormous amount of coffee and really don't want to stop? Yes.

But also.. because I hope my high coffee drinking is because of my vanishing brain, rather than the cause of it ;)

Re: High coffee consumption, brain volume and risk of dementia and stroke

#137

Post by mantra2 »

notaharvardmba wrote: post #93
mantra2 wrote: post #77

I drink about 8-10 cups of black coffee a day, which is what my brewer makes. I don’t have any issues with sleep but I don’t feel any sort of boost from it, I just enjoy the way it tastes. I’m curious how consistent this can be seeing as coffee can be made so differently. I know the coffee I make at home is incredibly weak compared to what you’d get at a cafe. I use about 2-3 tablespoons of freshly ground beans for t…

“Cups” as in “coffee maker cups”, ~4oz per “cup”, vs cups as in measuring cups (8 oz)

1.3 Liters, so I guess they’re considering a cup in my 8 cup brewer as 5oz.

Re: High coffee consumption, brain volume and risk of dementia and stroke

#139

Post by troydavis »

Kirby64 wrote: post #17
owlstuffing wrote: post #4

> consumption of >6 cups/day was associated with 53% higher odds of dementia compared to consumption of 1–2 cups/day (fully adjusted OR 1.53, 95% CI 1.28, 1.83) 6+ cups! That’s a cranial marinade.

The scientific definition of a 'cup' of coffee is important. Usually this is defined as 4 ounces of brewed coffee, which means a normal mug of coffee (which can fit something like 10 oz) would be 2.5 cups! So, for most people's definition of a 'cup' of coffee, they really only mean 2.5 'mugs' of coffee.

This survey is using self-assessed cups - without providing a cup size or any guidance. Specifically, a survey asks users "How many cups of coffee do you drink a day?" with no other context.

So, "cups" for this study is whatever the respondent considers a cup. For most people, that's going to be at least 8 ounces and probably 8-12 oz.

From the full text (https://ore.exeter.ac.uk/repository/bitstream/handle/10871/1...), here's how the intake is described:

> Habitual coffee intake was self-reported as cups per day, as part of the touchscreen questionnaire at baseline with the question “How many cups of coffee do you drink a day?” (38). Participants were asked to include decaffeinated (decaf) coffee intake in their response. Decaffeinated consumers were identified from response to the question “What type of coffee do you usually drink?”. Coffee consumption was grouped in seven categories, including non- drinkers, decaffeinated coffee drinkers, and caffeinated coffee drinkers consuming 6 cups/day. “Coffee drinkers” in the text refer to participants who report intake of caffeinated coffee. For sensitivity analyses we constructed separate indicators restricting the data to decaffeinated coffee drinkers and according to tea consumption, using intake categories as above"

Re: High coffee consumption, brain volume and risk of dementia and stroke

#140

Post by david_shi »

jijijijij wrote: post #123
david_shi wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bit of a sidenote, but I find it fascinating how little vitamin deficiencies are accounted for in allopathic medical contexts. Deficiencies seem like such a frequent occurrence but most patients end up needing to self-medicate.

What are you talking about? Especially vitamin D is researched to death. You think scientists are stupid? If there is a incidence difference along the north-south axis, it's the first hypothesis investigated. Thing is, intervention usually doesn't prove very effective. That's why doctors aren't that hysterical about it. Then some vitamin supplement studies have shown actually harmful, eg. vitamin A as antioxidant. Vi…

I didn't say researchers, I said in a medical context. If you do a search on pubmed or Google Scholar, you can find a lot of research on how vitamin D supplementation proved beneficial for patients in different contexts.

Also, I found your reply really jarring. Perhaps it's the immediate ad-hominem attack, but I just wanted to note that for your reference, it really didn't motivate me to want to engage any further with you.

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