What is Caffeine?

– Is it Good or Bad for Your Health –

Coffee is one of the most consumed drinks all over the world.

There is hardly any place where you would not meet people that drink coffee in one form or the other on a regular basis.

It has become an essential part of our daily lives.

Especially now and in our modern society, coffee is a reliable energy source to keep our mind and body moving forward.

Nonetheless, coffee is also still appreciated during relaxed moments as well, of course.

Sitting with friends, colleagues or family members and enjoying a delicious coffee is probably a great experience and memory that connects us all.

Besides the common health benefits of coffee, many regular consumers seem to especially value one ingredient of this empowering drink.

Each day, billions of people rely and count on caffeine for a wake-up boost.

But, what is caffeine?

Traditionally, caffeine is popular and well-known to help us revive our senses and mind with new energy.

In fact, this stimulant is one of the most commonly used ingredients in the world.

Many people use and praise caffeine for its various health benefits. However, others also talk about its negative effects on sleep and anxiety, for example.

Let’s find out together what might be good or bad about caffeine.

What is Caffeine

In short, caffeine is a natural stimulant.

You can commonly find it in tea, coffee and cacao plants.

Caffeine works by stimulating the brain and central nervous system. It helps to stay alert and actively prevent the potential beginning of tiredness.

Historians assume that people brew the first tea almost 5.000 years ago already, namely 2737 BC.

It took many more years until the first people also discovered coffee plants.

The story goes that an Ethiopian shepherd found the first coffee cherries and shared them with local tribesmen and clerics.

He was amazed by the extra energy it gave to his goats, which were eating these wild berries.

Since then, these little powerful coffee beans continuously conquered the entire world.

First commercial and caffeinated soft drinks hit the market in the late 1800’s.

In our today’s world, estimates are that around 80% of all people consume a caffeinated drink or product each day.

If you would even only take the adult population of each nation into account, it even goes all the way up to 90%.

That is a lot of caffeine.

How Does Caffeine Work

In general, after you consume caffeine, it will quickly be absorbed by your body by the gut straight into the bloodstream.

From there, it will make its way to our liver. Here, it is broken down into compounds that can affect the functions of various organs.

However, the main effect of caffeine can be noticed on the brain.

It predominantly is able to block the effects of adenosine, which is a neurotransmitter that commonly relaxes the brain. As a result, you would start feeling tired.

During a normal day and without caffeine intake, adenosine levels gradually build up over time. You will feel increasingly more tired and you will want to go to sleep.

Caffeine will work against it and help you to stay awake. In practice, caffeine will connect to the adenosine receptors in the brain without activating them.

The usual effects of adenosine are blocked and cannot take place. You will feel less tired.

Additionally, it may also increase blood adrenaline levels. And, caffeine may further increase the brain activity of our neurotransmitters dopamine and norepinephrine.

This combination will give further boost and stimulation to our brain. It promotes a state of arousal, alertness and focus.

Since caffeine affects our brain, many experts refer to it as a psychoactive drug.

Furthermore, caffeine will deploy its effects on our body and brain quickly. Usually, you can feel a rapid change yourself right after drinking tea or coffee already.

Just to give you an example.

If you would drink one cup of coffee, now. It will take as little as 20 minutes to reach your bloodstream.

And, just about one hour later, the full potential and effectiveness has been reached in your body.

Where Can we Find Caffeine

Since all of us appreciate and need so much caffeine, where does it all come from?

Let’s find out, which foods and beverages naturally contain caffeine.

In fact, there are various natural sources such as seeds, nuts or leaves of certain plants.

Over time, people found out about it, then harvested and processed these. With the goal to produce caffeinated foods and beverages for us.

Here are some popular beverages and the average amount of caffeine as per 240 ml (8 oz) serving in them.

• Espresso: 240-720 mg.
• Coffee: 102-200 mg.
• Yerba mate: 65-130 mg.
• Energy drinks: 50-160 mg.
• Brewed tea: 40-120 mg.
• Soft drinks: 20-40 mg.
• Decaffeinated coffee: 3-12 mg.
• Cocoa beverage: 2-7 mg.
• Chocolate milk: 2-7 mg.

