New Studies Reassure on Coffee Safety, Suggest Survival Bump

–Benefits of coffee now apparent in non-white and European populations. Two large new observational studies appearing Monday in Annals of Internal Medicine strengthened the association between higher coffee consumption and longer life. In the wake of earlier studies pointing to the potential benefits of coffee, the two new papers extend those benefits to new populations,…

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Caffeine Study Gives Heart Failure Patients Green Light To Drink Coffee

–A small but rigorous study found no arrhythmias caused by caffeine consumption. Many people with heart failure are advised to avoid coffee because of fears that caffeine might provoke an arrhythmia. Now a rare example of a randomized controlled trial in the field offers some assuring evidence that these patients can safely drink coffee. The…

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More Evidence Linking Sugared Drinks To Diabetes

A new study uncovers some potentially important new details about the association between sugared drinks and diabetes. In a paper published in Diabetologia [pdf], researchers in the UK report on a study of more than 25,000 adults. Over the course of more than 10 years of followup 847 participants went on to develop diabetes. Instead of relying on a food…

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No, Drinking Coffee Won’t Save Your Life Or Prevent Heart Attacks

Once again the media has swallowed the bait hook, line, and sinker. Following the publication of a  a new study in the journal Heart last night, hundreds of news reports have now appeared extolling the miraculous benefits of coffee. Here’s just one typical headline from the Los Angeles Times: “Another reason to drink coffee: It’s good for your heart, study…

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You Know Nothing, Dr. Snow: Why Medicine Can’t Be More Like Facebook

Medicine can never be like Facebook, despite what Matt Herper argues over at Forbes. Perhaps he was just trolling for hits on a day when everyone is thinking about the Facebook IPO, but Herper proposed, with apparently seriousness, that medicine needs to model itself on the tech world in order to match the kind of…

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