That's something that I've worried about with these studies. Even if doctors don't warn patients, friends and family will sometimes actively discourage coffee and caffeine consumption among those with high blood pressure.

It undoubtedly has some effect, but hopefully the study has controlled for that.

not drinking coffee leads to a vicious cycle that kills thousands each year

9-5 is for amateurs, I prefer 9-11

Two doctors discussing a patient who has been revived out of cryostatis after many years:

    Dr. Melik: This morning for breakfast he requested something called "wheat germ, organic honey and tiger's milk."
    Dr. Aragon: [chuckling] Oh, yes. Those are the charmed substances that some years ago were thought to contain life-preserving properties.
    Dr. Melik: You mean there was no deep fat? No steak or cream pies or... hot fudge?
    Dr. Aragon: Those were thought to be unhealthy... precisely the opposite of what we now know to be true.
    Dr. Melik: Incredible.

As a coffee drinker I take a mild interest in these things and I'm not sure I've seen any studies saying it's bad for you in the last few decades. Is there one you know?

People love to find problems with stuff so I'd imagine if there were problems they'd be publicised. My intuition is coffee doesn't actually have much effect on health either way.

I feel like I rarely see anything negative about it, TBH. The last one that I remember reading was actually about decaf, due specifically to the decafeination process.

A bit of low-level background radiation is good for your health too...

Is it just as simple as exposing yourself to enough poison/radiation to kill weaker pathogens but not enough to hurt yourself too much?

Same as eggs, butter, meat, etc, etc. The only constant seems to be that refined carbs are basically prepackaged obesity if you’re lucky or diabetes if you aren’t.

Wait until you hear the news about eggs.

I think the ethics committee would block any large-cohort study that required participants to drink instant coffee.

Hey! I drink instant coffee too. And I drink it room temperature. I'm not usually wanting to spend time with the coffee ritual, though I do enjoy it. So scooping some freeze dried coffee powder and having it ready to drink right away is nice.

My favorite brand is Mt Hagen. I tried Starbucks instant and found it really gross - way too sour.

Wikipedia says it has less caffeine and less antioxidants, so probably less beneficial. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant_coffee

There's good instant coffee these days. Both Sightglass and Ritual Roasters instant coffees are excellent. They're great to have on hand when you're staying at a hotel that only had a Keurig in the room.

Here's a similar study that answers your question: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10282813/

> Drinking 1–5 cups/day of ground or instant coffee (but not decaffeinated coffee) was associated with a significant reduction in incident arrhythmia, including AF. The lowest risk was at 4–5 cups/day for ground coffee (HR 0.83; 95% CI [0.76–0.91]; P <0.0001) and 2–3 cups/day for instant coffee (HR, 0.88; 95% CI [0.85–0.92]; P <0.0001).

tl;dr Yes it has similar benefits, maybe slightly worse than "ground coffee" (I wish they had broken it down more granularly)

Instant coffee like Nescafé is just freeze dried brewed coffee no? But the problem with those instant coffee is they're all dark roast and overextracted to hide the disgusting taste.

I go a step further. I don't use milk for anything except coffee, so I bought a bag of lactose free skim milk powder and keep it in the freezer. I throw a teaspoon or two of that into a cup, mix in some tap water, stir it until the powder is dissolved and I have a little milk, then throw in either brewed coffee or some coffee crystals and hot water, depending on what I have on hand.

Milk powder is tastier than milk and keeps better in the freezer.

isn't instant one of those words that negates what follows?

No, but if I take caffeine, pseudoephedrine, and diphenhydramine at the same time, my left armpit sweats profusely. Just the left one.

Dehydration maybe, gastrointestinal issues maybe. If it concerns you, go see a doc!

And people with health problems are more likely to not drink coffee.

This is similar to alcohol studies, where a small amount of alcohol is better than not drinking anything at (because healthy people with no bad experiences related to alcohol usually drink a bit, even if it's a glass of wine once a month. Zero alcohol policy is usually something people with health problems out history of alcohol abuse do)