Lewis asked: hello welcome your health fast, Scientific American Podcast series!
Josh Fishman: This show focuses on the latest important health news and discoveries that affect your body and mind.
Each episode dives into one topic. Discuss diseases, treatments, and some controversies.
Lewis: It also demystifies medical research in ways you can use to stay healthy.
My name is Tanya Lewis.
Fishman: My name is Josh Fishman.
Lewis: it was Scientific AmericanSenior Health Editor of .
Today we are talking about coffee. We hear a lot of conflicting results about whether your favorite drink is good or bad for your health. But recently, a very rigorous study was published that may finally answer some of our underlying questions.
[Clip: Show theme music]
[Clips: (sound effects) coffee grinder, coffee percolating, liquid pour, sip]
Fishman: Right now, there’s a good chance you’re sipping exactly what we’re talking about: coffee. This is he one of the most widely consumed beverages in the world.
Lewis: That’s true. Here in the US, the average person drank about 89 gallons of coffee in 2016. That’s more than soda, tea and juice combined.
Fishman: That’s a lot of Java. Or call him Joe, Brew, or Jitter Juice, whatever you prefer.
Lewis: That’s right. Josh, would you like some coffee?
Fishman: In fact, I think I’m one of the few who don’t. But I was guzzling it, about 4-5 cups a day.
Lewis: why? what happened?
Fishman: To be honest, my stomach started to hurt. I thought I could do it without so much acid.
Lewis: It makes perfect sense. But personally, it’s not really functional until I have my morning coffee, and I don’t know if I can give it up.
Fishman: Sometimes when I smell the scent of a coffee shop, it smells really good!
But listen, I still have coffee cause my problem. Every day, it feels like there’s a new study coming out showing whether coffee is good or bad for you, for different reasons.
Lewis: It turns out that studying how coffee and other foods and drinks affect our health is actually quite difficult.
Most nutrition studies are observational studies that compare the health status of casual coffee drinkers to those who don’t. However, it is impossible to rule out other variables that may affect what you are trying to measure.
Plus, we have to rely on people reporting what they consume weeks or months after they drink.
Fishman: So what is the solution? Is there another way to study this?
Lewis: Well, there is a way to be more objective. I spoke with…
Gregory Marcus: Gregory Marcus, a cardiologist and professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, said:
Lewis: Marcus and his colleagues took a different approach than most other coffee studies. randomized A test to study the effect of coffee on heart rate.
They were looking for an arrhythmia called an arrhythmia.
Marcus: This topic comes up quite often in my clinic, and patients with various arrhythmias ask if they can drink coffee. Conventional wisdom holds, but this is my area of expertise. Still, we and others have been unable to find a clear link between coffee and arrhythmias.
Lewis: In a new study, Marcus and his colleagues randomly assigned 100 people to either drink coffee daily for two weeks or not.
Marcus: They then received these instructions via text message and on other random days were randomly assigned to go ahead and drink as much coffee as they wanted whereas avoiding all caffeine today. rice field.
Lewis: They had participants wear heart monitors, FitBits, and continuous glucose monitors. The timing was made available to researchers.
Fishman: What were they looking at on the heart monitor?
Lewis: They were measuring two things: the number of premature atrial and premature ventricular contractions.
Marcus: It is very common for everyone to have occasional early beats that originate from the upper chambers of the heart, called premature atrial contraction or PAC.
Lewis: But research shows that too many Atrial fibrillation is a dangerously irregular and rapid heartbeat. This is associated with a much higher risk of stroke, dementia, and death. Then there is another kind of irregular heartbeat.
Marcus: Ventricular premature beats are early beats originating from the lower chambers of the heart. Again, we all have them from time to time, but those who have a lot of them are at a higher risk of developing heart failure and heart failure.
Lewis: They found that drinking coffee did not cause premature atrial contraction, the premature heartbeat associated with atrial fibrillation. Good news for those who were worried about it.
Fishman: It’s good to know. What about other bad beats, premature contractions of the lower chambers of the heart?
Lewis: It was slightly more on the days I was told to drink coffee and on the days I drank more coffee, but not enough to worry me.
And that’s not all they found. Coffee consumption was also associated with an increase in steps taken per day. The days people drank coffee, and the more coffee they drank, the more steps they took.
Marcus: On random coffee days, I walked an average of about 1000 more steps, which is very important. In fact, differences in average step count have been associated with improved longevity in large-scale epidemiological studies.
Lewis: The study failed to show why On days when I drank coffee, my steps increased. Maybe they were walking to a coffee shop or toilet! In any case, other studies have shown that walking an extra 1,000 steps per day reduces the risk of death by 6-15%.
Fishman: So coffee can actually keep people energized and moving around.
Lewis: Yeah I think coffee drinkers were full of beans. However, drinking coffee has its downsides, which probably won’t surprise you.
Fishman: hmm let me guess. Are people sleeping less?
Lewis: bingo. Study participants slept an average of about 30 minutes less on the days they drank coffee compared to the days they did not.
However, results vary greatly from person to person, depending on whether coffee is metabolized fast or slow. This is determined by genetics.
The researchers gave the participants a genetic saliva test to determine what type of coffee metabolite they were.
Marcus: So, fast caffeine metabolizers did not actually show a significant relationship between coffee consumption and sleep, whereas slow caffeine metabolizers had the worst effect on sleep. For those who metabolize caffeine slowly, drinking coffee reduces sleep by an average of nearly an hour.
Fishman: I didn’t have any trouble sleeping even though I drank a lot of coffee. But I wake up ridiculously early in the morning – I’m talking at 5 o’clock – anyway, I’m usually drunk by 10 p.m.
Lewis: I don’t normally think coffee will keep me up at night, but I try to avoid caffeine after 3 or 4 pm. Still, the study questioned whether we should stop drinking earlier in the day.
Marcus: If someone suffers from insomnia, a randomized trial here found a significant impact on sleep. This must really motivate a good coffee-free trial to really tackle insomnia.
Fishman: Ok, that part is mostly easy. Overall, though, the study seems like pretty positive news for people who enjoy beer.
Lewis: Yes, that’s pretty good news. This supports other observational studies that have not shown an increased risk of cardiac arrhythmias.
Several studies have also linked coffee drinking to a lower lifetime risk of diabetes and death.
After all, the question of whether coffee is good or bad for you may not have a simple answer. It depends on how much you take and it varies from person to person.
Marcus: Overall, I think these data should provide general comfort with regards to coffee safety. I think that there is a tendency to exist, and I conclude that this is human instinct. myself? Or is this bad for me? Which one? it’s either And the reality is that the effects of coffee are complex.
Lewis: Coffee affects everyone differently. So, stop drinking if you feel sick. But if you enjoy it in moderation like I do, have a latte!
fishman: your health fast Produced and edited by Kelso Harper, Tulika Bose, and Jeff DelViscio. Our music was composed by Dominic Smith.
Lewis: our show is part of Scientific Americanpodcast of science, quickAnywhere you can get a podcast, you can subscribe.
fishman: And don’t forget to visit Sciam.com for updated and in-depth health news.
Lewis: Tanya Lewis.
Fishman: My name is Josh Fishman.
Lewis: I will be back in 2 weeks. Thank you for listening!
