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devilsdatayesterday at 10:38 PM4 repliesview on HN

Is it possible that this phenomenon is specific to people with those mental illnesses? A wider general population study resulted in the inverse effect:

https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/15/6/1354

I only did a postgraduate degree, so I don't have the practice reading scientific studies to determine which is true. Maybe someone with more knowledge can chime in?


Replies

shooyesterday at 11:19 PM

Separately from this study, here's an interesting opinion piece by John Ioannidis titled "The Challenge of Reforming Nutritional Epidemiologic Research", published in JAMA 2018:

https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/wp-content/uploads/20...

  > Assuming the meta-analyzed evidence from cohort
  > studies represents life span–long causal associations, for
  > a baseline life expectancy of 80 years, eating 12 hazelnuts
  > daily (1 oz) would prolong life by 12 years (ie, 1 year per
  > hazelnut), drinking 3 cups of coffee daily would achieve
  > a similar gain of 12 extra years, and eating a single man-
  > darin orange daily (80 g) would add 5 years of life. Con-
  > versely, consuming 1 egg daily would reduce life expec-
  > tancy by 6 years, and eating 2 slices of bacon (30 g) daily
  > would shorten life by a decade, an effect worse than
  > smoking. Could these results possibly be true?
via Andrew Gelman's blog: https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2019/01/26/article-po...
11Spadesyesterday at 11:33 PM

Studies of larger populations yield more typical results. Consequently, studies of smaller populations yield more extreme results.

That's not to say that these results might not be significant -- what you propose may be the case -- but I'd want to see an actual mechanism of action before buying something like this.

footayesterday at 11:03 PM

Idk about the op study, but I could imagine confounders with instant coffee consumption.

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tootieyesterday at 10:55 PM

No, it affects everybody. Says so in the article. The distinction appears to be that severe mental illness is associated with shortened lifespan so coffee has a more profound anti-aging affect on that population.

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