In addition, there are also some foods that contain caffeine. For example, 1 oz (28 grams) of regular milk chocolate holds 1-15 mg of caffeine. Dark chocolate will even have 5-35 mg.

There is even caffeine in some medicine. You will find it in commercial pharmaceutic drugs such as cold, allergy and pain medications.

Last but not least, several fat loss supplements also use caffeine as a common ingredient.

Caffeine’s Effect on Our Mood and Brain Function

As we found out already, caffeine has the ability to block the brain signaling molecule adenosine.

This effect influences and triggers other reactions in our brain instead.

It causes an increase in other signaling molecules, such as dopamine and norepinephrine.

Researchers believe that this change in brain messaging eventually benefits our mood and brain function.

For example, there is one report in which voluntary participants ingested between 37.5 to 450 mg of caffeine. Experts then monitored the effects and especially short-term results within the first couple of hours were notable.

The vast majority of participants showed an improved alertness, short-term memory and reaction time.

Additionally, recent studies claim that drinking 2 to 3 cups of coffee per day will lower the risk of suicide by 45%.

There are also other studies reporting a 13% lower risk of depression in caffeine consumers.

On top, if you consume 3 to 5 cups of coffee per day. You may also reduce the risk of brain diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s by 28-60%.

In general, people tend to live longer and happier.

However, when it particularly comes to mood, simply more caffeine is not necessarily better. If you are expecting continuous results and benefits, you would have to consume the next cup at least 8 hours after the first one.

Otherwise, there will be no further benefits.

Caffeine May Boost Metabolism and Speed up Weight Loss

Now, this topic probably interests most of us.

How great would it be, if we just enjoy a delicious cup of coffee and lose weight the same time, right?

Indeed, there seems to be scientific evidence supporting this claim.

As we learned already, caffeine effectively stimulates our nervous system. And, as a result, caffeine may directly increase metabolism by up to 11%. Additionally, it increases fat burning by up to 13%.

In practice, this would mean following.

If you would consume 300 mg of caffeine per day, it may allow you to burn an extra 79 calories.

Now, this amount may seem very small to me and you.

But in fact, it is very much similar to the calorie excess responsible for the average yearly weight gain of 1 kg (2.2 lbs) in American citizens, for example.

In other words, the effect would result in no real weight gain on average.

However, there is also another long-term study on caffeine and weight gain for over 12 years showing that the participants who drank significantly more coffee than others, only were 0.5 kg (1.1 lbs) lighter than consumers with less caffeine intake in the end.

This would lead to following assumption.

Yes and indeed, caffeine may boost metabolism and promote weight loss. However, these effects are likely rather short-term than over the long term.

It seems to be great for quick results. But to maintain, we would have to do more.

Enhance Exercise Performance

Caffeine may increase the use of fat as fuel.

This can help the glucose stored in our muscles last longer, which would be beneficial for us.

Because, it may potentially delay the usual time of our muscles to reach exhaustion.

On top, research shows that caffeine may also improve muscle contractions. And, it potentially increases tolerance to overall fatigue.

Our mind and body will simply not feel that tired as quickly as without caffeine anymore.

If you would consume around 5 mg per kilogram (2.3 mg per lb) of your entire body weight one hour before workout. You can potentially improve your body performance and endurance by up to 5%.

Further studies show that even lower doses of 3 mg per kilogram (1.4 mg per lb) may already be enough to initiate the boost of metabolism.

These benefits are also observed in team sports, high-intensity workouts and resistance exercises.

Last but not least point, caffeine may help make our workouts feel easier. Because, it is able to reduce the effort to use our body energy by 5.6%.

In simple words, if our body were a car.

Its engine could run faster, longer and without less fuel.

We are able to preserve our energy longer.

Caffeine Protects Against Heart Disease and Type 2 Diabetes

Let us get rid of a few false claims about caffeine.

Maybe you have heard that it does not raise the risk of heart disease.

In fact, it is even the opposite. Recent studies indicate a 16-18% lower risk of heart disease in people, who drink one or two cups of coffee per day.

Similar results were observed with the consumption of tea as well. 2 to 4 cups of tea or coffee can lead to a 14-20% lower risk of stroke.

