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by Donald Shrump

Have you ever wondered just how exactly coffee works to you make you awake, become energetic, keep you up, and maybe make you more tired.

Caffeine is known medically as trimethylxanthine, and the chemical formula is C8H10N4O2.  An 8 oz. cup of coffee contains roughly 100mg of the DRUG caffeine (a central-nervous-system stimulant). I haven’t seen anyone drink 8oz. of coffee in a long time, so let’s say 200+ mg of caffeine. The 200+ mg of caffeine when taken out of the coffee and in its other forms is a white powder with a bitter taste, which is why most teas and coffees taste bitter.  Once you chug down the coffee, the caffeine quickly enters your brain and replaces the adenosine in your nerve receptors.  Adenosine is a hormone that binds in the nerves of your brain that cause you to relax and sleep.  Adenosine is why we are usually slow to wake up in the morning because it slowly unbinds from your nerve endings, especially when you are not getting enough sleep every night.  *Remember our immune system requires 8 hours of sleep to recover from what we put it through each day we are not eating for our metabolic type, stressing about money or work, dealing with energy draining relationships and just living the ‘American way of life’.  So, instead of slowly waking up naturally, you chug down a sugar filled, low fat milk (basically more sugar, but milk sugar not plant sugar), 24 oz. monster cup of coffee to wake up and excite the nerves in your brain.  The excitation is basically the caffeine drop kicking the adenosine out of the receptor site, which causes a cascade of hormonal events in your body.

• The excitation causes the constriction of arterial walls in your brain (i.e. hypoperfusion). Constant coffee drinkers are aware of this phenomenon when they miss a day and get a headache.  Your body learns to open or dilate the blood vessels right around the time you normally drink your coffee that causes the closing or constriction of the blood vessels.  The lack of constriction causes too much blood flow to the brain and you feel the increased pressure as a headache.
• From the excitation your pituitary gland underneath your brain receives the sign from the nerves and regulates the release of adrenaline (epinephrine and/or norepinephrine) from your adrenal glands.  The adrenaline causes the ‘fight or flight response’ where your heart rate increases, blood sugar increases from glycogen stored in your liver, breathing airways open, pupils dilate, blood flowing to your skin and hands decreases, and finally in response to the adrenaline our hypothalamus causes a release dopamine.  Dopamine is the same addictive pleasure hormone found in other drugs like cocaine. Since we get a ‘good’ feeling from most coffee experiences we get addicted to the dopamine release from drinking coffee.

So why is this bad?

1. If you watch TV you have heard about the stress hormone cortisol and its effects to our body.  Well caffeine increases the release of cortisol due to the constant adrenaline activity, which means you may burn extra calories because your heart rate is up, but in the long run you body will store everything you eat as FAT.  Conservation mode is when your intelligent body says, we are stressed let’s store energy as fat just in case we don’t eat tomorrow, let’s store the fat right at our gut and butt.
2. You could end up losing sleep over just one cup of coffee.  Above I described how 1 cup of coffee has 100mg of caffeine and it kicks out the adenosine in your brain that relaxes you to sleep.  The half life of caffeine is 6 hours, so by the end of the day you may have 10 – 20 mg of caffeine binding to adenosine receptors that are supposed to relax your mind and body at the end of the day.  The caffeine is still bound to the receptors where adenosine is supposed to be causing you not to get sufficient REM sleep cycles in during the night. So a cup every day, or more, by Friday will lead to far less deep, recuperative sleep and the cycle continues until you crash on Sunday afternoon or you get sick.
3. Your GI tract is greatly affected by coffee because coffee causes a release of gastrointestinal hormones which produce a laxative effect.  Susceptible people have ‘gastrocolonic response’ of rectosigmoid motor activity, as soon as four minutes after drinking coffee. Even modest doses of coffee can have this effect, whether or not the body is ready to dispose of the feces, resulting in loose stools. Studies show that decaffeinated coffee has a similar stimulant effect on the GI tract proving that the laxative effect is not necessarily due to the caffeine but the coffee.
4. Raises your blood pressure and increases your resting pulse.  I am sure one of you reading this newsletter has high blood pressure, maybe you need some sleep, less coffee and your numbers will go down.  I am sure you have heard of elite athletes with super low heart rates because their cardiopulmonary system is so efficient, or fit.  If coffee raises you pulse do you think that makes you more or less efficient.  Less efficient tells your body that you are stressed, which increases cortisol and more fat storage to your gut and butt, awesome.
5. Coffee interferes with iron absorption in your gut, even if you are taken an iron supplement, which may lead to iron deficiency anemia in women and kids.
6. Studies indicate that the diterpene molecules cafestol and kahweol, found only in coffee beans, putatively raise levels of low-density lipoprotein or LDL in humans. This increase in LDL levels is an indicator that coffee raises cholesterol.
7. Studies indicate that coffee and caffeinate drinks increase our appetite for sugary foods, which is the hardest thing to resist if you are trying to lose weight weight.  Lose the coffee lose the weight.

We live in times where everything we do in life is a stress to our body and minds.  So why add stress to your system by drinking coffee.  Some nutritious and natural morning or mid-afternoon energy boosters included:

• Green drinks – natural juiced vegetables and herbs (i.e. Green Vibrance, Spirulina, Inner Balance, etc.)
• Teeccino – natural herbal coffee replacement, non-caffeinated coffee http://www.teeccino.com/Default.aspx
• Almonds
• Fruits and vegetables

Or simply just eat a big breakfast so you have the energy throughout the day. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

Try drinking 8 oz. of good water while making 4 Organic Free Range Eggs Fried in Organic Butter,1 cup (when reduced) of Organic butter fried spinach, garlic, and green peppers. 3-4 Strips of Organic Turkey or Pork Bacon. 1 small container of Organic Yogurt.  You will have more energy than you can imagine if you started your day with this kind of breakfast.  After a few weeks of cycling your proteins every 4 days you will never need coffee again.

Sources

• Arendash, G.W., et al., “Caffeine Protects Alzheimer’s Mice Against Cognitive Impairment and Reduces Brain Beta-Amyloid Production,” Neuroscience; 142:941-952, (2006).
• Dance, Rosalie A. and Sandefur, James T. “Reading This Could Help You Sleep: Caffeine in Your Body.” Hands on Activities for Algebra at College. 1999.

  http://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/sandefur/handsonmath/downloads/pdf/coff1-s.pdf

• Johns Hopkins University, Bayview Medical Center. “Caffeine Independence.”

  http://www.caffeineindependence.org

• Kirchheimer, Sid. “Coffee: The new health food?” WebMD.com, January 26, 2004.

  http://men.webmd.com/features/coffee-new-health-food

• Lu, Y.P., et al. “Voluntary exercise together with oral caffeine markedly stimulates UVB light-induced apoptosis and decreases tissue fat in SKH-1 mice.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS). 104:31, July 31, 2007. pg. 12936-41.

  http://www.pnas.org/content/104/31/12936.full.pdf+html