h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1079669/Drinking-cups-coffee-day-shrinks-womens-breasts.html

This article made the German tabloids, too, yesterday. However, the German version stated that the same 'research' claimed that drinking coffee would have the reverse effect (from the one it allegedly has on women) on men. Hmmm...

anyone?

Ah. The Scary Mail

This seems to be in direct conflict with some research which was aired in the media just a few days ago and which said that women who drink four or more cups of coffee a day are more at risk of breast cancer.
I'll see if I can find a link ...

The breast cancer bit wasn't mentioned at all in the Bild Zeitung (it's our equivalent of the Sun).

Here ...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/health/3189530/Caffeine-can-increase-breast-cancer-risk.html

... but it does seem to conflict with other articles published earlier in the year which said the exact opposite.

Perhaps the best approach is just to enjoy everything in moderation - and stop reading newspapers

It clearly looks like what Skanky wrote about in his journal here:

F1900573?thread=5983702

you've got a lot of nerve suggesting bel, of all people, to stop reading newspapers

we've been drinking for so many years now that if there really were serious side effects i believe we would have seen them years and years ago

oh, and size is highly overrated imho

There is always some health-related scare story doing the rounds. Yesterday while sat in the waiting room of the Pathology Lab with my mother there was a "Breakfast" show on, (I never watch daytime TV), and the presenters showed a clip of Kerry Katona (with lolloping great bazookas bared) being pre-op'ed for a breast reduction because she's complaining of back pain due to the excess weight she had been forced to carry up front. It didn't say whether she's a or drinker but when interviewed afterwards about her procedure she was so clearly drunk *the interview* made the news last night

So, or is much better for you than whatever she's on, because, well, the interview wasn't pleasant. And she's a mother of four small children, I better shut up before I get ed

Coffee-related 'science' storeys always seem, like with so many things in the media to go in cycles. If your worried about any given 'medical scare' on any given 'food sort', or 'beverage' the best advice is always to wait six motnhs for the exact opposite 'proof' to come out and prove that wat waz bad is now god, and wat waz good is now bad.
I really think if there was any major* delaterious effect of coffee, or tea drinking it'd have come to light a lot more apparently and conclusively than the conflicting reports taht come out periodically, the same is true of red wine, its good in moderation in January, bad by February, but can guarentee it'll be good for you again in moderation come March

As with any of these 'science' storeys in the media, they tend to be blown out of proportion anyhow,-
a 0.5% increase in the lifespan of captive lab rats fed baset liqerish all-sorts, at Dundee University will naturally be translated to
"super-rats fed sweets live longer!"
Come MOnday morning and the front of the red tops...
Remember choc?; It still has some supporting evidence that it boosts the bodies immune system, probably no more effective than Orange juice/vit C, but effects can be additive, no matter how small an effect it is.
Remember red wine?; Its still good for you in moderation, as per real ale and tomatos, but then again just having a good diet that doesn't include twelve trips a week to McD would probably do more good than forcing an abnormal diet of a weekly 24 Kilo tomato allowance
For all the journalistic over-blown sensationalism, one of the real things that people, and perhaps the govn oughta draw from such things, is the absolute failutr eof education to enable the vast majority of people to be able to 'handle' 'understand' and take real maning from statistics and 'science' in its broadest sense... Of course, weather or not the media should contueually 'mis-report, by vertue of its knowing people in the main can't interpurit the data themselves, storeys is another matter... I'd say 'not'.... But then I do wonder just how 'statistics savy', and 'science savy', and average red top journalist is themselves....
Me, I'm off to drink twelve cups of coffee, eat a bag of toamtos, and then drink twenty pints of real ale, just for the anti cancer effects...

Good point 2legs. The journalists aren't any better educated than the rest of the public when it comes to stuff like that.

After reading the thread, I've forgotten what it said in B'El's original article now, anyway. Is coffee good or bad for you or does it just shrink your breasts. (I wish)

Anyway, I couln't take it in because I was so distracted by them spelling oestrogen funny.

And I know it's the wrong place, but Pierce's anagram is just brilliant:

I'll put it here for those who are reading this after Hallowe'en:

The rat pie recipe = Pierce the pirate.

I think these things, as mentioned before, tend to go round in cycles. One month it's good for you the next it's bad.
Is it just coincidence that things that end with the 'een' sound is deemed bad? Caffeine, nicotine, codeine. All addictive.
I read this week that now they're saying white wine is as good for you as the cynic in me says, are sales of white wine down then?
Milk is supposed to be bad yet Dark is supposed to be good.
I suppose the answer as always is, moderation in use.
*wanders off to munch on a BIG bar *

I'll have a fresh in a minute - although my colleagues jokingly advised me to stop drinking .

I'd love top blame Skankyrich for these stories, but it's the wrong journal to do so.

Most of the time, moderation in use works fine -- but who wants to be moderate?

My brother has just told me I missed one off that list. He says 'Teens' can be bad for you as well. Apparently he loves his teen kids, just can't eat a whole one.

DAN DAN DAAAAHHHHH!!!!



Ermm...

Is this the place for Captain Coffee Break?

FAR too much to read on a coffee break, I'll have to peruse that lot once I'm at home...

is always welcome in these parts.

Ahh, but you're a good girl who drinks ...

Oh, but they don't differentiate between caffeine and decaff in that article, do they?