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We caffeine addicts have had a bewildering week. According to reports, scientists have found that drinking five cups of black coffee a day could help reduce your risk of high blood pressure. Yet drinking one to three cups a day, they say, could increase your blood pressure.
Pardon? How can drinking less of a stimulant be more stimulating? No matter how many times I reread this claim, I can’t get my head around it. Maybe I need another cup of coffee, to wake me up.
Then again, there’s probably no point dwelling on it. In my lifetime, different groups of scientists have carried out countless studies of coffee, and its supposed effects on our health. And I never know which of their findings to believe. Because they all seem to contradict each other.
In August 1999, for example, a study found that drinking coffee could cut your risk of heart disease. Yet in February 2000, a separate study found that it could increase your risk of heart disease.
Similarly, in September 2003 a study found that drinking coffee could help you lose weight. Yet in May 2013, a separate study found that it could make you gain weight.
Meanwhile, other studies have found that it could boost male fertility (October 2003) or damage male fertility (October 2006); significantly reduce your risk of having a stroke (September 2011) or significantly increase your risk of having a stroke (October 2024); and help keep Alzheimer’s at bay (March 2012) or speed up your cognitive decline (August 2024).
I could list many more examples. But I won’t, because all these conflicting findings are making me feel anxious. Or is that just all the coffee I’ve drunk?
Surely not. My own intake is nothing remarkable. Four cups of black coffee a day. That’s all.
But even then, I can’t be certain what it’s doing to me. One study (August 2013) found that drinking four cups a day makes you more likely to die young – whereas another study (August 2017) found that drinking four cups a day makes you less likely to die young. So will my intake help me live to a ripe old age or kill me stone-dead at 50?
I haven’t a clue. And nor, I suspect, do scientists. Any time I’m feeling worried, though, I remember Lee Child, the author of the best-selling Jack Reacher thrillers. He’s claimed that, in an average day, he drinks “around 20” cups of coffee. And he once told The New York Times: “I think my record is about 36 cups.”
Well, he’s 71 years old, and still going strong. So perhaps scientists should study him.
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