I don't drink coffee, but I'm a big Mt. Dew drinker. There is a coffee club for the engineers here that lobbied for their own cappuccino machine, the company buys the machine and they would pay the price difference. Turns out it's @25 cents per cup.

No idea if coffee is a universal engineer drink, but it is the logo for the general section of CR4.

Just because the pluses and minus add up to zero does not mean that there will be no impact in the end. Health is not based on vector math!

Doing your heart bad and your liver good will still kill you just as well as doing your heart good and your liver bad.

One thing you might want to do is simply get yearly physical exams and track your health. Let your doctor know your virtues and vices so he knows what to look for in greater detail.

Lastly, be a good engineer/scientist. Be objective with the data and resist trying to defend behaviors and data that indicate something you do not want to see.

"The best investment you can make is yourself" - MD

Everything in moderation. How much is too much (if its 8 cups a day, or you can sit down at your work station without a chair, that's too much). I'm a tea man myself (5 cups a day).

Knew someone who drank too much coffee and had a heart attack (although that was apparently due to the sugar in the coffee).

We have mechanical engineers working in the factory here who put about 1 inch of sugar and coffee in their cups. Doesn't seem to bother them too much.

I'm still trying to work on my daily alcohol quota. Recent studies say I'm suppost to be drinking 2 glasses of red wine and a shot of whiskey every day for health reasons (something to do with antioxidants and such). I'm not even close. Who makes up these studies .

Quote (as best I can remember) from a comedy show on BBC Radio 4 the other day -

"I sometimes have real difficulty drinking the 2 glasses of red wine a day - I'm usually too drunk already!"

I'm on about 8 mugs a day but no suger, no problem relaxing, no problems sleeping, not twitchy, but I do get a headache if I go without for a day. This is apparently a sign that you drink to much coffee. NOT decaf!

I drink about 4 or 5 mugs (instant coffee) a day - doesn't seem to do too much harm.

I was on a long drive once, late at night after a long day, and going through a rainstrorm with heavy gusting cross-winds. I was shattered, in danger of dozing off. I had a pretty big dose of ProPlus (caffeine) tablets. After about ten minutes, my arms and jaw started to ache - I was having difficulty fighting the crosswinds - and I realized it was because every muscle was tensed up (auto-isometrics?). I pulled off at the next junction & found a motel. It took about 4 pints (beer) and 2 hours to calm down enought to sleep.

Another point - my Dad used to manage a fairly big factory, and the annual health check turned up a heart problem - palpitations etc. Cutting his coffee intake from 8 to 4 cups/day fixed it.

http://onhealth.webmd.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=56283

There are similar articles but hey everyone is trying to sell more coffee or more wine and no one knows for sure who sponsors any real report anymore

i know only one engineer who don't drink coffee and i drink 10 cups a day (min.)..because generally i work at night

Well I've heard the effects differ per person and that an immunity to the effects, but the health risks tend to be overexagerated (sp?). I myself drink a lot but I don't like the regular stuff. I drink Turkish coffee (usually in the neighborhood of 6 or 7 cups in one day but not every day... not including the grounds). Sometimes I'll have a 8 shot expresso with cream and caramel syrup from starbucks and I can be asleep an hour later.

:)
_Lloyd_

I think I am in trouble.

Wait, everything is bad for you, I am waiting for the study that says work and school will kill you.

If you consider work and school account for 90% of peoples stress and that leads to heart attacks I'd say that was already proven.

Still I'm a big fan of everything in moderation.

The funny thing is when I read your post was Woody Allen's "The Sleeper" in which he finds out ice cream sundays are the healthiest things to eat.

We are rare, but we exist. Non-caffeinated engineers, that is. I'm talking no coffee, black tea, green tea, decaf anything (which still contains about 10% of the original caffeine), or chocolate. Yeah, I know, tail of the bell curve, but we exist.

PlbMak, I'd be inclined to say to your co-workers, "I believe everyone has at least one vice. Mine is apparent. But now I'm wondering what you guys are up to."

Ha-ha yes! Your right, their vices are apparent by their portly statures!

Caffeine is not such a problem in coffee as the tanic acid and other sundry and assorted acids. Caffeine is not that harmful. It is like going 100 KM/H not too bad right. It is just the conditions associated with the speed that matter. ie not having brakes, or being on top if the car when it hits a wall. Caffeine in association with the other things is the bad thing. Refined sugar, carbonized water, high temperatures. These variables make the determining factors. Come on out there we're engineers we are trained to look at the full picture and weigh the factors.

From what I've read, a couple of cups of coffee (with caffeine) causes the body to have an adrenal response. Along with increased alertness and other effects comes a constricting of the blood vessles (An evolutionary response to adrenaline that protects the body from excessive bleeding during times of stress (fight or flight)). This prolonged constriction of your blood vessles is bad for your heart and circulatory system (interestingly, Nicotine does the same thing). The headache you get if you don't drink coffee comes from dilation on blood vessles in the brain (your body has partially adapted to the coffee, without its contrictive effects, the blood vessles dilate instead). The same thing happens if you quit smoking. Eventually after a couple of days, your body finds it's balance and the headaches go away (but not the cravings as far as I can tell).

All that said, if drinking coffee makes you happy, drink coffee.

The healthiest thing anyone can do for themselves by far is see a doctor regularly (at least once a year).

As a sufferer of ADHD, the failure of my body to have ANY response, or worse the paradoxical effect of this problem with stimulants, I have never understood why some folks are so concerned about coffee's effect on me. For the last 50 years I have been drinking an average of 15 12 oz cups of caffeinated coffee daily. I drink a cup or two before bed. I wake up from surgery and ask for coffee to help calm my stomach. I go get a cup if I waken in the middle of the night.

At the insistence of doctors several times, I have gone a month or 2 with decafe, and returned to cafed. No headaches, no nervousness, no change in sleep habits or mood (My wife assures me I was as crabby as ever), no added narcolepsy, no effect on either bp or pulse, no trouble falling asleep at night.

What's good for one isn't always the thing that's good for others.

That's also the surest diagnostic that I do have AD or ADHD. And there are goods and bads about that. It would have helped if at least they had been able to diagnose it back in the 50's.

RichH

It always seems that the things that taste best are always the worst for you.

Except coffee!!! Yay!

I think the health benefits outweigh the risks. Of course, as was mentioned, get a yearly health check up. And while you're there, just ask your doctor to recommend a maximum amount for you to drink. Then double that and you'll be fine.

When I was in University, I used to drink ten cups a night, I'd drive home shakin' but somehow I'd have no problem sleeping. Nowadays if I drink just three cups I'm weirded out all day.

Sigh, I miss those all night study sessions with all that coffee, the days of free refills.....

Please feel heartened by the NIH (National Institutes of Health) study released in May, 2006 that Coffee consumption was by far the most common American source of the anti-oxidants necessary for a healthy life.

rem: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

I've just found a great link for a caffeine calculator!

death-by-caffeine/

That link is wrong. I just drank 365 cans of coca-cola and I feel fine. I think if they are going to claim to know the lethal dosetaog;fbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv

I think thats the suger!