The title seems a tad misleading. The author describes some relatively major lifestyle changes (huge changes in diet, sleeping habits, large increase in aerobic/anaerobic physical activity), of which the elimination of caffeine is but a small part.
I used to have some very bad problems with acidity as well, to the point where my doctor thought I might have had acute ulcerative colitis, but what fixed it for me was sleeping more, eating better, and exercising more frequently.
I still drink 1-3 cups of coffee a day (every few months I go for a week without coffee, just to make sure I can still function without it), and have had no flare-ups or problems since I changed the rest of my lifestyle habits.
FYI, the dominant theory is that ulcerative colitis is an autoimmune disease, and the inflammation in the colon has nothing to do with what is eaten. Instead, it's due to the immune system deciding to attack the intestinal tissue. It might be provoked indirectly by things like stress, but coffee or other food are not thought to trigger flare-ups.
(That said, some people find they can reduce their discomfort by modifying their diet once a flare-up begins. But there is no evidence that diet either provokes flare-ups or induces remission.)
While that may be the dominant theory it doesn't appear to be true. I follow a doctor out of NJ who uses dietary intervention to successfully treat a lot of diseases most doctors will say are "incurable", including ulcerative colitis, IBS, lupus, psoriasis, rheumatoid arthritis, and diabetes (the adult onset type). He has an entire newsletter devoted to the following:
Inflammatory Bowel Disease – Aggresive dietary modifications hold key to relief and recovery.
He shows (with references to back every claim, as with all of his writing) that these diseases DEFINITELY have a LOT to do with what is eaten.
The newsletter is $7. I wish it were free for as important as I feel this issue is. I would hope that before you continue to make such definite, and possibly dangerous claims, that you would fork over the money to at least make sure you're not helping to send people down the path of needless pain and suffering.
If you're a lone voice in opposition to the medical and scientific establishment, then to take you seriously I'd expect to be seeing some pretty extraordinary evidence.
Things that would make me more sceptical of your claims would include:
1. A glossy website with slick before/after photos that appears to be primarily an advertisement for your (expensive) courses.
2. Putting all of your evidence in a non-peer reviewed newsletter that you then charge $7 / month for. He's clearly heard of journals (he's even published in some of them, although none of them particularly prestigious) so why isn't he using them?
3. The invention of bogus mathematical equations to "back up" your claims (Health = Nutrients/Calories... please).
4. Any claim to be able to cure a wide variety of unrelated illnesses with a simple treatment (cf. allergies, asthma, acne, autoimmune disease (!), chronic fatigue syndrome, depression, diabetes, migraines, and, somewhat mysteriously, "others").
5. Any association at all with Mehmet Oz.
This guy doesn't even begin to pass the smell test.
His formula doesn't make any sense. Health=micronutrients/kcal is a useless approximation. Implies that if you reduce kcal by switiching to more micronutrient dense foods, you'll always be healthier. Which is untrue (there are problems such as starvation, hypervitaminosis, drinking saltwater would be a great idea...) and highly depends on a plethora of other factors.
It's pseudoscience.
(And I say that as a future MD who also does science based sports/nutritional consulting, so be assured I know of the importance of diet and exercise in disease&health.)
There are far better sources out there.
> His formula doesn't make any sense.
> It's pseudoscience.
This "formula" appears to be meant as a shortcut to remind people following his plan to eat higher micronutrient per calorie foods. I don't think it was ever meant to be a proper math equation or anything, and I'm surprised people are picking this one aspect out of context to ridicule it endlessly without truly understanding what Dr. Fuhrman means by it.
I agree with you on needing evidence, and as I said before, he references every claim in his books, in his newsletters, and even on his blog. As to whether they are solid references, I don't know. Most of them are from medical journals and studies I don't have access to.
But either way, who benefits? His entire plain consists of cutting out things like salt, sugar and added fats, and only eating vegetables, fruits, nuts, beans and seeds in some order (as a very basic summary). What does he have to gain aside from maybe selling a book? Once you know the plan most people need nothing else from him.
As to your lone voice claim, I haven't seen that. He works with several doctors, nutritionists, and researchers (NOT just Oz) and seems to have a thriving medical practice that has helped thousands of people.
As to the rest of your concerns:
1. What courses? I've never seen him sell any courses, unless you mean site membership, which is optional and for support only if you need it. Unless he has stock in all the major produce growers of the world, I'm not sure what he truly has to sell once a person buys the book and follows his plan. Everything else (like supplements) is optional and for support only if you need it.
2. $7 one time, not monthly. I'm puzzled why why these aren't free too. Like I said, he references every one of his claims, if you're into that. There are hundreds of references to various medical journals, papers, studies, etc. in his book Eat To Live, for example.
