To drink or not to drink caffeine...

Dear Sexy Readers,

Lift your finger who starts his/her day with a cup of coffee or tea?

Lift your finger who has eaten chocolate - at least once?

Lift your finger who drinks/has drunk a cola/energy drink - at least once?

I think everyone has - even babies through breast milk - consumed some caffeine at some point in their life!! And we all agree that it has an effect on our body and on our brain!! Personally, I know it well enough as I am OVER sensitive to caffeine:

Apart from chocolate (I'm Belgian after all!!), I had to strip any caffeine-containing product from my diet, or else I would suffer from different side effects ranging from heart stomping, breathlessness to complete choking, fainting and crazy restlessness!

But whyyyyyyyy? I used to looooove Tiramisu! Can you imagine going to an Italian restaurant and all your friends raging about their tiramisu and you not being able to have even a little bit??? Such is my life!! (Until a friend of mine recently made me a special milk chocolate Tiramisu!! miam miam)

On the other hand, one of my friends, was telling me about how she was trying to cut down on her coffee intake to try to reduce some of the side effects she was experiencing such as hyperventilation and of course addiction to the substance!!

She asked me if I could have a look at how it works on our brain and why, if such bad effects happen to almost everyone of us, isn't caffeine banned from our diets already. I told her that the population would probably go crazy if the government was to ban coffee. After all no cancer/diseases are publicly known to be related to high caffeine intake. Or is there? Let's have a look:

Caffeine

Structure

Caffeine is a natural stimulant, chemically called a xanthine alkaloid. Other xanthine alkaloids include theobromine found in cacao and theophylline contained in tea leaves. Some fruits/leaves contain more than one type of xanthines such as the yerba mate leaves a.k.a loose tea.

Sources

Caffeine can be found in coffee plant, tea bushes, yerba maté, guarana berries, guayusa and yhe yaupon holly, and products derived from kola nut.

 

How does it work on our body?

Caffeine acts on our brain by inhibiting the action of a molecule called Adenosine. This adenosine naturally circulates in our body, especially in our brain, and its role is to suppress activity making us feel drowsy.

Simply put, Caffeine stimulates brain activity by stopping Adenosine from suppressing it! It can do so because their structures are similar. Caffeine can therefore "pretend" to be Adenosine and binds to its receptor.

How much?

As for everything, dosage is crucial! Personally, 0mg of caffeine is my maximum, some people it's 200mg. How come? Well, because caffeine is a natural stimulant and its effects depend on body size and our degree of tolerance, which increases as consumption increases making caffeine a legal and unregulated addictive psychoactive substance!

Its effects

It reduces drowsiness and increases alertness. But it also helps the body use less sugar and more fats, something that is used in caffeine pill for athletes or people on diet (Beware that abuse of these pills - and "high"dose depends on your body metabolism - have resulted in death)!

Side or overdose effects
Nausea, anxiety, vomiting, heart palpitations, restlessness, fidgeting, excitement, insomnia, face flushing, diuretic effect, muscle twitching, rambling of though and speech, irritability,...

Withdrawal effects

Include headache, irritability, inability to concentrate, drowsiness, insomnia and pain - can last up to 10 days.

Regarding diseases: Caffeine - friend or foe ?

I think this guys made a really good video on it summarising pretty well all the research I read about. Enjoy - and as everything Doses Matter!! (I'm not sponsored by that guy so if you click to check out his website, that's your whole responsability ;))

So, are you addicted? What does caffeine do to you?

See you soon for more Sexy Science,