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Learn More About Caffeine’s Consequences and Perks – What It Does To You and What It Can Do For You Whether wrapped in a cardboard sleeve or loaded with ice, coffees and teas are hot right now. And colas, smoothies and other soft drinks are currently cool, with their added vitamins, herbs and exotic mixes of flavors. We drink them — a lot. As a commodity, our penchant for coffee is second only to our fondness for crude oil. Coffee and smoothie shops alone brought in nearly 12 billion dollars in 2007. Add that to the $61-billion soft drink industry, and it’s clear we’re a thirsty bunch. Or maybe we’re just addicted to the stuff inside them. One tiny chemical looms large among many of these drinks — caffeine. Some of the labels given to caffeine — addictive and psychoactive, for instance — make it sound like an illegal drug. Caffeine is, in fact, considered an addictive drug, and it even acts on the same areas of the brain as cocaine, amphetamines or heroin. But, fortunately for the 90 percent of Americans who ingest caffeine on any given day, it’s perfectly legal. Most of us turn to caffeine to jolt our sleepy bodies awake in the morning or give our work-worn brains a boost in the afternoon. Pass a drive-thru Starbucks or Dunkin’ Donuts during the morning commute here in Atlanta’s northern suburbs, and you’ll invariably find a line of cars. The warmth and aroma of the drinks we turn to for energy make sitting in metro traffic a bit more pleasant. But doctors turn to caffeine, too, as a cardiac stimulant to jumpstart a slowed heart or as a diuretic, to increase urine production. With such strong short-term effects on the body, what are the long-term effects of using it every day? Media reports have overflowed with both good news and bad, so we wanted to get to the bottom of the pot, so to speak. Pour a cup to enjoy as you pore over what we found.
Have a latte too late in the day, and you may have trouble falling asleep that night. But why? Indulging in a latte instead of a cup of brewed coffee sounds benign — it’s mostly milk, right? Well, yes, but a latte also contains two shots of espresso, making it as full of caffeine as a 24-ounce bottle of Coke. Repeat that behavior day after day, and you’ll either become accustomed to the caffeine or develop insomnia. If your body doesn’t become dependent on caffeine’s boost, you may be able to cut out your afternoon treat and get back to a normal sleep routine. If not, your body may start to feel caffeine’s unwanted effects. Adam Katz, a 34-year-old lawyer from Marietta, knows he’s addicted to caffeine. Although he doesn’t think he consumes too much day in and day out, he admits to trying to cut back a bit. “I’m concerned about caffeine’s effect on blood pressure and the circulatory system,” he said. Caffeine’s effects come from its ability to impersonate a brain chemical called adenosine. During waking hours, adenosine builds up in the brain and binds to adenosine receptors. As receptors fill with adenosine, your nerve cells become less active, and you start to feel tired. Essentially, adenosine keeps your body from becoming overworked by forcing it to slow down and take breaks. Caffeine interrupts that process by “looking like” adenosine and hogging up the adenosine receptors. Sure, you feel more alert, but your nerve cells also don’t get any downtime. To make matters worse, because the body can’t sense adenosine’s message to calm down, the nerve cells get fired up even more. With no cue to slow down and rest, combined with fired-up nerve cells, you may start to feel restless, anxious and jittery — wired, as it were. You may sense an increase in your heart rate; your blood pressure may even rise. Your gastrointestinal system might get fired up, too, causing diarrhea, nausea or acid reflux. Overall, you may feel irritable, especially if you are sensitive to caffeine. Even if you’re not sensitive to caffeine on a typical day, being under extra stress could temporarily make you more sensitive. So just when you need quality sleep to deal with the added stress, the increased sensitivity to caffeine can disrupt your ability to get good, deep sleep. Sleep Interrupted For some people, a stressful period, a few rough nights and the caffeine amassed from several servings of coffee, tea, cola or chocolate in an attempt to feel better creates a nasty cycle of disrupted sleep. Have trouble waking up after not sleeping well, and grabbing a large caffeine-laden drink might be the first thing you do in the morning. By mid-morning, you crave another. At lunch, you have a sweet tea. When weariness hits again in the afternoon, you down a Coke. To relax in the evening, you steep a cup of hot tea. The caffeine in all those beverages — a total of 500 or more milligrams (mg), the threshold at which caffeine becomes too much for most people — simply sets you up for having trouble falling asleep. You could wake up several times during the night, decreasing the total amount of time you sleep, as well as the amount of truly restful sleep you get. You wake up tired, and — you guessed it – reach for caffeine again. Debra Kelly, an executive leasing assistant in Roswell, is acutely aware of how caffeine affects her. “After a certain time of day, caffeine will disrupt my sleep. I now only drink one cup of coffee a day, and I don’t have anything containing caffeine after 4 p.m.,” she said. If you’re ready to break the cycle, you may not need to cut caffeine completely, but simply become more cognizant of the chemical’s effects and cut back. Cutting