Apparently coffee is not so great for Type 1s – there have to be some holes in this research, right???
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Well, it says 3 or more cups a day may lead to “metabolic syndrome.” Other studies say 3-4 cups a day may lower risk of some cancers, liver disease, and dementia. Who to believe?
I like that there are more studies about a few cups of coffee being healthy for us, so I will stick with that. We all have to die from something. 
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Nooooo
Well, personally I won’t worry about it as long as my metabolic numbers (blood pressure, cholesterol, etc.) remain in good shape!
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If covfefe was bad for you there is no way I’d be alive.
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Haha, yeah I’m not sure if this is enough evidence to quit it altogether… But I do wonder if there’s something about different functioning of blood vessels in T1s that contributes tot his effect – it seemed to be wholly tied to the hypertension risk.
In any case, not relevant for me personally – and you will pry my morning cup of coffee out of my hands at your peril!
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It’s just a single correlational study—I wouldn’t take it too seriously at all. Doesn’t actually measure the effect of coffee at all, just correlates of its use (which might be due to effects of coffee, or a million other things, or some third factor might cause both increased risk of metabolic syndrome and increased coffee drinking). Anyway, if you’re really concerned, all you’d need to do is drink no more than 2 cups/day (still a decent coffee habit) to be in the categories of use associated with lower risk.
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Aaaargh!
There better be, I am not quitting my 3 cups a day. I am counting on the advancement of science to justify my deeds.
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Agreed. These correlation studies, especially the retrospective ones, can be really misleading, in the sense that our brains are wired to infer causation from correlation. Perhaps people with metabolic syndrome feel more sluggish, so they drink more coffee to try to perk up. If that’s the case, the coffee didn’t cause them to feel sluggish, and it didn’t cause their metabolic syndrome. Actually producing evidence that A causes B is a quite subtle endeavor, and is not at all accomplished merely by showing that the association of A with B has less than a 5% chance of being a coincidence. (p < 0.05)
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Well, except that in all the other studies, coffee is correlated with better health. So it has to be some explanation that only applies to Type 1s – being sluggish and having metabolic syndrome are likely to be correlated whether one is type 1, type 2 or nothing.
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So again, I skimmed the actual study article.
The study examined effects on both a composite score of metabolic syndrome, which is composed of a number of different components, as well as the individual factors. While the findings for the overall composite score were significant, the only factor that was really driving those findings was hypertension, which was associated with increased coffee consumption. (Lipid levels also were significant but only at 5+ cups/day, and not a big effect, so that could well be error, and it was only a factor for people not on statins etc.) Coffee will increase your blood pressure, as will any stimulant, so that part of it seems super obvious/non-controversial to me. If you have blood pressure concerns, you probably should not be drinking caffeinated coffee, or at least that’s one way to reduce your blood pressure. I don’t think that would be diabetes-specific whatsoever—I’ve known plenty of non-diabetics who had blood pressure problems when consuming stimulants and reverted to normal range (or closer or needed lower medication doses) without them.
Another example of why I hate science reporting and why trying to interpret articles meaningfully from write-ups about them is often not feasible and potentially even really misleading. Even the research articles themselves can overstate or obscure the details, but at least they are there when you read it, and usually the truth comes out in the limitations section as well.
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Does the subgroup of Type 1s without high blood pressure have better outcomes? Because usually coffee is associated with lower risk of mortality from a number of causes in most observational studies – it would be interesting to see if people who are not prone to hypertension still get those benefits. i’m guessing the study sample was too small for that, though.
I also wonder, though, if T1s are more susceptible to the hypertensive effects of coffee. We already know that T1 vessels are a little bit different, so perhaps that is what is driving the effect. Anyways, obviously could be nothing – I posted it in semi-jet, but I still thought it was interesting.
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While a good question, this isn’t the question they are looking at—hypertension and other metabolic syndrome factors are the outcomes examined in the study (not mortality or effects of metabolic factors), and coffee was the risk factor, so it’s more like does coffee use increase risk of hypertension as an outcome itself. Also, to be clear, this study did NOT compare T1s to non-T1s; the entire sample is T1s, so while the findings maydiffer from other studies in the general population (and I’m not sure that studies in the general population are different in terms of effects on hypertension specifically), it does not actually test the hypothesis that these effects are moderated by T1 status. A study would have to enroll both participants with and without T1 who are otherwise matched on key variables to test with any real strength about whether T1 alters these risk factors.
It does seem quite possible that (at least some) T1s could be more sensitive to caffeine’s acute effects due to damage to the autonomic nervous system as a complication of diabetes, but that would have to be its own study.
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And honestly, common sense needs to reign here. If you have high blood pressure stay away from caffeine. That is true whether you have diabetes or not. Talk to any cardiologist.
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Is that like saying if you have diabetes your diet should not consist of starburst and Mountain Dew ?
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Pretty much, unless you just accidentally gave yourself too much insulin, in which case Starburst and Mountain Dew is called for. If you have High Blood Pressure, caffeine isn’t really ever called for.
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I’d love to see your thoughts on that if you had my job
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According to the baristas down the road from me, Coffee and Espresso are vastly different things. So, thankfully, there’s a loophole.
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Welcome to the forum @benjaminabbottbrady, really glad you are contributing to the discussion. Feel free to post in the welcome thread if you want.
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What? No way… I’m on my pot a day tax season routine right now. Back to work and my coffee.
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Coffee is my major vice right now. Definitely NOT giving it up. 
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