3. I think he uses H = N/C not as a true math equation, but as more of a shortcut to help people remember to get as many nutrients per calorie as they can (which is fundamental to his plan). I'm surprised you and others are getting hung up on this (and with such ridicule) without even bothering to understand it in context.
4. True, but what's his incentive? To sell more produce? He doesn't sell a miracle cure, and I can tell you right now that eating the way he wants you to eat is certainly not simple for me and many others. One thing I've noticed is that the bulk of people coming to him seem to be those (like me) who have spent years in pain due to "incurable" diseases, or people who have already had multiple bypass surgeries and everything else, and are sent home to prepare for death. It seems suffering provides extreme motivation.
5. I can't disagree with you on this one.
I can understand your skepticism a little, but it's not as if his website is a long form sales letter with javascript BUT WAIT popups when you try to exit it. Isn't one function of a website, I would say the primary function even, to market something? He markets his ideas and sells optional products for the benefit of his patients. What's shady about that? No miracle cure diets, pills, "free reports", etc. No long form sales letters.
I'd just hate for people to live a life of pain and suffering believing "inflammation in the colon has nothing to do with what is eaten" when it probably does, and when something can be done about it that doesn't necessarily involve their colon being removed and/or an early death.
He's selling his books, his $7 newsletters and $50 / month memberships to some kind of club (or just $3000 for one-off lifetime membership!)
Re: his 'health equation'. It's obvious to you and me that you can't take it literally. But is is obvious to everyone? Particularly, is it obvious to the people he's marketing to? There's no need for a mnemonic to help people remember "get as many nutrients per calorie as you can". The equation is there to give a veneer of scientific legitimacy to his books and courses.
> I'd just hate for people to live a life of pain and suffering believing "inflammation in the colon has nothing to do with what is eaten" when it probably does.
The problem is that the medical establishment is, at best, undecided on whether diet is a factor in ulcerative colitis. I'm sure that there are some things the medical establishment is wrong about. But they are right about a great many things too.
Your claim that they are "probably" wrong is apparently based only on what this guy says on his website - a site that which seems to exist mainly to market his ideas, and sell his books, newsletters, nutritional supplements, foods and website memberships.
Good to know. My doctor suspected that I might have ulcerative colitis, but luckily it was not the case. I was highly symptomatic due to my incredibly poor lifestyle habits that I described elsewhere in this thread, so suspecting that I might suffer from UC/Crohn's disease wasn't completely out of left-field.
jessriedel is correct. That's true of most cases. Alas, not mine.
Interesting view, jperras. For me the caffeine changed loomed largest, partly because it was a nearly continuous part of my day. Eating meals was a handful of hours; ditto adding exercise. But I usually had coffee/soda to hand.
If you don't mind, could you explain what your problems with acidity were?
I've had a few issues over the last year or so and I'm only just making the link back to an acidic diet (diet coke, spicy food and chocolate being the main ones!)
I started having issues with ulcers and acid reflux in college, and for over a decade I took Prilosec (omeprazole) to control it. Last year I started drinking wheatgrass and other veggie shakes (and trying to eat a little healthier in general), and I've been able to stop taking the Prilosec with no major acid issues.
It started when my brother forced me to listen to one of his self-help CD's from Tony Robbins about the acid/alkaline diet (http://www.alkalinephdiet.com/anthony-robbins-alkaline-diet/). Mostly I view that stuff with a huge amount of skepticism, but my stomach will vouch for this one. As long as I have a veggie shake or a couple salads each day I'm able to safely drink coffee and alcohol, and occasionally eat pizza and other spicy food.
When I was in university it got to the point where drinking tap water was difficult; forget orange juice, coffee and pasta sauce. In addition to the physical pain of consuming anything that was remotely acidic, the frequent (6-8/day) bowel movements of sometimes very bloody stool is what finally made me go visit my doctor.
Those days I was pulling all-nighters every week or so, sleeping 4-5 hours on nights where I actually went to bed, ate complete crap (typical university student), and hadn't done any sort of exercise other than walking to-and-from class for a solid 12 months. Yes, I was drinking 3-6 cups of coffee and/or energy drinks a day, but it was when I fixed all of the other stuff (mainly sleeping & eating better) that I started to not feel like death every day.
Exactly. The focus of the whole story is on caffeine, but dropping caffeine is quite minor in comparison to eating better, sleeping better, and exercising more. I think it's general consensus that caffeine withdrawal takes no more than a week.
But there is a substantial link between dropping caffeine and sleeping better. And there is a link between sleeping better and getting more effective exercise. And it is hard to get effective exercise and still manage to live on something like Mountain Dew (which might prompt an improved diet).
