Psychological Caffeine Effects To Extra Calories

There is no need to explain why 80% of Americans jump start their day with this most widely used mood-altering drug in the world. Some people are just not functional without their morning cup of coffee. And since getting enough rest has become an illusive dream, who cares about the effects of coffee on your health as long as it keeps you awake? Surprising as it may sound, the bad reputation of coffee has outlived itself. As a matter of fact, coffee might be one of the healthiest drinks out there.

Coffee Takes!
Caffeine, the active ingredient in coffee, has numerous physiological and psychological effects stimulating the brain and nervous system. It is a well known fact that consumption of coffee contributes to the increased alertness and faster reaction time. In addition, drinking coffee with milk in the first part of the day helps to remember gained knowledge. Milk is an excellent source of calcium, and drinking it with or without coffee will counteract this potential nutrient loss.

If improved brain activity is not enough justification for you to enjoy the most delectable drink there is, coffee was found to be beneficial for type 2 diabetes. Intake of caffeine may increase production of digestive juices, relax the walls of the blood vessels and the airways in the lungs, while increasing the force of muscular contractions and increasing the heart rate.

Black coffee is a natural diet drink that may spark your metabolism in a calorie-free way. Caffeine increases heart rate and metabolism so you burn more calories at rest. As for exercise enthusiasts, caffeine has shown to enhance performance and is the most extensively researched ergogenic aid. Not only it diminishes the feeling of fatigue and perceived exertion, caffeine spares muscle glycogen promoting greater use of body fat as energy while bodies are in motion. Besides, muscles of ‘caffeinated bodies’ can work longer before they will exhaustion.

For that matter, coffee has been used for years by endurance athletes to aid in metabolizing fatty acids. Caffeine preferentially increases the body’s use of stored fat for energy, sparing both liver and muscle glycogen, a form of temporary stored sugar in the body. As a nervous-system stimulant, caffeine provides a mental boost that helps athletes through vigorous training sessions.

Of course, what goes up must come down. When caffeine wears off, fatigue sets in with a vengeance diminishing returns on brain activity and other performance. Some so-called “caffeine addicts” report experiencing terrible headaches as an aftereffect of being in an ‘emergency-alert state’.

Coffee Danger!
Here comes the Coffee Danger – its diet properties end as soon as you add something else to it. From milk and sugar, to syrups and cocoa, your cup of java may become a real weight-loss disaster in a matter of seconds. Double Chocolate Chip Frappuccino Blended Crème with Whip sounds awesome, but how do 740 calories and 28 grams of fat? And forget about all the health benefits your cup of Java is famous for.

If you are a healthy individual and drink coffee in moderation, at worst, it is a harmless beverage. At best, enjoy you favorite cup of Latte as a healthy boost for the day!

Remember there are better alternatives to coffee if you are in need of a morning boost. Check out our Caffeine Facts to learn more about caffeine and how it could be harmful to your health.

Learn The History & Effects Of This Powerful Drug

I was about 13 years old when I had my first cup of coffee; coffee and toast with butter. At that time I was in a rebellious stage, trying new things. An act such as drinking coffee was something adults did, and I was ready to ‘grow up.’ At this time, I didn’t understand the health issues that can coincide with the consumption of coffee. There are still many people in this world that rely on coffee daily, and it is something everyone should consider cutting out of their diet completely. Find out why caffeine is something you shouldn’t have in your daily diet routine now…

What Is Caffeine?

• The drug contained in coffee. A bitter white alkaloid derived from coffee (or tea) and used in medicine for a mild stimulant or to treat certain kinds of headaches.
• The stimulant drug contained in coffee and tea. This is the stuff that makes coffee so addictive. It stimulates the central nervous system and, in the right amounts, causes adrenaline to be released and can enhance heart function.
• An alkaloid found in coffee, tea, and kola nuts, that acts as a stimulant and a diuretic.
• A stimulating drug found in coffee, tea, and cola beverages. After a headache begins, caffeine may be helpful in aborting headaches, so it is widely used in combination drugs prescribed for relief of headache. Paradoxically, using caffeine to excess or too rapid withdrawal from caffeine, may cause headaches in some individuals.
• A mild stimulant, the most widely used drug in the world.

Slurped in black coffee or sipped in green tea, gulped down in a soda or knocked back in a headache pill, caffeine is the world’s most popular psychoactive drug.

Caffeine, the white, bitter-tasting, crystalline substance was first isolated from coffee in 1820. Both words, caffeine and coffee, are derived from the Arabic word qahweh (pronounced “kahveh” in Turkish). Coffee trees were cultivated in the 6th century and coffee itself began to be popular in Europe in the 17th century. By the 18th century plantations had been established in Indonesia and the West Indies.

Caffeine is used by fitness enthusiasts to get more out of their workouts. Once thought of as a ‘health no-no’ for athletes, caffeine is taking center stage as a legitimate aid to performance. This benefit has been recognized by the makers of sports nutrition products like energy gels (see chart below).

A growing body of laboratory research supports caffeine as an effective ergogenic aid. (An ergogenic aid is a substance that improves athletic performance.) The most dramatic performance improvements (20-50 percent) are seen during prolonged (over two-hours) endurance exercise. Caffeine is also reported to benefit short-term intense exercise lasting about five minutes at maximal output.

Caffeine Effects During Pregnancy
If consuming caffeine in general is something many people shouldn’t do, what about women who are pregnant? Safety of caffeine consumption during pregnancy is controversial. Some studies suggest that small amounts of caffeine (less than two average cups) of coffee per day presents a slight risk to the embryo or fetus, while others do not. There is stronger evidence that larger daily amounts of caffeine during pregnancy may increase the risks of miscarriage, preterm delivery and low birth weight, but no solid proof.

