Let’s speak about caffeine. Is it hazardous or not? Is it high blood pressure or elevated psychological awareness? Elevated cancer threat or reduced asthma symptoms and signs? Much more heart illness or increased productivity? How do the hazardous effects of caffeine stack up against the perceived positive aspects? This could seem to step on lots of toes so I am going to include a number of references to scientific publications – these are not my suggestions.
I’ve been seeing quite a few reports in the media just lately about the “positive aspects” of caffeine. Nonetheless, the study and information on the problems with and the many hazardous effects of caffeine are quite well documented. Here are some details about the effects of caffeine.
Caffeine’s short-term effects happen quite rapidly and endure about four hours. These may consist of stability difficulties, a racing heart, sleeplessness, fatigue, finger tremor and a sense of anxiousness with severity of symptoms and signs connected to the form of beverage and the amount consumed.
Eventually, as few as one cup of coffee each day is likely to raise blood cholesterol and blood pressure, and cause the heart to race or have additional beats. One to five cups of coffee a day increases the threat of heart attack by 60 percent more than those who have none, and six or more cups a day increases the threat by 120 percent!
“Two cups of coffee may raise blood pressure to levels equal to 1 cigarette, but it keeps it there for 1-two hours, vs. just 15 minutes for smoking.” (American Journal of Medicine, 73:348-353, 1982)
Coffee and tea, due to their high levels of tannic and other acids, block the absorption of iron. Caffeine also damages the pancreas making diabetes or hypoglycemia considerably worse.
“Coffee increases production of digestive juices while relaxing the esophageal muscle tissue, and therefore leading heartburn and diaphragm discomfort.” (Modern Nutrition in Health and Disease, p 1093)
The range of human miseries and the hazardous effects of caffeine (high blood pressure being just 1) appears without end:
- fever
- sleeplessness
- irritability
- flushing
- allergy symptoms
A lack of caffeine causes many of those addicted to it to have extreme headaches.
Here is something amazing:
“The lethal dose of caffeine is 10 grams or about 70 cups of normal coffee. Many men and women are taking one-tenth of the lethal dose every single day!” (Journal of Family Practice 4(6)1183, 1977)
The explanation for why heavy coffee drinkers aren’t dropping dead is that their bodies rev up metabolism to process the poison out of their bodies so they won’t die from it. And, naturally, that is the reason – the increased metabolism – for some of the supposed positive effects of caffeine that we are reading about. However, if you run your “engine” at an increased rate it will wear out more rapidly just as running your car at high revs will do. You do not actually have additional vitality (there’s no extra fuel in the tank) you are just running with the pedal to the floor.
And coffee has an unfavorable synergistic effect in that it increases cravings leading to hazardous alcohol and tobacco habits to grow to be almost unbreakable. Some have called it “bad-habit glue.”
“A dose of 500-600 mg (5-6 six-ounce cups) of caffeine a day presents a significant health risk.” (British Journal of Addiction 78:251-258, 1988)
Even though it is considerably hard to overcome the habit of consuming caffeinated drinks, it’s worth the work! It will not be long before you really feel and function considerably better.
For much more information about caffeine check out caffeine
