Coffee drinking has been studied extensively from a health POV. People have especially looked for associations with heart disease because, (1) coffee makes the heart go faster, and (2) lots of people have heart disease, and (3) well, dammit, it just makes sense.
I'm unaware of any study that has linked coffee with heart disease ("it just makes sense" is a dangerous argument in physiology).
In fact, I'm unaware of any study linking coffee with any major disease except for a remote statistical association with pancreatic cancer, not one of the most common cancers. I betcha a bunch of donut holes that if you went back and looked at those numbers again, splitting the decaf out of the leaded, you'd find that the whole association was in the decaf side, since much decaf is extracted in benzene which is a known pancreatic carcinogen.
OTOH, everyone I know who gave up coffee after a long addiction:
1. felt better 2. slept sounder 3. regained flexibility and lost morning body stiffness
Your move ...
Here's some more info:
http://www.abc.net.au/quantum/poison/caffeine/caffeine.htm
I had never heard about caffeine possibly affecting birth weight. But just the fact that caffeine is passed from the mother to the baby is reason enough to abstain during pregnancy.
Because my wife is a (retired) World class disabled swimmer (four gold medals in the 2002 IPC World Championships with a number two world ranking) I was aware that caffeine is considered a performance enhancing drug.
From http://www.dietsite.com/dt/SportsNutrition/sportsframeset.asp?Page=Caffeine%20and%20Sports%20Performance.htm
"The International Olympic Committee and United States Olympic Committee has put large doses of caffeine on the banned list. A urinary concentration of 12 micrograms per milliliter of urine represents a positive drug test for caffeine resulting in the athlete's disqualification. One would have to consume in 2 to 3 hours the equivalent of 7 cups of coffee, 16 colas, 34 cups of iced tea, or 11 Excedrin to consume the illegal drug level of caffeine. As you can see, this amount is very high, and benefits to performance have been seen at the level equal to 2-1/2 cups of coffee!"
While consuming enough caffeine-containing foods to test positive might seem impractical, the U.S. Cycling Team used caffeine suppositories in the 1984 Olympics to reduce muscle fatigue.
--
Best Regards,
~DJA.
-- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
