a study shows....

yup.
another study.
every day, or so it seems, somebody issues the results of yet another study to tell us something isn't good for us.  the most recent, conducted by researchers at the mayo clinic, has led to the conclusion that men under the age of 55 who consume 4 or more cups of coffee a day, increase their risk of premature death.  and this is despite the fact that ANOTHER study recently found coffee drinkers are at lower risks for suicide, stroke and prostate cancer.*
i have a few questions.
first of all, don't these so-called experts ever talk to each other?  i mean, they're basically all talking about the same thing, so you'd assume they might all kind of know each other, even in the most marginal sense.  in a perverse way, i like to think of them all in a room getting toasted on jello shots and fighting over whose glasses to soap up next, trying to decide on the next best way to fuck with our heads.
second, is there really such a thing as an impartial study?  someone's got to pay these guys to sit around and be all sciencey, ask their questions and run their tests.  and no one ever wants to upset the powers-that-be, especially when they're helping us pay our bills and up-date our wii's or our smart phones or whatever thingamajig they're telling us needs up-dating.  we've been told eggs are bad, beef is bad, alcohol is bad, diet sodas aren't diet at all, and so on and so on.  but then the egg guys tell us eggs are good, the beef guys say that beef is healthy, liquor isn't all that evil (especially red wine, the wine people say) and diet soda and its artificial sweeteners...oops, another no-no that may be a yes-yes say the diet soda makers.  the only thing that they all seem to agree on is cigarettes.  bad, they say.  bad, bad, bad!  but we continue to smoke (and by "they" i mean "i", though i have managed to cut WAY back).  so who the hell are we supposed to listen to, let alone, believe?  there will always be two sides, those that accept the "facts" and the scoffers, the ones who trust the "science" and those who remain skeptic of anything they don't fully understand, but when it comes to issues of health, there's got to be a consensus just to avoid the confusion.  that consensus alone could help save lives.
and finally (until i realize i've forgotten something), where's the input of the f.d.a?  now, i know that the minute the government is mentioned, hackles are going to rise across the board.  to some, the slightest suggestion that the government should become involved in personal choices is completely out of the question and  it's two-cents become one more reason any results should be ignored.  but that's the reason it's there, isn't it?  i realize that, as of late, maybe their track record hasn't been sterling (hell, it's been down-right disgusting after all the food and product recalls lately) but it's there, why isn't it being used?  take the studies out of the hands of those who are only going to profit from the results.
well, this got a little more intense than i originally intended, but i hope my point was made.  stop releasing the results of studies that, for the most part, mean nothing and are going to change nothing.  people are going to continue drinking their coffees, their lattes, their frappazappamochas or whatever and starbucks isn't soon going down the tubes.  they still sell cigarettes and people will continue to smoke as long as they do.  and booze?  the things that needs to change in that area are the namby-pamby drunk driving laws.  stop highlighting these studies on the news like they are uber-important, game-changing moments.  and, believe it or not, i didn't need a study to figure it out.
 

*men over 55 apparently aren't as adversely affected.  i can only wonder if it's just the coffee, or that younger men, especially in the business world, are drinking more coffee because they're under more stress, they need to feel more "on it" and that might have a lot to do with earlier deaths.  the rise was 55% more likely in men to have a premature death.  with women it was a 200% increase.  the one thing that wasn't really mentioned in the "breaking news" was that the heavier coffee drinkers also tended to be smokers, which may have contributed to the variance in the percentages.  YA THINK???