“A ten-year study found that men who drank three cups of coffee a day had the smallest mental decline as they got older.
A total of 676 men from a number of countries in Europe took tests that measured the effect of coffee on their cognitive performance.
The mental decline in non-drinkers was more than four times greater than in those who drank three cups.”
Right, I want it, now. Tap it to a vein. Pump it through my nostrils. Er, maybe skip the suppository. But bring it on!
Hrmph.. I hate abuse of statistics!! correlation can be interpreted in so many ways. Have they done a cross comparison of coffee drinking against lifestyle measures.. like income, profession, other dietary habits..etc?
There is no such thing as ‘abuse of statistics’ there is only ‘use of statistics’.
How readers interpret stats is all part of the fun. 676 men from multiple countries isn’t exactly a small sample but you’d have to speak with the researchers about variables:
http://www.nature.com/ejcn/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/1602495a.html
a sample isn’t necessarily representative just because it has hundreds of people in it. the fact that subjects spanned multiple countries means more variables come into play necessitating a larger sample to ensure adequate representation and reliable results (though not guaranteeing reliable interpretation of results). sorry but that link wasn’t any more informative. I love coffee.. but this bit of news is… rubbish… sorry..
The researchers published the article and "take public responsibility for the content of this paper" which means they are happy with the sample size being suitably large to support their claim.
The link contains the name of the paper, the researchers involved in its creation and the lead’s email address. How much more information do you need?
No need to apologise, but if you want "news" I’d avoid blogs, especially this one, it’s utter rubbish. ๐