But at this stage, we should also keep one thing in mind.

In some people, however, caffeine may slightly raise their blood pressure. But experts believe this effect to be relatively small. It tends to fade for most drinkers, if they would consume coffee quite regularly.

Additionally, caffeine may also protect against diabetes.

Studies show that regular coffee consumers might have up to a 29% lower risk of developing Type 2 Diabetes.

Researchers report that the risk drops by 12-14% for every 200 mg of caffeine.

But this does not work with caffeinated coffee, but even with decaffeinated one as well.

Here, it can still be a 21% lower risk of diabetes.

This suggests the overall assumption that not only caffeine but also other compounds in coffee may also protect against Type 2 Diabetes.

More Health Benefits

Besides what we already discussed, there are various other health benefits linked to caffeine consumption.

• Protects our liver from liver damage, cirrhosis, by as much as 84%.
• Promotes longevity and may decrease the risk of premature death by as much as 30%.
• Decreases risk of cancer with 2 to 4 cups of coffee per day. It may reduce liver cancer risk by up to 64% and colorectal cancer risk by up to 38%.
• Protects our skin by lowering the risk of skin cancer by 20%.
• Reduces MS risk of developing multiple sclerosis by up to 30%. However, more research needs to be done here. As not all studies agree on this point.
• Prevents gout from developing by up to 40% in men and even 57% in women.
• Supports gut health by consuming 3 cups of coffee a day for as little as 3 weeks in total. It may increase the amount of activity of beneficial gut bacteria, after.

On top of all of these, please also keep one thing in mind.

Additionally and besides caffeine, coffee also contains other substances that help improving our health.

Some of the above listed benefits can also be caused by other substances and not just only by caffeine.

Potential Side Effects

The general assumption is that common caffeine consumption is safe.

However, we also need to remind ourselves that caffeine is still addictive as well.

Some people may respond to it differently than others. This mostly depends on our genes but also the usual amount of caffeine consumption.

Typical side effects can include anxiety, restlessness, tremors, irregular heartbeat. And, too much caffeine can give us trouble falling asleep.

Furthermore, too much caffeine can lead to headaches. It can cause migraines and high blood pressure.

Additionally, caffeine may also have negative effects on pregnant women. The substance can easily cross the placenta, for example.

This might potentially lead to an increased risk of miscarriage or low birth weight.

Out of these reasons, it is recommended that pregnant women limit their caffeine intake.

Finally, caffeine may also interfere with some common medications. Especially, the muscle relaxant, Zanaflex, or the antidepressant, Luvox, are to be mentioned here.

They can act counter-productive and actually increase their own effects. If you take any of these drugs, please consult a nearby doctor.

How Much is Too Much

In short, a daily intake amount of 400 mg of caffeine is safe.

Both the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) come to this conclusion.

This would roughly translate into 2 to 4 cups of coffee per day.

Furthermore, it is also worth and very important noting that there have already been reported fatal overdoses with single intakes of 500 mg caffeine.

As a result, experts suggest to limit the single amount of caffeine consumption at one time to 200 mg per dose.

Concerning pregnant women, the American College of Obstetricians recommends them to limit their daily intake to 200 mg of caffeine only.

Personally, I would also like to advise you to please consider these suggestions.

Final Caffeine Thoughts

In summary, we can say that caffeine is not as unhealthy as many people seem to believe.

There is also a lot of recent research showing the opposite.

And, throughout the next years more studies on coffee and caffeine will follow.

In fact, our body, mind and overall performance can greatly benefit from the use of caffeine.

Overall, we just need to be thoughtful and at least partially moderate our daily consumption. As you can very well imagine, I very much love coffee and appreciate all of its benefits.

Usually, 4 to 5 daily cups of coffee is more than enough, even for me.

Let’s just all keep that in mind. And, we can fully enjoy our favorite coffee drink even a bit more. Especially now, since we learned more about the great benefits of caffeine as well.

What do you think? What are your experiences and recommendations?

How much coffee do you maybe drink per day?

Feel free to share with us.

Until then, stay safe, healthy and properly caffeinated.

Cheers!