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January 23, 2008

Coffee causes miscarriages, apparently*

I am so sick of health scares like this one.

"The Food Standards Agency recommend 300 mg of caffeine a day as the safe limit for pregnant women, but now they're saying you should just cut it out all together during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy."

Thoughts going through my head as I read this:

  1. I seriously can't believe this. And from a website I actually like no less.
  2. I much prefer to believe that nice nutritionist who came to Coffee Week at the University of Oslo, gave me the best sandwich I've ever tasted and told me coffee was very, very safe.
  3. I'm glad the commentors agree with me.
  4. When you apply for adopting children, and they ask you why, can you write "I need my coffee, so I can't be pregnant"?
  5. I want coffee RIGHT NOW.
* Yes, the Coupling reference is intentional.

Posted by Julie at January 23, 2008 2:23 PM

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Comments

Posted by: Camilla at January 23, 2008 4:11 PM

Nei du misforsto hele artikkelen Julie. Bildet viser klart og tydelig at det er koppen med Starbucks-kaffe som er skadelig for gravide. Det som artikkelen ikke nevnte var at den faktisk også er skadelig for menn samt ikke-drektige kvinner!

Nåja, fra spøk til alvor. New York Times sin artikkel om samme studie er litt mer nyansert ved at de også lar kritikere av studien slippe til.

” Dr. Carolyn Westhoff, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology, and epidemiology, at Columbia University Medical Center, had reservations about the study, noting that miscarriage is difficult to study or explain. Dr. Westhoff said most miscarriages resulted from chromosomal abnormalities, and there was no evidence that caffeine could cause those problems.”

Videre peker hun på det same som deg:

“Just interviewing women, over half of whom had already had their miscarriage, does not strike me as the best way to get at the real scientific question here,” she said. “But it is an excellent way to scare women.”

Alle ting er skadelige i store mengder sier hun og påpeker videre:

“I think we tend to go overboard on saying expose your body to zero anything when pregnant. The human race wouldn’t have succeeded if the early pregnancy was so vulnerable to a little bit of anything. We’re more robust than that.”

Forøvrig innholder en enkel espresso laget på en ren arabicablanding kun 2,6mg/ml koffein. Da en enkel espresso er 30ml gir dette knappe 78mg koffein noe som betyr at 3 espressoer om dagen skulle være langt innenfor grensen. Skulle du derimot befinne deg i litt mer obskure kaffekulturer som i området rundt Napoli vil espressoen du blir servert antakeligvis inneholde 3,8mg/ml. Altså 114mg koffein. Trøsten da får være at du likeså godt kan unnvære den da den er laget på ren robusta som smaker brent gummi.

Nei nyere forskning er ikke godt for annet en tabloid skremselspropaganda.

For de som derimot tviler på mine medisinske kunnskaper er det bare å vente på at australerne skal lykkes med å krysse to kaffeplanter som vil gi en naturlig koffeinfri plante.

http://www.coffeemonitor.com/News/07/05/31/Mareeba-grower-to-import-caffeine-free-coffee-trees.html

Så fortsett jakten på din daglige dose koffein Julie. Og skulle du ha mulighet kan du jo stikke innom Soluna Cafés ved rådhuset. Den ble i alle fall anbefalt av en australsk bekjent av meg som kan sin kaffe.

(Kilde N.Y. Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/21/health/21caffeine.html?_r=3&oref=slogin&ref=health&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin)

Posted by: ACME at January 23, 2008 10:08 PM

Posted by: ACME at January 23, 2008 10:09 PM

Følger opp med en liten oppdatering fra N.Y. Times. Et leserbrev til redaktøren:

"As practicing obstetricians, we are concerned about the extensive reporting of a small study that linked caffeine with miscarriages (“Pregnancy Problems Tied to Caffeine,” news article, Jan. 21).

Unfortunately, findings like these generate more media coverage because of the interest and fear they generate, rather than the quality of the evidence (this study has profound methodological limitations).

A more robust and better designed study was also released this month that found no association with coffee consumption and the risk of miscarriage. Sadly, the press ignored this study while every major news outlet aired the less rigorous, but frightening findings.

Together this practice scares our patients, misinforms the public, and places physicians in a difficult position in counseling our patients.

Peter Klatsky"

Ellers kan du jo lese dette blog-innlegget hvis du fortsatt er opprørt over ukritisk helsejournalistik:

http://theshot.coffeeratings.com/2008/02/coffee-and-pregnancy/


Posted by: På lesesalen at February 3, 2008 11:21 AM