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From: mc68020@gilbbs.UUCP (Thomas J Keller)
Newsgroups: sci.med
Subject: Re: coffee causes heart attacks?
Message-ID: <1051@gilbbs.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 19-Oct-86 02:04:33 EDT
Article-I.D.: gilbbs.1051
Posted: Sun Oct 19 02:04:33 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 21-Oct-86 21:22:36 EDT
References: <2630@hammer.TEK.COM>
Organization: Gil's Place, Santa Rosa CA
Lines: 38
Summary: coffee, per se, may not be the culprit

In article <2630@hammer.TEK.COM>, andrew@hammer.UUCP writes:
> So now the newspapers report on a study linking heavy coffee drinking
> (five or more cups per day) to a doubled risk of heart attack.
> 
   I could be wrong here (Great Ghu knows, it's been known to happen), but I
would suspect that one possible reason for this would be the concomitantly
high intake of caffeine involved in drinking this much coffee.  Caffeine is
a strong stimulant, and I can state anecdotally that whenever I take a strong
dose of caffeine, my heart POUNDS.  This could, over years of continuous
use, result in various heart conditions conducive to heart attack, I would
think.

> The amusing part was the reaction from the coffee industry.  They
> denied everything, attacked the report, claimed "insufficient
> evidence."  Just like the tobacco industry's reaction to
> cigarette-as-carcinogen reports.  I get an entirely different
> perspective when the special interests are defending something so much
> closer to home.
> 
   What's so amusing about this?  It is typical of American industrial 
practice.  American business seems to have perverted the concept of freedom
to mean that THEY can produce any product they want, without adequate testing
for safety, and unless someone can both prove scientifically *AND* afford 
highly expensive lawyers to fight Business lawyers to the death, there isn't
*ANYTHING* anyone can do about it.  I don't find this amusing at all.  I find
it even less amusing that at *LEAST* in the case of the tobacco industry, the
AMA has supported the industry over the health concerns of the American public.
(not so surprising, when you realize that at least at the time, the AMA owned
MILLIONS of dollars in tobacco stocks)

-- 

Disclaimer:  Disclaimer?  DISCLAIMER!? I don't need no stinking DISCLAIMER!!!

tom keller					"She's alive, ALIVE!"
{ihnp4, dual}!ptsfa!gilbbs!mc68020

(* we may not be big, but we're small! *)