A recent article in Cell & Bioscience suggested that regular coffee consumption can reduce the risk of COVID infections.
The study does make some interesting points about the benefits of coffee’s different polyphenols and antioxidants and their effects on different COVID variants. Most of it is based on lab data, although one section, using serum from coffee versus water drinkers, did find that it was more effective at inhibiting the virions. Caffeinated versus decaffeinated didn’t matter.
Dr. Allan M. Block
I’m not saying coffee doesn’t impair the virus. The data are worth looking at. But the majority of adults in North America, Europe, and pretty much the entire planet drink coffee on a regular basis. A large number of them still caught COVID. Would they have had worse cases if they didn’t drink coffee? Maybe, maybe not.
The problem here is that, as always, preliminary data like this get pushed into mass media, making it sound like “COFFEE CURES COVID!!!” Never mind that that’s not what the article said, but it sure gets clicks and retweets and FaceBook “likes.”
Suddenly fringe groups are claiming the coffee cure was there all along, and hidden from them by the evil government-pharma-medical cartel. Others claim the research is flawed because of this or that. The signal gets drowned out by the noise.
Definitely, food can be a medicine. Look at all the benefits proven of the Mediterranean diet. Coffee may help, especially if we can identify and isolate the specific components that reduce COVID risk. But, as they always say at the end, the study is preliminary and further research is needed.
Once or twice a year, an adult with epilepsy comes in, waving a copy of the ketogenic diet around and upset that I never tried it on them — again proof of the evil government-pharma-medical cartel that I’m in league with. I calm them down and explain the diet in detail. Maybe 50% of them decide to go ahead with it. In 25 years of practice, my record for an otherwise normal adult sticking with it is 5 days.
You don’t have to go too far back to remember Linus Pauling, an absolutely brilliant scientist, but not the best of nutritionists. With two Nobel prizes behind him, he took a stab at medicine in the 1970s, arguing that megadoses of vitamin C worked for the common cold. While it may be good for us, and certainly most people like orange juice, but those claims about the common cold never panned out. In fact, we’re no closer to curing it now than we were then.
It might, but this doesn’t mean the “truth” is being maliciously hidden by an evil cartel. It just means we have (as always) more to learn.
I’ll still drink my single cup of coffee every weekday morning. I’m a creature of habit, and heaven knows I need the caffeine. If it also boosts my immune system, so much the better.
Besides, we still have that universal antimicrobial called chicken soup.
Dr. Block has a solo neurology practice in Scottsdale, Ariz.