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> caffeine

There's little evidence that drinking coffee or tea is bad for you overall. In contrast, anything beyond very moderate alcohol consumption is almost certainly bad for you.

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Good point, caffeine was not a good example. Cigarettes (or smoking in general, whatever it is) and alcohol are really the primary "legal poisons" we allow, I guess. At least in most of the world. With alcohol actually almost encouraged in most parts.

> The available evidence suggests that the main legitimate concern regarding caffeine and energy drink use is the potential negative impact on sleep but that, otherwise, there is no cause for concern regarding caffeine use in the general population.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4264529/

Ingesting too large amounts of caffeine is almost certainly bad for you. It's a stimulant that increases your blood pressure and heart rate. You don't want to overdo that. It's also diuretic, if you substitute water for coffee (which some people do) it can actually lead to dehydration.

But yes, I agree to your larger point that coffee is less dangerous than alcohol.

>It's a stimulant that increases your blood pressure and heart rate.

Does it do that to a significant extent to regular users, though? I thought the stimulant effects mostly went away once you build up a tolerance.

Similarly, there is little diuretic effect for regular coffee drinkers:

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140402-are-coffee-and-tea-...

Interesting, I didn't know that.

As to stimulation effect for regular users... I guess it might depend, but for me, I do notice when I drink too much coffee. And I am a "regular user" - I'd say I drink around 4 espresso a day (which is not a problem, but if say I bump that up to 10, I definitely feel it)

The same would be said for those who drink regularly over years. More is required for the same effects which introduces more risk.

Of course too much of anything is bad. People also die from drinking too much water. But the reality is that billions of people a day use caffeine and there are not widespread problems.

Isn’t that duretic problem a myth? The water in coffee more than compensates for it. It is actually funny to see atricles about the coffee. One week it’s how it is bad for you, another week how it’s good. There is a song by one old Lithuanian band “Doctors”, basically lamenting how this and that is bad for you, acorrding to doctors. And it has the line “but if you think about it, the most harmul thing is the living itself”.

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