Coffee and Cancer

[maggiethecat]

I'm not dismissing the serious and thoughtful intent of your post. We do filtered coffee maker coffee and French press in rotation. As a caffeine/nicotine freak ( a marriage made in heaven or hell)I'm not going to worry about the Joe. My son-in-law is Vietnamese American and all his ancient Aunts and Uncles have been drinking unfiltered coffee for ninety years.

I'll take my chances on coffee. My death will result from Pall Malls, bacon and eggs, or a jealous lover.( )

[EatNopales]

Everybody has to die from something.. but for me in my current situation that would be such a cop out. Its not dying... its the prospect of a long protracted, debilitating, expensive disease that could bankrupt our family & leave my young girls orphaned that is unattractive to me.

I have that immigrant mindset.. my dad left me in a better situation than he grew up in & I will leave my girls in a better situation than I grew up in... if drinking filtered coffee instead of french press makes that a tiny bit more likely... then that is what is important to me.

[nickrey]

Did anyone look at the abstract?

The numbers used in the study were very large (a good thing) but the actual incidence of the disorder was .26%.

It is normally more persuasive to present the numbers rather than a percentage so I'll do so: 160 women in total from a sample of 61,433 who participated in the study contracted stomach cancer over the 15.7 year timeframe of the study.

The 22% increase in risk for coffee drinkers was calculated across these 160 women.

I can see why the authors would want to publish something after almost 17 years.

But let's face it, while the result may have been statistically significant, it's really trivial.

Moreover, statistical significance means that they have set a probability that there own conclusion is wrong: commonly used levels are a 5% chance or a 1% chance that their findings are caused through chance. This is why science demands that findings be replicated by other authors.

In summary: their research "evidence" is really weak and the numbers involved who actually contracted the disease is very small over the time period.

My advice is to take any finding you read with a very large grain of salt, particularly in this epidemiological space. After all, even if the result was a true finding, who is to say that there was not a third influence that varied between the groups of coffee drinkers and non-coffee drinkers? Perhaps the coffee drinkers prefer strong tastes and imbibe more of the Swedish delicacy of highly fermented fish.

After reading the abstract, I'm just off to have my morning coffee without a care in the world.

Edited December 3, 2011 by nickrey (log)

[Mottmott]

Perhaps I've missed this, but how much coffee is being used by the people in this study? Are we talking about an AM cup? an IV drip dose?

[Mjx]

Perhaps I've missed this, but how much coffee is being used by the people in this study? Are we talking about an AM cup? an IV drip dose?

You'd have to check: It varies and most of the studies describe a range (the links to the articles are in some of the posts upthread).