Tag: coffee

Month 50: caffeine #50to50

I drink too much caffeine. In college, I was notorious for drinking multiple cans of coke a day. In grad school, I made the switch to Diet and lost 10 pounds in a month. That was my peak Chipotle phase, too, clocking in around 175.

In the past few years, since moving to California, I’ve drastically reduced my caffeine intake from Coke (having made the switch to Coke Zero, which my crude palette likes as much if not better than original Coke, and miles better than Diet). I basically order it when we eat out, which is a few times a month, and on weekends once in a while. I estimate that I currently drink 5-10 cans a month.

However, I inhale coffee. I have at least two (large) cups in the morning (one on waking up either at home or at Starbucks, another on reaching work) and another in the afternoon (usually to stave off hunger from intermittent fasting). I also will make a cup in the evening if I need to stay up, and on weekends I typically have a few cups too. I estimate that I drink about 75 cups of coffee a month.

I can’t give up on coffee. I’m not really an aficionado of the taste – I can tell great coffee from terrible, but good vs bad coffee is not always clear. Low standards indeed, because for me it is purely functional. I did go nuts over Pumpkin Spice for a while but I’m well and truly over that now. My go-to drink at Starbucks is a flat white with sugar free hazelnut and vanilla, just enough flavor to keep me interested but not attentive. The bottom line is, I don’t get enough sleep, so I drink coffee.

However, caffeine after 2:00 pm has long been shown to interfere with sleep:

  • Caffeine consumed 0, 3, and 6 hours before bedtime significantly reduced total sleep time. Even caffeine consumed 6 hours before bed reduced total nightly sleep amounts by more than 1 hour.
  • Caffeine consumed at all three points diminished sleep quality. Caffeine taken 3 and 6 hours before bedtime, as well as caffeine consumed at bedtime, significantly increased the amount of time spent awake during the night.
  • Disruptions to sleep as a result of caffeine were perceived by volunteers (as recorded in sleep diaries) for caffeine consumed at bedtime and 3 hours before bed, but were not reported for caffeine taken 6 hours before bed. However, sleep monitors measuring total sleep time and sleep efficiency (time spent sleeping relative to total time spent in bed) showed that caffeine consumed 6 hours before bedtime had significant detrimental effects to both.

That third point is the most surprising. It means that even if you don’t perceive an impact on your sleep, there still may be one. I haven’t tried to replicate the study on myself because I don’t have/want a sleep tracker, but the point is compelling.

(Here’s a full-text link to the actual study)

This makes it easy to resolve to stop drinking caffeine after 2pm and limit myself to two cups of coffee a day. I’ll just switch to water (which I drink a lot more of since buying myself a cool hydroflask with a Joshua Tree design).

Table 3 from the study referred to above. Click for full-text link.

Coffeegasm: protection against Alzheimer’s

The following has essentially zero impact on my habits, but it is worth crowing about all the same:

A U.S. study has found drinking five cups a day not only protects against Alzheimer’s disease but may even reverse damage.

Scientists at the University of Florida tested the theory on 55 mice bred to develop symptoms of Alzheimer’s, giving half the test group caffeine in their water once signs of memory impairment became apparent.

Astonishingly, and to the delight of the cafe latte set, those dosed up on caffeine performed far better on memory tests and thought-related skills than those who were not given caffeine.

“The results are particularly exciting in that a reversal of pre-existing memory impairment is more difficult to achieve,” said study leader Dr. Gary Arendash in a BBC report. “They provide evidence that caffeine could be a viable ‘treatment’ for established Alzheimer’s disease [sufferers] and not simply a protective strategy.”

“That’s important because caffeine is a safe drug for most people,” he added, “it easily enters the brain, and it appears to directly affect the disease process.”
The team believes the application of caffeine has a preventative effect on the production of both the enzymes needed to produce beta amyloid — the protein which forms destructive clumps in the brains of dementia patients.

Those mice lucky enough to be dosed on caffeine showed up to a 50 percent reduction in the damaging protein. Dr. Arendash has called for further tests to see if the results can be replicated on humans.

So, in a sense I can rationalize my Starbucks habit as a preventive health care expense. Incidentally, this is not the first study to suggest coffee’s beneficial effects wrt AD. Here’s a couple papers on PubMed I found when searching for “coffee alzheimer” – the second one is the paper referred to above.

Alzheimer’s disease and coffee: a quantitative review.
Barranco Quintana JL, Allam MF, Serrano Del Castillo A, Fernández-Crehuet Navajas R.
Neurol Res. 2007 Jan;29(1):91-5.

Caffeine protects Alzheimer’s mice against cognitive impairment and reduces brain beta-amyloid production.
Arendash GW, Schleif W, Rezai-Zadeh K, Jackson EK, Zacharia LC, Cracchiolo JR, Shippy D, Tan J.
Neuroscience. 2006 Nov 3;142(4):941-52. Epub 2006 Aug 28.

caffeine protects your brain

good for my brain in more ways than oneSeems that caffeine has neuroprotective effects beyond just keeping the lights switched on upstairs:

Coffee may cut the risk of dementia by blocking the damage cholesterol can inflict on the body, research suggests.

The drink has already been linked to a lower risk of Alzheimer’s Disease, and a study by a US team for the Journal of Neuroinflammation may explain why.

A vital barrier between the brain and the main blood supply of rabbits fed a fat-rich diet was protected in those given a caffeine supplement.
[…]
“Caffeine appears to block several of the disruptive effects of cholesterol that make the blood-brain barrier leaky,” said Dr Jonathan Geiger, who led the study.

“High levels of cholesterol are a risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease, perhaps by compromising the protective nature of the blood brain barrier.

“Caffeine is a safe and readily available drug and its ability to stabilise the blood brain barrier means it could have an important part to play in therapies against neurological disorders.”