Interesting new study that found:
"a significant inverse association between coffee consumption and brain tumor risk in both total subjects (≥3 cups/day; HR=0.47, 95%CI=0.22-0.98) and in women (≥3 cups/day; HR=0.24, 95%CI=0.06-0.99), although the number of cases in the highest category was small. Furthermore, glioma risk tended to decrease with higher coffee consumption (≥3 cups/day; HR=0.54, 95%CI=0.16-1.80). No association was seen between green tea and brain tumor risk."
I'm really skeptical about these population studies. Another that made news recently was one where they found a correlation between gliomas and higher education.
ReplyDeleteObligatory comix: https://xkcd.com/882/
I definitely think it's good to be skeptical.
DeleteGiven studies like these two though, there just might be something to it.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20103623
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27260469
Or it could be nothing.
My wife loves and fully accepts all studies indicating non-negative effects of coffee... She will not be skeptical of these studies, at all.
ReplyDelete:) I know lots of people who feel the same way about their coffee!
DeleteHighlights from Harvard research on coffee (brought to you by Mrs. Dan K.):
ReplyDeleteA 2005 study exploring concerns that too much coffee was bad for blood pressure found no link between higher blood pressure and coffee and found some suggestion that it improved blood pressure.
Regular coffee drinking was linked in a 2011 Harvard study to lower risk of a deadly form of prostate cancer.
Also in 2011, a study showed that drinking four or more cups a day lowered the rate of depression among women.
A 2012 study tied three cups a day to a 20 percent lower risk of basal cell carcinoma.
A 2013 Harvard study linked coffee consumption to a reduced risk of suicide.
Also in 2013, a Harvard analysis of 36 studies covering more than a million people found that even heavy coffee consumption did not increase the risk of cardiovascular disease and that three to five cups of coffee daily provided the most protection against cardiovascular disease.
Also in 2014, Harvard Chan School researchers found that increasing coffee consumption by more than a cup a day over a four-year period reduced type 2 diabetes risk by 11 percent.
The same study showed that those who decreased their coffee consumption by more than a cup a day increased their type 2 diabetes risk by 17 percent.
The Japanese study I mentioned in the post also mentions the fact that coffee seems to protect against diabetes:
Delete"In our study, past history of diabetes mellitus was positively associated with the risk of brain tumor (HR=2.01, 95%CI=1.15-3.52), and coffee has a preventive effect against diabetes. To exclude the effect of coffee on subjects with
diabetes mellitus, we then limited analysis to subjects without diabetes mellitus, and also found a significant inverse association among subjects without a history of diabetes mellitus (≥3 cups/day vs ≤4 days/wk; HR=0.38"
I'll make a new epidemiology folder in the Brain Tumor Library and upload the study there.