High caffeine intake during pregnancy should be avoided. A pregnant woman may be able to tolerate more then her fetus can. Risks of even small amounts of caffeine consumption are not clear. Women trying to become pregnant may conceive sooner if they limit caffeine intake to less then two cups daily. Breastfeeding women can minimize infants’ exposures to caffeine by avoiding a very high caffeine intake.

Caffeine’s Effects on Women’s Fertility
Some studies have found a link between high levels of caffeine consumption by women and delayed conception. Women who consumed more than 300 mg of caffeine per day were twice as likely to have conception delayed for a year or more.1 Another study also linked high caffeine intake to delayed conception, but only in women consuming 500 mg or more (about four cups of coffee) per day.2 Best to keep your caffeine intake below 300 mg a day.

Caffeine’s Effects on the Developing Fetus
Caffeine easily passes from mother to fetus through the placenta. A developing fetus may have higher, sustained blood levels of caffeine than its mother because of immature metabolism.3 A few studies have shown that consuming even small amounts of caffeine can affects fetal heart rate and movement patterns.3 A pregnant woman’s ability to metabolize caffeine slows as pregnancy progresses, so some of its effects may increase later in pregnancy.

Some studies have found that pregnant women who consumed large quantities of caffeine (five or more cups of coffee a day) were twice as likely to miscarry as those who consumed less, while fewer or no effects were seen at lower levels of caffeine consumption.

Caffeine’s Affects on Newborns and Infants
High caffeine consumption during pregnancy may shorten gestation and lower birth weight.6 Both effects appear modest in terms of days and ounces, but may be important to an infant already compromised by prematurity or fetal growth restriction. Such effects have not been consistently linked to moderate consumption.7

A reported link between heavy maternal caffeine intake during pregnancy and increased risk of SIDS8 (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) has not been supported byfurtherstudies.9

Breast milk can transfer caffeine from mother to baby. Very high caffeine intake by a nursing mother may make her baby irritable, with disturbed sleep cycles, but this is not known to occur from ordinary food and beverage caffeine intake, or without use of medications containing caffeine.

Tips on Cutting Caffeine Out Before Pregnancy… Men, please join us!
To cut caffeine out of your diet can be difficult. Many will experience side effects like headaches and cravings. To reduce the risks of these side effects it is recommended that you cut back slowly. For example, a coffee drinker should start with 3/4 of a cup of regular coffee and add 1/4 of decaffeinated coffee. Slowly they will increase the decaffeinated coffee until it is the entire cup.

Whether you discontinue caffeine cold turkey or slowly, it will help you to achieve a healthier pregnancy. It is also helpful to have your partner discontinue caffeine with you. So as you prepare for pregnancy by eliminating hazards from your diet and life, remember a healthy body helps produce a healthy baby!

At the age of 30, I look back at when I took my first sip. Another experience comes to mind: When my friend Karla and I made a large pot of coffee (I was 13) and drank it all to see what would happen. We were having a sleep over at her house, and I swear that I endured one of my first restless nights and morning bags under my eyes. Little did I know it that I was feeling what many grown-ups feel daily; fatigue from lack of sleep. Oh, to be 13 and that kid again.

Most wouldn’t think that caffeine would affect others differently, but studies have been done and it is proving that it actually does. Now it is your turn to see why caffeine might not work for you, but works for those surrounding you without any problem.

See why men are more affected by caffeine then women.

Men can get away with spending less at the coffee bar than women it seems, thanks to new research from the University of Barcelona in Spain that found that caffeinated coffee delivers a harder kick to men than women, providing more alertness in lesser doses.

PERK YOURSELF UP

In the study, 688 healthy university students (238 male and 450 female, mean age 22) drank either a cup of espresso containing 100 mg of caffeine or a cup of decaf espresso with just 5 mg. The study was double-blind, meaning that they did not know whether their espresso was caffeinated or not. Students were asked to self-rate their alertness levels before and at 10, 20 and 30 minutes later. To account for differences in alertness in morning and afternoon, researchers varied testing sessions between 11 am and 1 pm and 4 pm and 6 pm.

Researchers found that…

• Regardless of gender, the caffeinated coffee (100 mg caffeine) had an almost instant impact on participants’ perceived levels of alertness. Apparent at 10 minutes, the effects increased at the 20- and 30-minute intervals, and were stronger in men than women.
• Ten minutes after drinking decaf (5 mg caffeine) coffee, both women and men reported the increases in alertness — though interestingly, in this case, women reported a stronger impact than men. The effect was not sustained in either men or women at the 20- and 30-minute intervals.

Results of the study were published in the October 1, 2008, issue of the journal Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology & Biological Psychiatry.

WHY THE DIFFERENCE?

Curious about these differences, I asked Daily Health News contributing editor Andrew L. Rubman, ND, about the study. In his opinion, there are likely numerous factors at play, all of which warrant further examination before conclusions can be drawn. For example, he noted that gender differences may be related to levels of enzymes, which vary among men and women, and also that decaffeinated coffee has a variety of compounds that may affect women in a different way than men.

I don’t particularly care for coffee, personally, but it’s clear that study after study is demonstrating health benefits to moderate coffee consumption. Up to a few cups a day of black coffee, depending on your metabolism, may offer protection against liver disease, type 2 diabetes, Parkinson’s and other ailments. As with haircuts, men are lucky enough to be able to get away with spending less to achieve the same benefit.

Source(s):

Andrew L. Rubman, ND, director, Southbury Clinic for Traditional Medicines, Southbury, Connecticut. www.naturopath.org.

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