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From: werner@aecom.UUCP (Craig Werner)
Newsgroups: sci.med
Subject: Re: coffee causes heart attacks?
Message-ID: <527@aecom.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 19-Oct-86 20:43:54 EDT
Article-I.D.: aecom.527
Posted: Sun Oct 19 20:43:54 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 21-Oct-86 22:48:58 EDT
References: <2630@hammer.TEK.COM>
Organization: Albert Einstein Coll. of Med., NY
Lines: 37

> 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.
> 
> The amusing part was the reaction from the coffee industry.  They
> denied everything, attacked the report, claimed "insufficient
> evidence."  

	I remember several years ago when is a preliminary study, they
heacy coffee drinking to Pancreatic Cancer.  Last month, the final report
from the same group came out and they basically said "Nevermind," the
correlation dissapeared with time.

	There was an interesting article in one of this summer's
Discover magazines about the coffee/caffeine controversy, which 
included a quote from one of the more prominent researchers in the
field before he moved on to other projects, "It's gotten to the
point where things as so confusing I refuse to review any more
Caffeine papers."

	Other factors which make these studies less rigorous than
Cigarette studies is that the increased risks are small (2-fold is
statistically significant, but not real-world significant) and that
they don't appear at intermediate doses (i.e. there is no 1.5X risk
at 2.5 cups)  There might be other factors.  For instance - in this
study the real difference was over 10-fold, but decreased to
2-fold after taking into account that heavy coffee drinking correlates
well with heavy smoking.

	Incidentally, I';m completely unbiased in this one.  I haven't
had a cup of coffee in years. Can't stand the taste. Only drink
Twining's Tea and Coke Classic to get my caffeine intake.

-- 
			      Craig Werner (MD/PhD '91)
				!philabs!aecom!werner
              (1935-14E Eastchester Rd., Bronx NY 10461, 212-931-2517)
                 "Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died."