Arkay, you are a walking encyclopedia of nutrition. :thmbsp:
Will I never escape the "walking encyclopedia" label? :tears: That was my most common nickname back in Elementary School days. You didn't know me back then, did you? At least you limited the comment to nutrition. Thank you for that.
[/QUOTE]
"Heheheheheh. He said doodoo."[/QUOTE]
I thought I said (wrote) Do do ... :scratch2: but doodoo would have been more appropriate for a thread involving nutrition!
"Hydration. It was long thought that caffeinated beverages were diuretics, but studies reviewed last year found that people who consumed drinks with up to 550 milligrams of caffeine produced no more urine than when drinking fluids free of caffeine. Above 575 milligrams, the drug was a diuretic."
No way, José. I've been drinking coffee for 30 years, starting when I had been diagnosed with high blood pressure at 19. My doctor told me to start drinking coffee as a diuretic, because he didn't want to start me on pills unless it was absolutely necessary. I watched everything I ate and drank; back then, and even today. The result is that whenever I drink a cup of coffee, I'm in the john exactly three hours later, peeing like a broken hydrant.
I reject the author's claim.
Tom
I have just the opposite reaction to caffeine. It makes it more difficult to urinate. Once my Urologist suggested that I reduce or even eliminate caffeine from my daily intake the problem went away. If I consume anything with caffeine in it the problem returns.
Comments like these are common and typical for coffee drinkers. ANYONE who takes the time to experiment and observe the effects on their own body will quickly realize that article is full of inaccuracies.
Interestingly, the caffeine from the coffee itself is usually not well absorbed. Nowhere near enough actual caffeine usually gets into the bloodstream to cause all the effects that we observe... but there is a little part of the brain, which when it detects caffeine in even very small amounts, basically says "Hey, this stuff is nasty, toxic bad news!" and it signals the production of an extremely similar molecule in much larger quantities, which the body gears up to get rid of. Our bodies want that stuff GONE, which is why our heart rate and blood pressure go up --that accelerates the metabolism and speeds up the passage of blood through the liver, so the stuff can be conjugated (made ready for excretion by the kidneys) faster, and why the kidneys start flushing it out. It ABSOLUTELY IS a diuretic. Many toxins will produce similar effects, as the body tries to eliminate them in a shorter period of time.
What can happen in a few cases is the exact opposite, if their isn't enough liquid in the body to begin with (to accomplish the flushing). I can draw an analogy to foods that people with sensitivities/allergies to them may experience: for some people, there is diarrhea as the body struggles to flush out the toxic stuff. For others, there is constipation as the body tries to "freeze" the stuff to limit damage to the tract and slow down absorption.
Drink too much coffee and you WILL have diarrhea on top of the other symptoms. It iirritates the lining of the GI tract that much. For some people, a few sips is enough. For others, it takes several cups. But anyone who drinks six to ten cups within a short time will either vomit it out or have diarrhea quite quickly... it is that bad. When my system was in really bad shape, drinking just a couple sips of coffee would send me to the bathroom with diarrhea within 3 minutes! Today that probably wouldn't happen (I'm much healthier now!), but even the hardiest coffee drinker will hit that point within/after several cups. That won't happen nearly as quickly with most other drinks - not water, not natural juices, and not even soda pop! Not even tea, which has many of the same toxins (but mostly in smaller concentrations).
Oh, and how does the body get the energy to speed everything up in its efforts to eliminate the caffeine (and other toxins) in coffee? By draining reserves that at some point must be replenished. Because of this, after the "buzz" wears off, people feel tired and sleepy, drained. The body needs to rest and restore those reserves... but most people remember the initial "lift" they got from the coffee and associate it (correctly) with the coffee. They don't associate the much-later exhausted feeling with the coffee, so as they get tired they reach for another cup as a "pick me up", thus actually making the root problem WORSE. This is a classic addictive cycle. Eventually, they are too exhausted and depleted to function well without the ol' java at all... unless they are willing to go through the re-adjustment period of withdrawal.
Coffee causes the blood vessels, especially those around the back of the neck and head area, to contract. This is part of the body's way of protecting the brain against the toxicity of the coffee. (Incidentally, cigarette smoking causes a similar contraction of blood vessels all over, which is why smokers' hands feel colder). When the effect starts to wear off, the inrush of blood back into the head causes headaches. The headaches on top of the tiredness makes people seek relief... by grabbing another coffee, exactly what actually caused these problems in the first place.
Coffee will stop you from sleeping, because of the stimulant effect... but it won't help you need less sleep. Underneath, you actually need MORE sleep: the normal amount you would need from the day's work, PLUS the extra amount needed to recover/rebuild from the drain on the system caused by speeded-up metabolism trying to eliminate the caffeine. It's a double-whammy, and why hard-core caffeine addicts "can't function in the morning until after the first cuppa". Underneath their stimulated state, they are CHRONICALLY sleep-deprived and more likely to make mistakes than a non-addict.
The idea that you can benefit from the "lift" of the caffeine without having to pay for it in subsequent tiredness and impaired function is just nonsensical self-delusion. It's a zero-sum game, all else equal. A person whose diet is full of enough raw leaves and vegetables can get away with coffee better than someone eating junk, but what is coffee usually consumed with? Why, the other major addictive stimulant that similarly whip-saws the body's energy systems: SUGAR! Added to the coffee, and in the form of doughnuts...
:nono:
Coffee, sugar, alcohol and cigarettes.... usually when a person is addicted to one, it is easier for them to be addicted to another. Anyone addicted to any of these, let alone more than one of these, is building up future breakdown and disease, cup by cup, spoonful by spoonful, and smoke by smoke. They are brutally abusing the body's systems. It is a real testament to the amazing strength and resiliency of our bodies that we can tolerate so much of this abuse. Try giving these things to your pet animal, or any wild or zoo animal. They will die much faster from it than we do! Coffee/caffeine is probably the least risky/least damaging of all the common addictions, but that isn't saying much.
The risks of some things, like polycystic ovaries and breast lumps in women, are DEFINITELY associated with coffee consumption, but the diseases caused by/associated with the other three are much worse.
Oh, I left out one other thing: the tannin in coffee is an irritant, and coffee promotes inflammation. (Sugar does too.) These things tend to make the linings of blood vessels a little bit rougher/more uneven. This encourages "nature's bandage", cholesterol, to attach itself to those rough areas, where other stuff like calcium can attach itself to the cholesterol, forming "plaque". Add to these inflamed, plaque-lines the constricted diameter I mentioned, and you have a recipe for a stroke or a heart attack. Since coffee has its biggest impact on the vessels in the neck and head, it is more likely to contribute to a stroke than to a heart attack, but the pro-inflammatory nature of it contributes to both. Sugar is worse in this regard, but both are bad.
The solution is simply to weather the withdrawal symptoms and get off of the stuff, so you get the body's natural balance, reserves and energy back. It helps enormously to eat a lot of raw vegetables and leaves, to help replace the depleted enzymes and nutrients faster. This will take the edge off the cravings, reduce the headache and other symptoms quite a bit, as well as help the brain to function better, making the psychological withdrawal (which in this case is also partly physiological) easier to handle, too.
Yes, coffee is a pleasant, tasty and satisfying drink... but who needs a "comfortable poison"? I don't!
:thumbsdn:
