The Caf Fiend - part 1

It has come to my attention lately that caffeine is far from gone. I suppose it is not reasonable for me to expect it ever will be but I think from what I have seen, we are consuming more than ever.

Recently while visiting a friend in a distant city, I saw the hallmarks of a cult of coffee growing and growing.

First it was Starbucks, whose cameo appearance in the Austin Powers movies and the Suze Ormond show (the latte factor), assures its place as a cultural icon.

My friend angrily shouted out at every Starbucks he passed, "I am a Peetnick" Apparently the Peet's coffee is a warring faction that is gaining some momentum as well.

While his behavior was pretty comical it does underline just how much more deeply coffee and caffeine have become in our culture since the time we learned all coffee is mountain grown.

Now coffee's supporters point to its sometime health benefits which in all cases are eclipsed by green tea.

What about its detriments? Well a while back there were strong attempts to link coffee to pancreatic and bladder cancers. None of them panned out.

But I proposed a while back a much more subtle problem.

I think caffeine, and coffee especially, contribute to a condition called adrenal burnout. This is where your adrenal glands can't mount any more of a stress response because they are already turned up to "11" in the words of Nigel Tufnel from Spinal Tap.

In other words, heaven forbid you need an extra squirt of stress hormones to deal with a major event. You'll simply crash and burn or at the very least, under perform.

If coffee is so safe, then how comes some people get such severe caffeine withdrawal headaches that they have to miss work for a few days when they quit it?

No one mentions the effect caffeine has on sleep either. A good friend of mine used to routinely drink a big cup of Starbucks at 7 p.m. or later.

When he asked if his waking up in the middle of the night jittery and with a racing heart was dangerous, I immediately told him, "lay of the coffee".

To his immense credit he listened and lo and behold his problem disappeared. Right away.

He now drinks green tea.

Some of you want to know why green tea is ok since it does have some caffeine.

Well it does have some but quite a bit less. Green tea also has an amazing ingredient called L Theanine which is present in Sleep Wizard.

Theanine has a calming effect on the brain and body and negates the over stimulation that caffeine may cause.

Another place where the effects of coffee may be overlooked is in anxiety and agitation.

I can always tell when one of my close friends has started the day with a cup of coffee. Her speech is rushed and hard to follow and she leaps from idea to idea in what psychiatrists call run on ideation, pressured speech and flight of ideas.

She doesn't need a shrink; she just needs to lose the coffee.

So I told her so. And to her immense credit she now drinks green tea. She gets just as much done work wise, just as much done at the gym and sleeps better at night.

Some of you have asked me how much green tea you can safely drink. Well I know of one study that showed benefits out to 1600mg of extract. That amounts to about 5 eight ounces glasses of moderately strong green tea a day.

I have good news though. Monster Multi with minerals has a nice dose of green tea extract for you and Super Wrinkle Guard is loaded as well, so add one or both to your daily routines.

Best,

Doc