Via Jacob Levy, I learn that "Coffee may cut the risk of dementia by blocking the damage cholesterol can inflict on the body, research suggests." Excellent. I drink a lot of coffee.
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No Dementia for Me
05 Apr 2008 03:08 pm
Comments (21)
Coffee also reduces the risk of cirrhosis, especially among heavy drinkers.
The authors of the study do go all weeny in the end:
Even if coffee is protective, the primary approach to reduction of alcoholic cirrhosis is avoidance or cessation of heavy alcohol drinking," Klatsky said.
But many of us are busy people who must rationally integrate our health-promoting activities into a complex, demanding life plan, and for us the second-best choice might be entirely reasonable.
Serious drinkers with hangovers have been dosing themselves with coffee for centuries, and the medical experts have been telling us all along that this folk-medicine practice of ours sucks.
So screw you, medical experts!. (The old medical experts, I mean, not the new ones who agree with me.)
i didn't know rabbits got alzheimer's.
Question: I grew up "knowing" that coffee is horrible for kids. With what evidence? I searched and i can find no studies to indicate that coffee is worse for kids than any other caffeinated product, and they consume lots of those, from candy to soft drinks. Anybody knows anything? Is it merely a prejudice?
According to "The Nun Study" (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nun_Study) writing long, complex sentences is also associated with avoiding alzheimer's (probably a correlation not a cause).
Does this include decaf coffee?
I gave up the real stuff several years ago.
Sorry, Swarty. Alzheimers plus cirrhosis ain't no picnic, but it was your own choice.
Best news I've had all week. Though I suppose with the cirrhosis thing mentioned above, I'll have to stop adding whiskey to mine . . .
You know what else prevents dementia? Smoking weed!
http://www.scripps.edu/news/press/080906.html
Add a joint to your morning ritual, and you're set, Matt.
MY is ALREADY demented... since he supports OBAMA and his ELITIST PLAN TO DESTROY HEALTHCARE!!!!11!!!
Hopefully tea works as well. I drink about as much tea as the Turks, and that's a lot. The article seems to credit the caffeine, but makes no mention of tea.
Cal,
Kids in some countries drink coffee with milk and sugar. It's usually moot as black coffee is one of those things too bitter to appeal to them--just like you take a while to think wine tastes good rather than sour. So no, horrible for kids is an old wives tale.
Of course, overcaffeinating a pair of 6 year olds would convince anyone it was bad for kids. And I've seen parents buying rotund children super-large iced coffee-and-cream drinks at various coffee shops, and just want to whack them. "Look! Kid is busting out of her clothes! Get her a milk and cookie (fraction of the calories) and take her to the playground!"
I drink A LOT of alcohol.
Whack as in mafia, or whack as in slap upside the head? If the former, perhaps you need to look at your coffee intake.
Curry also seems to help against dementia.
http://www.webmd.com/alzheimers/news/20050105/curry-spice-may-fight-alzheimers-disease
Next question: When was the last time you encountered a coffee-drinking, weed-smoking, Indian-food lover with dementia?
Right. Never.
Coffee's not going to do any good about your graduating from Harvard with a philosophy degree, though, Matt.
Personally, I prefer dementia.
Whack as in upside the head. As a tea-drinker I am perhaps undercaffeinated.
Note I didn't say an apple and a bottled water. Exercise is more important, and my own kids in this situation are usually having tea (large kid) and milk or hot chocolate (small kid). I know example and social norms is how you change things. I know you don't go up to people and say "Excuse me, you know the drink you're handing the kid has 800 calories, right? Most of what she needs for the day? And it's a drink, so it won't fill her up. And the 4 shots of expresso seem excessive caffeination for a second grader." Thus I retreat to fantasizing about whacking them, so I won't get shot. But it's becoming a bit too frequent, especially as I go to coffee places less than once a week.
Matt should keep drinking his coffe, what with the cirrhosis and all.
On the negative side, doesn't coffee also cause cellulite?
24/7 blogging is dementia.
My grandmother has senile dementia and drank large quantities of coffee every day. There was discussion among her doctors that coffee CAUSED the dementia or aggravated it.
Matt, the NYT is obviously pointing to you in its article about blogger stress today. Yikes!
http://www.nytimes.com/
2008/04/06/technology/06sweat.html?ref=business
"A growing work force of home-office laborers and entrepreneurs, armed with computers and smartphones and wired to the hilt, are toiling under great physical and emotional stress created by the around-the-clock Internet economy that demands a constant stream of news and comment.
Of course, the bloggers can work elsewhere, and they profess a love of the nonstop action and perhaps the chance to create a global media outlet without a major up-front investment. At the same time, some are starting to wonder if something has gone very wrong. In the last few months, two among their ranks have died suddenly.
Two weeks ago in North Lauderdale, Fla., funeral services were held for Russell Shaw, a prolific blogger on technology subjects who died at 60 of a heart attack. In December, another tech blogger, Marc Orchant, died at 50 of a massive coronary. A third, Om Malik, 41, survived a heart attack in December.
Other bloggers complain of weight loss or gain, sleep disorders, exhaustion and other maladies born of the nonstop strain of producing for a news and information cycle that is as always-on as the Internet."
Comments closed April 19, 2008.
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Heads in the Sand
gimme a break. in a week or so a scientist will come up with a completely opposing conclusion, this is always the case.
Posted by europhobe | April 5, 2008 3:19 PM