I often comment sardonically that if today’s medical warnings make you fearful, all you have to do is wait a little and there’ll be a discovery that OOPS! salt isn’t all that bad for you after all.
That’s all very well. But what if the previous warning was not only wrong, but massively wrong — i.e. that something that was said to be bad for you (could even kill you) — in that it was not only wrong, but diametrically the opposite.
Say hello to our old friend caffeine:
Although people with heart conditions such as atrial fibrillation* (A-Fib) are often told to avoid caffeine because it might worsen symptoms, new research suggests the opposite may be true. A collaborative study conducted by the University of California, San Francisco, and the University of Adelaide found that drinking one cup of caffeinated coffee per day lowered the risk of A-Fib by 39%.
Let’s just extend that thought. People were warned off caffeine because it might kill them, but in fact drinking that daily cup of coffee might actually have saved their lives, but didn’t.
WTF? And people ask me why I’m such a supporter of the spirit of Hammurabic law, where the “experts” who originally proposed the anti-caffeine law could conceivably be executed for spreading dangerous, possibly deadly advice.
While I am grateful for doctors, generally speaking, it’s also true that they’re a bunch of interfering busybodies and utter killjoys, if we listen to them all the time.
*that’s irregular heartbeat, to those of us who prefer simple, comprehensible terminology instead of obscure medical jargon, don’t get me started.
Guess what?
Eventually “time” will kill you.
It always does, always will.
So, moderation in everything.
IOW, this evening I’m going to sit on the porch and sip 4ounces of dragon spit rather than down the whole bottle and get trashed.
My NCOIC in the Air Force used to say, “Everything in moderation. Especially moderation.”
If your NCOIC had been a Chief Petty Officer, he would have said “Moderation is for monks. You’re not a monk.”
I don’t drink the alcohol but I don’t give a fuck if others do.
I drank 40 ounces of cafe bustelo iced coffee the other day with some added gingerbread flavor oat milk Creamer (I’m lactose intolerant not a hippie)
People can tell me that’s too much coffee in one sitting, but if so they can fuck right off.
“Nobody understands the other guys Vice”
Enjoy your beverage of choice ghost. Bottoms up.
Anstie’s Limit benefits us all!
We will outlive all those teetotallers and all those heavy drinkers, too.
We will probably never know how Dr. Anstie arrived at his daily limits for alcohol of various concentrations back in the 1860’s, but after more “Scientific” research since 1960, we know he was accurate and even, dare I say, prescient?
According to the good Doctor,
Beer: 24 oz
Wine: 16 oz
Distilled spirits? 1.5 oz
Ethyl Alcohol from the Doctor’s secret stash: 1.0 oz
All for healthful purposes, of course.
I’ve had to deal with more than a few PhD’s in my career. All in chemical manufacturing and research. More than a few earned the title “Often wrong but never in doubt!”. In a lot of cases there just isn’t any real connection to consequences for those people.
PHD = Post Hole Digger
I have an MBA. Let me tell you the allegedly well educated people are some of the dumbest fucking people on the planet. Might have book smarts but no common sense and no idea how shit really happens in the world.
I have a JD. I agree with you completely. They can argue in court, but making a decision in real life? An impossibility. At best they do what they want and argue about it afterwards. And these people are the pool from which our judges are drawn!
As for the Ph.D, I have long referred to it as “Piled High and Deep.
I love coffee and tea both iced and hot. I will never stop drinking it , whether it is good bad or indifferent for me.
Been on a kick of cafe bustelo lately. I got both iced and hot stocked up in the house.
I also have some bigelow ginger peach calm stomach tea.
And when I am not having a coffee or tea I enjoy a good diet soda, which apparently is also bad for me.
You know what else is bad? When stupid mother fuckers tell you how you should and what you should eat.
Every life ends one day. While no one should take crazy risks for no reason I think those of us drinking coffee are much safer than the fucking dumbasses who eat Tide pods and huff paint.
YMMV
Jim Fixx had a heart problem and he was to many people the picture of perfect health.
Who has a greater chance of dying? Those running or those relaxing over a coffee.
Maybe Jim Fixx should have jogged just a little less and sat down and relaxed over a cup of coffee.
