Coffee linked to slower biological ageing among those with severe mental illness

As someone formally diagnosed with one of these mental illnesses, I can confidently say that coffee triggers a beneficial reaction to my illness as well as to other health-adjoint mechanisms in my body. To me, drinking coffee is like breathing air or eating food, and to go without it means symptom flare-ups.

Is it the coffee or caffeine in coffee? Do you feel the same benefits if you have decaffeinated coffee? Can you replace it with just caffeine pills to get same effect?

I have not tried caffeine pills myself, but I have found caffeine in general to be slightly beneficial, but with coffee having the most pronounced effect on my symptoms.

Sounds more like dependence/addiction to me

Likely an effect of MAO inhibitors in coffee. Caffeine itself is also a MAO inhibitor (in addition to its primary effect of adenosine receptor antagonism), but there are dozens of others in the brew.

100% but people hate to admit it.

Coffee's great. In the early morning, just the thought of a large cup of steaming black gets me out of bed with pep in my step. A cup of coffee or two in the afternoon always kicks the doldrums away.

Before the grumpy start making noise, yes, I absolutely am addicted. If I miss two days, then I get a headache for three days. Still definitely worth it. Everybody should drink coffee. There is no good reason not to.

> Everybody should drink coffee. There is no good reason not to.

They absolutely shouldn't. Many people suffer negative side effects from consuming coffee even if they don't realize it, like anxiety and jitters. Consuming stimulants is also a bad idea if you already have high blood pressure or heart rate.

> The analysis found that participants with severe hypertension who drank two or more cups of coffee each day doubled their risk of dying from cardiovascular disease, compared to those who didn't drink coffee. Drinking just one cup of coffee or any amount of green tea – regardless of blood pressure level – did not raise the risk, the study showed.

https://www.heart.org/en/news/2022/12/21/people-with-very-hi...

Hmm, sorta similar for me except my normal is only one cup per day. Every now and than (say every few months), I get up to two, then soon three cups per day and I start getting migraine. Then I think to myslf, "boy, I gotta quit coffee forever", and so I do. Then I get headaches from withdrawal, but that only lasts a few days. Typically, I stay off coffee forever for about two or three weeks, and the cycle repeats.

So... if you want to cut back, just persevere for a few days of no coffee. The statistics don't lie.*

* sample size = 1

My experience is that cold turkey is just the pits. Tapering off can eliminate side-effects and iirc is recommended by health professionals.

The claim that some people with high blood pressure may risk cardiovascular harm from coffee is supported, under certain conditions, especially severe hypertension and heavier consumption. This is true.

The more general inference everybody with any high blood pressure or health risk should avoid coffee is not supported by the bulk of epidemiological evidence: moderate coffee use appears at worst neutral for many people, possibly beneficial for some.

A comprehensive meta-analysis of decades' worth of cohort studies concluded that moderate coffee consumption (roughly 2-5 cups/day) was associated with a lower or neutral risk of cardiovascular disease overall (coronary heart disease, stroke, heart failure, CVD mortality) compared to no coffee.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3945962/

So drink up! Drink all the coffees! Unless you are a reply-guy with severe heart problems and an uncontrollable compulsion to drink mass quantities, then talk to a doctor first.

Also don't drink coffee if you don't like it, or you're a Mormon, a strict Seventh-day Adventist, a member of certain Pentecostal or Anabaptist groups, a Theravāda Buddhist monk, a strict Salafist, or part of a strict Ital-observant Rastafarian community. If in doubt, speak to your bishop, branch president, pastor, priest, imam, monk, or whoever guides your spiritual tradition.

I'm a caffeine/coffee consumer because I like its effects, and the claims to overall physiological benefits appear solid, but why do you think multiple and varied spiritual schools choose to forgo it, especially in coffee form?

I don't think that, when all is considered, there are that many spiritual traditions that forbid it, and there seems to be no unifying principle from the ones that do. Mormons forbid "hot drinks" that are, for historical reasons, interpreted to include coffee. Salafists do it because certain early jurists briefly classified coffee as an intoxicant. Seventh-day Adventists avoid stimulants as part of a broader health code. Theravāda monks avoid anything that affects wakefulness after midday. A few Pentecostal or Anabaptist groups inherited older temperance rules about stimulants. These prohibitions all come from very different origins, and none of them amounts to a shared spiritual insight about coffee itself.

In fact, so few spiritual traditions do forbid it, including the most forbidding and censorious, that it may well be considered miraculous. In my personal religion it is tantamount to a sacrament ;)

It’s not a disorder unless it’s causing problems in your life, definitionally. By that logic people are addicted to any medication they take long term that helps them manage any health condition. Hell, I must be addicted to eye drops because when I don’t use them I get dry eyes more often. Is that addiction/dependence?

We must be careful not to find ways to be judgemental whether intentionally or not, especially when something is non-harmful and helpful to their life. It’s not a good behavioural pattern.

I think what people hate to admit even less is that being judgmental like you are doing gives people a small power trip.

Absolute slam dunk of a comment, well said!

Thank you. I'm apparently passionate about it. I can understand not liking the taste, or hating the jitters, or belonging to a religion that discourages it, but as it's one of the very few unambiguously good and healthy joys of this imperfect world, I cannot abide to hear it run down as bad for your health.

Relief of existing symptoms is one thing, relief of withdrawal symptoms caused by the lack of the substance is another. Stopping use of your eyedrops is not the root cause of your dry eyes. (Cry me a river :) I wouldn't consider that comment judgmental...definitely not as much as talking about people's "behavioral patterns" after reading a single sentence comment anyways)

While that study is interesting, I was responding to:

> Everybody should drink coffee. There is no good reason not to.

Clearly there are many reasons not to drink coffee that may or may not apply to you and so saying that everyone should be drinking coffee is wrong.

> I cannot abide to hear it run down as bad for your health.

I didn't say it was bad for health as a general statement, I said that there are many people out there who suffer negative health consequences from caffeine consumption, in response to you telling everyone to drink coffee.

I actually like coffee, I have a fancy hand grinder and everything, my body just doesn't handle it well when consumed on a regular basis and I know people who've had to quit because it made their anxiety so bad that they started getting panic attacks. Telling "everyone" to drink coffee because there's no good reason not to is just wrong and careless and potentially dangerous.

"Not everyone should" != "nobody should"

You’re picking at hairs. “Everyone” was being used colloquially by them, not literally.

Nope, wrong again. Lots of important medication such as SSRI’s or cancer medications have withdrawal symptoms too but it would be ridiculous to say they were addicted to them. Withdrawal symptoms are not a good enough indicator of addiction. Addiction is far more complicated and you’re trying to force a square peg through a round hole.

Also I was obviously talking about behavioural patterns in general, not judging that specific persons behaviours. The fact that you’d take what you’re doing (being judgemental) and try and paint me unsuccessfully as doing the same thing is an extremely bad faith tactic, and reveals to everyone here that you know exactly what you’re doing here.

This isn’t reddit mate. Acting this way is not appreciated.

I never claimed someone's addiction was a disorder causing problems, that was your definition. Obviously prescription medication is a different situation, nothing is so black and white. Get off the high horse "mate", you're reading way too much into what I've said and trying putting words in my mouth to paint me as some judgmental jerk. It's not appreciated.

Fine. Everyone should do pure pharmaceutical-grade [cocaine, opioids, cannabis, nicotine], there's no good reason not to, in moderation.