
Photo: Bo Kim, Unsplash
Early Starts Lead To Later Wins, Even In Your Morning Brew:
Some of the weirder phenomena we can run into in life are virtuous cycles, and their nasty cousins, vicious cycles.
One of the areas where they can get a little scary is in the realm of health.
There are so many interconnections, that it can be hard to know where to start fixing things.
If you’ve ever witnessed this happen to another person, or God forbid; yourself, you definitely know you want to avoid it.
So what do you do? Stick to the basics, and go with study evidence.
In that line of thought, unless this NUS team is part of the international caffeine cartel, it’s looking like coffee and tea just scored another weird health win…
The Short Answer:
- Sometimes you can get into a virtuous-cycle without knowing it.
- Coffee and tea have many health benefits to their names.
- Improved cognition, lower rates of disease and slower aging are a few.
- The NUS team looked at data from 12,000 subjects, aged 45-74, followed for 20 years.
- Those who drank coffee & tea in midlife had better mobility and less frailty at 73.
- These deficits were measured in four ways.
- Drinkers were ranked into four groups based on consumption.
- Tea drinkers had significantly fewer problems than non tea-drinkers.
- Subjects who drank 4 or more cups of coffee/day had the least amount of problems.
- Perhaps because caffeine increases exercise performance, subjects with less frailty benefited from more activity over their lives.
- This study may suggest, along with others, that if you want to benefit later on, you may want to start a practice as early as you can.
Read on to find out the details…
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Add Another Facet To The Eternal Mystique Of Breakfast Drinks:
Health nuts love using the term, “Superfood”, and by Jeezus I’m going to try not to here.
But after showing as many benefits as they have, it’s hard not to give Coffee & Tea that title.
Improved cognition, reduced rates of disease, slower aging, the list goes on and on.
But the weirdest proxy yet has got to have come from this NUS study.
Thousands Of Subjects, Better-Off With The Mojo Of Caffeine:
So after looking at about 12,000 subjects, aged 45-74, and followed for a mind-blowing 20 years, Dr. Koh Woon Puay’s team found that caffeine seems to help subjects age better.
Specifically, there was a strong association between the drinkers and retaining strength and energy as they got older.
They were then tested at 73 to see what their grip strength was, and how fast they could get up out of a chair and moving.
Other scores included:
1) Unhealthy Weight Loss
2) Slowness
3) Exhaustion
4) Weakness
More Coffee Equals More Power!:
Although groups of coffee & tea drinkers were ranked according to four levels of consumption,
It looks like anyone drinking either at midlife had reduced odds of later frailty.
This result was even more exaggerated for those in coffee group 4, who drank 4 or more cups of coffee/day.
Then compared to non tea-drinkers, those who had any amount of black or green also went on to have significantly less frailty around the 73 year-old mark.
Weird Science! -Some Benefits Start Out Very Early:
These results also extended into a direct correlation between coffee & later-life strength.
The more someone got at midlife, the longer they seemed immune to the 4 measures of frailty later on.
Which, let’s admit, is weird. Weirder still is the NUS choice of one metric.
Because, just like the fingertip temperature test for anxiety, it turns out that there are two really weird proxies for survival in later life.
They are:
1) Grip Strength
2) Average Walking Speed (specifically over or under 2mph)
So I guess Weird Science gets even weirder?
What Is The Real Behind-The-Scenes Connection?:
So what the hell’s going on here?
The easiest guess is that caffeine in any form tends to give people more energy or at least, perceived-energy.
Weirdly enough in different work that’s been cited alongside this NUS study is one showing caffeine consumption is at least inversely-correlated with low muscle-mass incidence.
Maybe the simple answer is the right one?
Because other studies have shown although it does improve:
a) Endurance
b) Speed
c) Strength
d) Soreness-recovery
Still others show that any direct muscle-building effect it has is very small.
So then maybe a few decades of increased energy just lead people to be more physically-capable later in life?
Either way, the association is still an odd and mysterious one.
Let’s Roundup Coffee & Tea’s Benefits – If You Start Early:
To finish off the post, we would be remiss without giving at least a short list of coffee & tea’s benefits that have been discovered so far.
They include potential improvements in:
1) Dementia
2) Cardiovascular/Heart Disease
3) Longevity
4) Skin problems
5) Prostate issues
6) Brain health
7) Memory
8) Stroke
9) Type 2 Diabetes
So with all of those trophies on the shelf for coffee &/or tea,
Why wouldn’t a little improved get-up-and-go in later years also be on the menu?
But the real takeaway from this post is the implied time-window in the study.
Whatever benefits you hope to get out of something, it’s much better to start much earlier than you need to instead of waiting until you have a disaster on your hands.
The best day to start drinking coffee or tea is 20 years ago. The second best day is today!
References & Links:
• Source: NUS
• Source Studies:
•JAMDA – Consumption of Coffee, Tea, and Caffeine at Midlife, and the Risk of Physical Frailty in Late Life
•BNJ – Coffee consumption and skeletal muscle mass: WASEDA’S Health Study
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