Drinking 3-4 Cups of Coffee Is “More Likely to Benefit Health Than to Harm It”

Here's the problem: the human body is an immensely complex system, with millions of factors influencing its status and well-being. Untangling these factors correctly and producing an accurate and sophisticated statistical theory of the body would require a comparably large number of parameters - on the order of millions or more.

Unfortunately, modern medical science relies on low-N observational or clinical trials, with N on the order of hundreds or thousands. In this radically low-data regime it is impossible to justify the use of complex models. If you try to use a complex model, you will just get overfitting. You can use a simple model to avoid overfitting, but there's no reason to believe that a simple model will produce a good approximation of the underlying dynamics.

In the kitchen I have a joke with the guy from accounts as well as have a really positive buy-in for the new 'aggregated accounts' plan. I have some chat with the cleaning lady, she smiles, I smile. Someone else gets doors for me, I say please and thank-you. Finally beverages get served by me to my colleagues. Everyone is happy.

On the way to and from the kitchen I have got the blood circulating, not a very big walk, certainly not a gym workout, but all moving is good in the sedentary office world. Yes, it does take a lot of muscles to smile, and just with the light convo needed to get to the kettle and sink I have had a little workout. Unlike press-ups I can put my heart into a smile.

So what happens if I am in a mood and can't be bothered to make tea for the rest of the team? I sneak into the kitchen and make a coffee just for myself. Or if it is the weekend and I am home alone, with no interaction with people during the consumption of coffee.

On aggregate I do make coffee and it be a social thing rather than a loner thing. We are social animals and the act of sharing coffee is probably better for our well being than whatever is in the coffee. I don't think it is possible to do studies without the bigger social picture.

So could claims that 'coffee is good for you' stack up, even with the above?

In my anecdata there is also the girl I sit next to that is not in the 'tea round system'. She makes her own drink, and will tend to have a jogger style water bottle at hand at all times. She will also make her own infusions - ginger tea etc, but not a round for everybody. Because she just serves herself then she is not in the kitchen for as long as me, not needing to converse to complete the task (no tray). Furthermore, she does not get to greet everyone in the team, or to have that special thought for them, e.g. mug colour preference, tea/coffee strength etc.

So, anecdata, but, if coffee and the sharing of coffee is important, then the claims that 'coffee is good for you' could stack up but it not be causation/correlation on the caffeine, even if that appears to be the case.

At best, this refers to a standardized 250 ml or 8 oz measuring cup (unfortunately, still rarely what "a cup of coffee" generally means to those who read these headlines and adjust behaviour as a result).

At worst, the term is used to allow for ambiguity and variance expected in self-reporting.

I recognize there are many other variables that are even harder to measure than beverage volume, like mg of caffeine or diterpenes or antioxidants. But "cups" just seems so loose.

Related question: Is there a somewhat accurate amateur method of measuring caffeine content? I vary my beans and roasts and method a fair bit for fun and taste. e.g. various beans, light vs medium vs dark roasts, varying apparatus, mass of beans per "cup", filter types, and brewing time. I would like to have insight into how much caffeine I'm consuming.