Category: Health and Wellness
Caffeine addicts get no real perk from morning cup
Reuters
Wed, Jun 2 2010
http://www.reuters.com/assets/print?aid=USTRE65138U20100602
LONDON (Reuters) - Caffeine addiction is such a downer that regular coffee
drinkers may get no real pick-me-up from their morning cup, according to a
study by British scientists.
Bristol University researchers found that drinkers develop a tolerance to
both the anxiety-producing and the stimulating effects of caffeine, meaning
that it only brings them back to baseline levels of alertness, not above them.
"Although frequent consumers feel alerted by caffeine, especially by their
morning tea, coffee, or other caffeine-containing drink, evidence suggests
that this is actually merely the reversal of the fatiguing effects of acute
caffeine withdrawal," wrote the scientists, led by Peter Rogers of
Bristol's department of experimental psychology.
The team asked 379 adults -- half of them non/low caffeine consumers and
the other half medium/high caffeine consumers -- to give up caffeine for 16
hours, and then gave them either caffeine or a dummy pill known as a placebo.
Participants rated their levels of anxiety, alertness and headache. The
medium/high caffeine consumers who got the placebo reported a decrease in
alertness and increased headache, neither of which were reported by those
who received caffeine.
But measurements showed that their post-caffeine levels of alertness were
actually no higher than the non/low consumers who received a placebo,
suggesting caffeine only brings coffee drinkers back up to "normal."
The researchers also found that people who have a genetic predisposition to
anxiety do not tend to avoid coffee.
In fact, people in the study with a gene variant associated with anxiety
tended to consume slightly larger amounts of coffee than those without it,
Rogers wrote in a study in the Neuropsychopharmacology journal, published
by Nature.
This suggests that a mild increase in anxiety "may be a part of the
pleasant buzz caused by caffeine," he said.
Hmm. I really don't know what to think about this one. I can't stand the caffeine crash a couple hours after having it, so in that respect, I agree that there is no real perk, but I really do find myself becoming more alert after a couple cups of coffee, although I'd prefer green tea. I get a slight energy increase without the extremes, either way. Having said that, I'll remain open minded about this, and say it could be true. I just don't personally find that.
Actually, it wouldn't surprise me...All but the buzz from anxiety. Without getting specific my body has unpleasant ways of dealing with anxiety, and none of them result from my diet dew!!!
I can't say that I've ever felt anxiety when drinking coffee. But I know what they mean about it not affecting people after awhile and certainly about the withdrawl. I used to drink two, sometimes three, cups of coffee a day, made on the stove, so it had more caffeine than if it were made with a drip machine. It was getting to the point where I was developing headahces, felt tired all the time and so I decided to quit for awhile. I stopped, and thank The Gods for Teeccino, a delicious noncaffinated coffee substitute, or I would've gone nuts! The headaches became worse, the energy levels plumetted and I was cranky. But once I was okay, I noticed that the symptoms went away, and when I did start drinking coffee again, in moderation, I noticed the energy boost. But if I drink it for a few days in a row, it starts all over again. Still, if I find the right blend, I can't help myself.
Booo?
I drink coffee and often, and yep if I don't have it for work it's tougher. Yet I'm not draggin' on a day off if I choose not to have it.
More 'adiction' nonsense
i'm pretty doubtful on this so call study this university had done.
i've tried quit coffee for some reason last year, and successfully do so for about half a year before getting on back.
coffee is more a pleasure thing for me than anything else. i don't believe it is an addiction, of course, if one worrying about their health so much, they can choose to quit. but various studies suggest that a shot of expresso is the best way to keep a health heart going
Apparently it can help get some of the toxins out of your body too. I just heard that from a non-expert though, so I don't know how accurate that is.
I am a hopeless caffiend, so I am sticking with my habit regardless.
Some people, particularly of the Puritanical persuasion, are hopelessly addicted, crack-style, to a. monitoring the supposed addictions of others and b. not being addicted. The shooting gallery is the public forum, the lighter burns as the passion within them, the spoon is the pamphlets and the like, the substance upon it is the writing on said pamphlets, and the needle is whatever mechanism used to promulgate all this. And the rush? That is seeing working people having their good times vanquished all for naught.
I've even seen in a parent magazine how they were talking about kids supposedly 'addicted' to video games. Were we addicted to war as kids when we went outside for hours and went at it with fake spears, squirt guns, and for those who did it, paint ball? Said magazine even targeted kids who are honor students, workin' hard to get ahead, but getting a bit of pleasure from said gaming.
And all of us that drink coffee like this are ... you guessed it, workin' hard ... I say these studies are written by a pack of ingrate losers whose crack-style addiction is obsessing over who uses what and how much.
Only worse than crackheads, they want you to be emaciated with them. And instead of an attempted assault on your house, they'll do it by tellin' you it's a favor, they've got your interest ... ah ok I'm biased / jaded
I have found coffee to be rather relaxing...
I can be holding cup of it and find myself
going off to sleep.
Then Ouch! that is hot, spilled coffee and dumping it
on oneself has away of awakening one!!
lol A bit scary how you know enough about crack for such an analogy. But seriously, I think some of these people really overdo it. I'm annoyed with the health craze and how many people are swept up in it. Granted, I buy organic and free range stuff and natural as opposed to synthetic medicine whenever I can. But that's only because I'm not into synthetic chemicals and don't want hormoans, antibiotics etc. in my food. But I'm not gonna tell someone not to eat potato chips or greasy food, n to drink coffee, not to eat things with sugar in them etc. I do all of those things and I don't care. That said, I do think that at least some studies have truth in them and this seems to be one of them. But it may not be true for all people.
Hey Robozork, isn't the definition of a puritan somebody who has a sneaking suspicion that somebody somewhere is having fun? Yeah, I know that's an old saw but seems appropriate. Hell, anymore you can't publicly admit liking anything with any level of interest let alone passion without some twit slapping the addiction label on it. I suspect people are misappropriating the term. So, the answer is, ignore the so-called experts and just do what you'll do.
Godzilla: Nice. I believe that was H. L. Mencken if memory serves me. Perhaps said quote was around before him but he at least made it famous.
Oh and Eleni, I was deliberately misdirecting on Crack, crack isn't shot up it's smoked in a pipe. Heroine and its variants are shot up in the manner I referred to. I just did what the addiction cryers do so well: Take two distinct and valid concepts, make a bit of a mixture, and it would only look valid to one who didn't fully understand each
Take one instance where someone's playing a game to relax, take another where someone else is acting out in a manner that appears like something that looks like one of the game characters, combine the two in a leaflet of the two.or expert magazine and you get a fine twist.
Yup, that's how they do it. Every deception has some element of truth to it, if you look far enough.
I'm not addicted to coffee. I just like it. I can stop any time, and often I do. I like green tea a little better anyway, and it has less of a rush, and therefore, less of a crash, even if I drink two or three cups in one sitting. Plus, it's healthy.
Yeah, I don't think having one or two sixteen-ounce mugs of coffee a day, usually one, would be called addiction. Maybe slamming down a whole 12-cup pot of coffee a day would be more like addiction, but that seems uncommon from my perspective. Could be totally wrong, though.