I’m lot saying don’t exercise but understand there is more to health than omg that cup of coffee is dangerous oh wait if you drink this coffee at this time it’s healthy but don’t put sugar in it and don’t drink more than X number of ounces.
You do the math.
YMMV
When Jim Fixx died, I was in my mid twenties, and partook of many vices, including Demon Rum and “The Fatal Glass of Beer.” While enjoying those vices with my friends, we noted that Richard Burton lasted longer than Jim Fixx. For that matter, so did Peter O’Toole, who would show up as a guest for talk shows lit up like a Christmas Tree, and would fondly recall the pleasure of going downstairs from his flat in Paris and waking up in Marseille with no idea how he got there.
I’m not here for a long time, I am here for a good time. Pass the steak, coffee, liquor, beer etc.
In my opinion, the real culprit is corn syrup and all of its derivatives. That stuff used in too much food. Eat from the farm, not the factory, get some exercise, even walking helps. Get outdoors in natural light away from fluorescent bulbs. Get some fresh air.
Don is right about PhD folks. Many are completely insulated from reality.
Whenever I hear some “expert” direly warn about how such-and-such a thing is gonna kill me I harken back to the immortal words of the sage George Carlin:
“Saliva causes cancer, but only if swallowed in small amounts over a long period of time.”
I actually hope this latest thing about caffeine lowering A-Fib risk is correct, though. If true, I’ll never have to worry about an irregular heartbeat! Caffeine = Life to a software developer.
Well SOMETHING is going to kill you. Might as well be something you like.
> *that’s irregular heartbeat
It’s a specific *kind* of irregular heartbeat.
v-fib is a different kind of irregular heartbeat.
A-fib is bad, but you’ll probably see tomorrow. V-fib is worse, and you might not.
There’s lots and lots of variations of irregular heartbeats, and they all are a little different.
Ironically there’s a measurement called “Heart Rate Variability” that some people use to measure recovery from their workouts, because the more fit (cardiovascularly) the more the inter-beat timing is. So under certain conditions having a slightly irregular heartbeat can be the sign of being fit and rested.
I’ve got a genetic heart condition called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. I ignored it for years, but eventually was convinced by my family doctor to see a cardiologist. The cardiologist quickly decided that I needed a pacemaker/defibrillator implanted. I grudgingly agreed, then proceeded to go into v-fib 4 times between May and September 2021. If it hadn’t been for the defibrillator, I would’ve been DRT. On the other hand, when I went in for heart surgery, they served me coffee every morning during my 3 weeks of recovery.
The dose makes the poison.
A single cup of coffee isn’t going to hit the a-fib hard, even a second cup isn’t likely to trigger someone.
Remember, this is the country of 24 ounce “cups”.
But having someone who just had heart surgery and is dependent on caffeine get a migraine because they are going through withdrawal has the possibility of increasing blood pressure.
And if you don’t get the migraine you might get either a drop in blood pressure, or an increase. Either of which is less than good for someone who’s just had their chest opened up and their arteries and such poked at.
And it’s the same with the “standard diet”, which is regularly adjusted to fit the ideologies and economic policies of whomever is in charge of the agency that decides what it is.
The whole “food pyramid” is not just different between countries (while the people creating it claim it’s a universal truth and everyone should eat exactly the same), it’s constantly adjusted to ensure farm subsidies flow to the current favourites of the people in power.
It was originally conceived in the USA after WW2 to justify keeping up subsidies to the grain farmers in a market with declining sales (as the government no longer needed to feed armies of millions and the civilian population went back to eating meat now that they no longer had ration cards to care about).
Then Europe came on board and decided to especially push for people to consume dairy in addition to grains, so dairy was given a prominent place on their version.
Now over here the vegans are in control, so dairy and meat have been pushed out almost completely and replaced with beans, nuts, and root vegetables, which in the 1980s when I first started tracking such things and noticing them changing in parallel with farm subsidies were almost non-existent as promoted foods.
Remember back in the 90’s “Oh coconut oil is bad for you!” even though movie theaters had been using it from the beginning of time …they stopped.Now it’s being found out it helps your metabolism maybe that’s why all those ship yard workers in the 40’s were thin?I have come to the conclusion PHD’s are nothing but licensed drug dealers and they work for Pharma.I have also accepted the fact if the FDA says “this” go 180′ in the other direction for what’s bad is actually good for you.