Coffee is good!

When one thinks of coffee, pleasure comes to mind…

Coffee is not just a taste, it also means conversation, friendship, companionship…

But unfortunately, like all pleasant things, it has always been perceived as harmful to health.

It has even been suggested that coffee causes pancreatic cancer.

Some studies have shown statistically that there is a parallelism between the frequency of pancreatic cancer and the use of coffee, and coffee has been referred to as a beverage that causes pancreatic cancer for many years.

The inaccuracy of the determination has only recently been realized. The reason for this misconception about coffee was that coffee drinkers are good smokers and smoking is one of the causes of pancreatic cancer.

What did Mark Twain say?

“There are three kinds of lies. Pink lies, big lies and statistics…”

Very nice, but this proposition is not true, of course, statistics are always innocent.

When you use the right statistical model, it is not the statistic that “misleads” but its interpretation. In fact, statistics is the greatest helper of science and reason.

Recently, a very important article was published in the New England Journal of Medicine, one of the most respected medical journals in the world.

The study included 229,119 male and 173,141 female subjects aged 50-71 years and was conducted between 1995 and 2008.

The result was surprising.

“The risk of death was reduced by 10% in men who drank 2-3 cups of coffee a day, and 13% in women compared to non-drinkers”.

It is not known whether these findings are enough to disperse the dark clouds over coffee.

Indeed, many other clinical data show that coffee use raises low-density lipoprotein, which is a risk for atherosclerosis, causes a temporary increase in blood pressure, and carries a risk for heart disease.

However, just like in pancreatic cancer, it is not clear how much cigarette smoking has in these relationships.

The results of the study published in the “New England Journal of Medicine” also provide an answer to the relationship between smoking and coffee.

The study reveals that the mortality rate is high in those who drink coffee together with cigarettes.

In other words, for coffee to prolong life, it is absolutely necessary not to use tobacco.

Another important point is the amount of coffee consumed per day…

If the number of cups increases, the balance is reversed and the risk increases compared to those who never drink coffee.

The study shows that the risk of death is 10% higher for men who drink 6 or more cups of coffee per day than non-drinkers, and 15% for women.

Another important result of the study is that coffee does not affect the risk of death from cancer…

In other words, coffee does not protect from cancer risk.

It is clear that new data and studies are needed for correct interpretations.

But what I learned on my own account; 2-3 cups of coffee a day is fine for non-smokers.

I’m very happy about this, I said, coffee is friendship, conversation, pleasure for me.

Even a little more, it is also the name of a friend.

Prof Dr Hamdi Akan…

A true scientist, good friend and best coffee lover I know…

If If you’re a coffee drinker, someday do what I did on Eid.

Prepare yourself a cup of coffee, take your dear brother Hamdi’s book “Coffee and Health” in your hand, enjoy reading and coffee.