back needs to be gradual, however, or you may experience headache or find you’re temporarily more tired or agitated. Eliminate one serving per day to scale back or replace it with a decaf version. Brew tea for less time or switch to caffeine-free herbal teas. And don’t forget to check the caffeine content of over-the-counter pain relievers or cold medicines. Some contain as much caffeine as 12 ounces of brewed coffee. (See “Tea Totals.”) Living With Caffeine Caffeine isn’t all bad. Actually, with the number of positive effects it can have, being aware of how it may negatively affect you just might help you keep your intake in check. In the past year alone, no less than a dozen studies heralded caffeine’s benefits. One of the earlier studies suggested consuming some caffeine daily, say two cups of coffee, was no big deal for pregnant women. The babies carried by women in the study weren’t born prematurely, and birth weights were about the same whether the mom drank caffeinated coffee or decaf. Although a more recent study suggested having more than two cups of caffeinated coffee per day might increase the risk of miscarriage, the actual increase in miscarriages was only one percent. In fact, caffeine has been used to treat prematurely born babies to normalize their breathing and reduce their risk of developing cerebral palsy and cognitive delay. However, that doesn’t mean Britney Spears was doing the right thing by filling her baby’s bottles with cola. On the other end of the age spectrum, people older than 65 who regularly consumed caffeine were protected against death from heart disease — if they did not already have high blood pressure. The researchers suggest that caffeine’s ability to up blood pressure and get the heart pumping and blood flowing is beneficial for some older people. However, the study, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, showed that caffeine use did not protect against stroke. Caffeine may not protect against stroke, but it does appear to have some beneficial effect on the brains of older people. In a study of 7,000 men and women in France aged 65 or older, the women who drank three or more cups of caffeinated coffee or tea daily showed better verbal memory than did women who drank, at most, one cup of coffee or tea daily. Caffeine did not seem to help men’s memory, but it has been shown to help reduce the risk of Parkinson’s disease in both men and women. In several studies, the more caffeine a person consumed, the less risk he had of developing the neurological condition, but the effect may be strongest in people who already have a genetic risk of Parkinson’s disease. Working Caffeine into Workouts For those of us in between the babies and the elders, caffeine can still be a do-good chemical, especially when combined with a workout. Having the habits of consuming moderate amounts of caffeine — equivalent to one or two cups of coffee per day — and exercising regularly may reduce your risk of skin cancer, according to a recent laboratory study. Although the study showed caffeine alone was capable of nearly doubling the preventive mechanism cells have to keep from becoming cancerous, the combination of caffeine and exercise quadrupled those benefits. Drinking 16 ounces of a caffeinated beverage an hour or so before you exercise might not only help reduce the potential risk of skin cancer, but also may reduce the amount of soreness you feel after working out. Using caffeine in this way might help people eliminate some of the discomfort of starting an exercise program, making them more likely to stick with it, a health benefit to be sure, say the University of Georgia (UGA) researchers who did the study. Caffeine cut post-workout pain by nearly 50 percent, whereas naproxen (Aleve) reduced it by 30 percent and aspirin by 25 percent. Although caffeine won’t dehydrate you during a workout — that previously held belief was busted in a separate study — the UGA researchers caution against consuming more than moderate amounts of caffeine. Having any more than the amount in three or four Grande Starbucks drinks — about 600 mg — could be more detrimental to your health than helpful. And that amount of caffeine should be plenty, at least until your body becomes accustomed to the effects, to help you work out at a bit higher intensity. Several studies have shown that caffeine increased the number of repetitions during strength training. Caffeine’s Looking Good Caffeine, in moderation, may lower the risk of several chronic diseases — type 2 diabetes, for instance — although it is not yet clear whether it is the caffeine or other substances, such as antioxidants, in drinks like coffee or tea that may provide the benefit. Perhaps the good health news is reason enough to feel guilt-free while indulging in your favorite caffeinated beverage. But to appeal to your vanity, caffeine may also help your looks. One reason that caffeinated drinks may be linked to a lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes is that they may have some role in weight control. Caffeine speeds up metabolism and fat-burning slightly, and, perhaps in conjunction with other substances in coffee or tea, may contribute to weight loss. And weight loss is definitely known to reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes. Of course, caffeine, like any other weight-loss aid, helps only if calorie intake is normal and exercise is not forgotten. Ramping up your intake of caffeinated drinks is not the way to quick weight loss, especially if those drinks are loaded with sugar, but could rubbing it on make