For decades, I drank 6 to 10 cups of coffee every day at work. It was a benefit, free coffee.
During most of those years, I did not drink coffee on weekends. I lived by myself and it wasn’t worth brewing a pot. I’d drink a cup if I went out for breakfast, but otherwise, I didn’t drink any coffee on the weekends. Never saw a “withdraw problem” of any kind. I like coffee, but I don’t need it.
Caffeine affects different people differently. I can drink a cup of coffee at 10 PM and sleep all night. If my wife drinks a Coke in the afternoon, she will have trouble all night. Iced tea does the same thing to her.
I’ve had doctors tell me to cut back of coffee. I’d ask them why and they always bring up the trouble sleeping. I have had trouble sleeping from time to time, but it has had little to do with coffee consumption. It’s either been a pain issue (toothache, back problems, or other injuries) or personal problems and issues I’ve had to deal with. Other doctors have told me that if it doesn’t bother me, don’t worry about it. They’ve said that maybe 10 cups a day is a bit much, that moderation is advisable, but if it isn’t bothering me, there is no reason to avoid it.
I’ve been a coffee drinker for more than 40 years now, and usually consume 3-5 cups per day. Sometimes more, rarely less.
No problem sleeping. Ever. No health problems, not even common ones.
The only problem I have experienced occasionally is headache from withdrawal. I never get headaches otherwise. But, even then, it’s not consistent. Sometimes the headaches appear after deprivation; sometimes they don’t.
I don’t ascribe many magical properties to foods and beverages, either good or bad. If I like something and there are few to no negative feedbacks, I’ll consume it. If I don’t like it or it upsets my stomach or something, then I avoid it.
Obviously, if you have food allergies or diabetes or other such conditions, or if you have some sort of unpleasantness that happens as a result of something you consume, then you have to adjust accordingly.
For most consumables and for most people, very few foods and beverages have super positive or super negative consequences. Do what you like, but be aware that the changes, either way, are probably not going to make you stronger, faster, wealthier, or give you god-like qualities.
Still it is sometimes worthwhile to not overstate and to be precise about what we know and do not know. This is GQ in SD after all! Sometimes the alternate hypotheses to explain what is observed turn out later to be the actual explanations and tell us more about what is actually important for health.
In the case of coffee and caffeine, FWIW, I actually do suspect that the actual health benefits of moderate coffee intake are real but extremely modest and that it’s more that “no coffee” is a marker for various predisposing risk factors that are not easily controlled for or identified.
For example, let’s very unscientifically just look at the population here who are current members of the no coffee set - many of them have some degree of predisposition to acid reflux (GERD) that became symptomatic with coffee intake. Is it just a coincidence that GERD is correlated with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and elevated triglycerides, and that higher coffee consumption is correlated with lower triglycerides? Could the causation go that people with GERD tend to both have elevated triglycerides and to have their GERD become more symptomatic with coffee intake so tend to over-represented in the no coffee group?
Somewhat tangentially, and perhaps veering from GQ territory, is exploring why a quite normative behavior like drinking caffeinated coffee is viewed presumptively as negative by many, and even relatively demonized by some, to the degree that significant twisting and turning is required to support their beliefs. I think it represents a tendency of many in our society to be strongly disapproving of potential moral failings and to view caffeine use as an addiction and thus a moral failing. Might a predisposition to view a very normative behavior as a potential moral failing and to disapprove of it correlate with anything else that may impact health?
There is an overlap to be made in how we consider the findings that moderate alcohol consumption is associated with better health outcomes. (Noting of course that excess alcohol more clearly has strong and costly negative outcomes than coffee does and not rarely.) About 65% of Americans drink alcohol, about the same fraction that drinks coffee, and those so long as consumption remains at moderate levels its use is associated with a variety of good health outcomes.
Is moderate alcohol use a marker for conviviality and social connectedness? Is the association explained by the fact that, according to Gallup data anyway, teetotalling is much more common among those with no college education, and among those who drink college graduates are more likely to report drinking once a week or more than are those with less educational achievement, while being much less likely to report drinking to excess?
It really does seem that moderate consumption is much more common among those of high SES while lower SES correlated with greater likelihood of both lower consumption and of very high consumption.
So is moderate alcohol consumption as beneficial the most reasonable hypothesis or the hypotheses that moderate alcohol consumption correlates with higher SES which correlates with better health outcomes, and that higher SES can partially protect from a genetic predisposition to consume to problem levels? Or is the social conviviality hypothesis at all in play?
Like with caffeine we really cannot say, it might be that moderate intake is in and of itself, of health benefit, or not, while we can say with confidence that there is no clear evidence of health benefit to cutting down or quitting from a moderate alcohol intake level (up to one drink a day for women and two per day for men).
Just for the record, I am a coffee addict. The day do not start without my Brazilian Bold with light cream and sweetner. And another cup before work. And maybe a latte after work.
Weird anecdote:
Ten years ago I switched coffee brands at home - from Starbucks to Douwe Egberts. I had discovered the latter in a local restaurant and found it to taste amazing.
Unfortunately it caused brutal, throbbing, unrelenting headaches that didn’t respond to ibuprofen at all. After a visit to a doctor, I ended up with a prescription for Midrin. Somehow it took me a solid month to make the mental connection between the coffee switch and the headaches, since the headaches happened throughout the day, not always right after drinking my morning cup. Once I stopped drinking DE coffee, the headaches faded away in a few days.
If you try Latin-style coffee you may have the same experience. It’s essentially making a whole pot of espresso. Then drinking the same quantity that you would of ordinary McBucks or (:eek:) Folgers.
All kinds of interesting psychoactive, headachey, and tummyachey effects may follow. Or not. There are a lot of active ingredients in coffee above and beyond the caffeine. Some of which are much more prominent depending on cultivar, blend, grind, roast, and prep.
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I'm tryin' to cut down on my caffeine consumption,
So when I get up, I just have one cup of coffee,
And I like to have another cup of coffee with my breakfast,
And on my way to work, I like to get a cup of coffee.
Like the kind of cup of coffee that you get with the doughnuts,
But I never get the doughnut, I just have the cup of coffee.
And when I get to work, I like to have a cup of coffee,
'cause I like to have coffee when I'm talkin' on the phone,
But it usually goes cold, and you need to get another cup of coffee,
And it's lunch, and I have an espresso.
And when I get back, it's not morning anymore,
So I have a diet cola, and another diet cola,
By then I'm feelin' fine, and I'm feelin' pretty sharp,
And I'm feelin' pretty wired and I'm getting things done.
But right about two I get this little tiny migraine.
It starts with my eyes, and moves to the back of my neck,
And moves to the bottom of my spine,
But it doesn't get there until five or six o'clock,
Which is the end of the day,*
