Do We Even Know What to Trust?

In American Heart Association Reveals the Optimal Daily Cups of Coffee for Your Health, Michael Irving reports on a new review of coffee, caffeine, and cardiovascular health.

“Studies of caffeine are largely observational.”

I recently stopped drinking coffee and have been doing perfectly fine without it, so articles like this make me wonder how much is science and how much is another reason to keep coffee selling.

There is legitimate research behind the claim. Moderate coffee consumption appears to be safe for most adults and is associated with lower rates of several health problems. But “associated with” does a lot of work here. Most of the evidence cannot prove that coffee caused the difference, and even the researchers say it is difficult to separate caffeine from everything else in coffee.

The headline also says “optimal,” while the underlying statement mainly says that up to 400 milligrams of caffeine a day is generally safe. That is not the same as recommending that people drink three to five cups for better health.

Maybe coffee has benefits. Maybe coffee drinkers differ from non-drinkers in ways these studies cannot fully measure. Both can be true.

The harder question is how ordinary people are supposed to tell the difference between useful evidence and a confident headline built from uncertain science.

Read Michael Irving’s full article, American Heart Association Reveals the Optimal Daily Cups of Coffee for Your Health.