your thighs thinner? Researchers in Brazil say it’s possible, according to the results of a study they did on 99 women. They found that rubbing a cream containing 7 percent caffeine into the women’s upper and lower thighs twice a day for 30 days led to a reduction in thigh circumference in about 80 of the women. However, the cellulite in the women’s thighs showed little change. “Caffeine creams have been around a long time, but nothing has been shown to reduce cellulite except diet, exercise and the newer liposculpture techniques,” said Stephanie Gardner, MD, a board-certified dermatologist with Aesthetic Specialty Centre in Roswell. “Caffeine is quite popular as a cosmeceutical; however, as with the cellulite study, the best methods for delivering the desired effects are uncertain,” said local dermatologist, Leslie Gray, MD, of the Dermatology Center of Atlanta in Johns Creek. Caffeine may not be helpful cosmetically, but right now it seems to have a place in a healthy lifestyle. “I think my colleagues would agree with me that in moderation, caffeine is fine,” Gardner said. Dr. Gray is the first of Dr. Gardner’s colleagues to agree, saying, “Caffeine does show promise in several areas of medicine, but like anything else, moderation is key.” pn Deciding Whether to Decaffeinate If you feel your caffeine habit has gone too far and you need to get back to a moderate intake, replacing some of your caffeinated beverages with decaf drinks sounds logical, but is it wise? Read on and then decide whether it’s better for you to replace a caffeinated beverage with a decaf version or just plain ol’ water is decaf really decaf? A: Not always. Nearly all decaf coffees contain some caffeine, according to researchers at the University of Florida. Decaf does not mean caffeine-free, they say. In some caffeine-sensitive people, as little as 10 milligrams (mg) of caffeine can bring on the negative effects — anxiety, restlessness, increased heart rate and blood pressure. If caffeine poses a problem for you, then you’ll want to know if your drink of choice contains any amount of the chemical. You’ve got three options. One, have complete faith that the waiter didn’t put regular coffee in the orange-rimmed decaf carafe. Two, drink instant decaffeinated Folgers Coffee Crystals — the only brand of coffee found to be totally caffeine free in the University of Florida study. Three, wait for the home test kit being developed by researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The test would work as a dipstick — telling you only whether caffeine is present, but not the amount. Similar to a pregnancy test, antibodies embedded in the dipstick would change color when they come in contact with caffeine. There is no word yet about when it will be available to the public or how much it would cost. Until then, if you need to avoid caffeine and don’t like instant coffee, stick with herbal teas or the safest bet, water with lemon. Is Decaf Better For You? A: Not necessarily. Although caffeine itself may have some health benefits, so may the coffee or tea that contains it. Even if caffeine bothers you, you still may want to drink some version of tea or coffee. Coffee contains a compound called chlorogenic acid, which has been shown to confer health benefits, such as reducing inflammation. And tea contains several plant-based antioxidants, such as catechin – another powerful anti-inflammatory compound. The process of decaffeination removes many of the good compounds, including chlorogenic acid and catechin, along with the caffeine. The decaffeination process may leave solvent residues behind in the coffee beans or tea leaves, as well. And decaffeinating coffee beans also significantly increases the concentration of a particular toxin in the beans, according to one study. Leaving just a small amount of caffeine in the beans – as little as one to two percent –completely inhibited the growth of the toxin. Tea Totals How much caffeine is in your favorite tea, coffee, soft drink, snack or over-the-counter medicine? Check it out: Brewed coffee, regular, 8 ounces – 95 mg caffeine Source: Mayo Clinic Bad Medicine Coffee and biscotti. Tea and crumpets. Root beer and pizza. Coke and peanuts. They all go together well. But if you’re taking certain medications, you may want to make those combos decaf. Caffeine has been found to interact negatively with some drugs. Take a look: • Acetaminophen (Tylenol) has long been known to interact with alcohol, potentially causing serious liver damage if either one is taken to excess. Now, caffeine has been found to possibly increase the risk of liver damage when combined with acetaminophen, especially in those who also consume alcohol. • Antibiotics, such as ciprofloxacin (Cipro) and norfloxacin (Noroxin) can prevent caffeine from being metabolized. That means the caffeine you ingest stays in your body longer and may have stronger negative effects. • Ephedra (ma huang) is a now-banned herbal dietary supplement that was common in weight-loss products. When combined with caffeine, it increases the risk of heart attack, seizures, stroke and death. Diet pills containing the herb can no longer be found, legally, but herbal teas may contain some ephedra. Read labels. • Theophylline is a bronchodilator used to open up the airways, such as in people who have asthma. Because it acts kind of like caffeine, it may have stronger effects in the body when combined with caffeine. The combo could cause heart palpitations, nausea and vomiting. |
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Caffeine’s Buzz
Trouble A-Brewing