True - if caffeine was interfering with his sleep then it was a problem. I didn't see any indication that he had attempted to fix his sleep schedule before he dropped caffeine, though it's certainly possible that he did. Sleep exercise and diet are connected to each other, and maybe kicking caffeine happened to give him enough motivation or momentum to improve all three of them, but it's only loosely related. Setting up dropping caffeine as the cause of his improvement is strange - it just happened to come first.
You're correct about not trying to fix the sleep schedule before kicking caffeine. I was just too damned busy, for far too long.
Cf my above comment about caffeine's continuous nature, too.
Could you expand on your diet changes? (For eg: General breakfast, lunch and dinner?) I have the same symptoms and have a colonoscopy scheduled to check for ulcerative colitis.
I'm in my mid 20s and lead the typical unhealthy lifestyle (eat out everyday, lot's of spicy food). Only recently have I started having these problems (severe heartburn, stool 6-8 times/day etc) Sigh..guess I'm getting old already..
This is pretty inspiring. It is always amazing to people how much diet and exercise affect their health, which I find amazing that they are amazed. Its fundamental. Of course the ulcers could have been cleared up with the right antibiotics [1] but regardless, Bryan is in a much better place than he was and it doesn't matter which path he took.
It is always amazing to people how much diet and exercise affect their health
This is true. It is equally amazing to me how much abuse the human body can take before it actually breaks down. Sometimes I think it would be better if the results of bad dietary or exercise habits revealed themselves faster - I suppose it would be more convincing and easier to undo the damage.
One has to remember that our bodies' ability to cope with all sorts of diets and environmental factors was most probably a very beneficial thing for prehistoric man. For them it wasn't possible to just change their diet or lifestyle, if their tribe didn't catch game in some time, coping with less nutrient food was essential. And vice versa, when they got some meat, it was good that the body stored fat so they could survive until the next kill. For us, it could be nice if bad lifestyle choices manifested themselves faster in our condition, but that would have killed our ancestors.
Fail fast is a search rule that makes sense for a startup business. The all-up cost (including opportunity cost) to exploit an unprofitable niche is so high relative to the cost of exploration that it's sensible to jump out of weak local optima and keep moving.
It is not a universal rule of infinite wisdom. Not all situations are startup businesses.
Even worse, undoing the damage can take a very long time. It's hard to make the change to exercising and eating right when the results (energy and the like) can be months away.
2 years ago, I was drinking 12 cups of coffee on an average day. More than that on days when I had night shifts. For some unknown reason I suddenly started reacting weirdly to all the caffeine. Somehow it sparked anxiousness in me. So I decided to stop drinking coffee altogether, since only a single cup would make me feel and behave strangely.
At first it was hard to concentrate, I had headaches, it was harder to wake up in the morning, etc. However, after two years I wonder why I was drinking coffee in the first place. I feel calmer and more relaxed nowadays and I'm capable of greater workloads now without feeling too exhausted.
Going without caffeine also made me appreciate the power and importance of sleep. In the fast-paced world we're living in, I believe people underestimate that. I honestly know people who think they can achieve more by sleeping less. In my opinion they couldn't be more wrong about it. A good night's sleep is what productive days are built upon.
I personally have never been a caffeine user. I had always assumed that if I used it regularly, my body would eventually counteradjust so that I would require coffee just to bring me back to my original baseline level of alertness. Can anyone comment on whether this is the case?
I have a purely anecdotal case. Before my Junior year of college, I had drank about four cups (two coffee cups) of coffee every morning since I was twelve. That's about nine years of coffee consumption for me. I stopped one day a year-or-so ago, and besides the two-day migraine, it didn't have any noticeable effect on me thereafter. I still drink coffee every now and then, especially during points where I'm lodging with my parents. I can't tell a difference when I drink coffee or not, other than I think more clearly with coffee. I'm not jittery with or without, or craving coffee abnormally.
Again, anecdotal. I have no idea if this is the general case.
That means you adjusted back quickly, but it doesn't really answer the question. Which is: If you have coffee almost every day, does it still provide you an alertness boost?
> Which is: If you have coffee almost every day, does it still provide you an alertness boost?
I have been on and off coffee several times and my anecdote is that if you have coffee almost every day, it does provide you an alertness boost, but:
Your average alertness over the course of a day with coffee (when you're adjusted to it) and over a day without coffee (when you're adjusted to that) are about the same. The one with coffee just has more ups and downs. Without coffee it's more even. IMHO that evenness is a good thing.
I drink coffee everyday (somedays four or more espressos). I also stop drinking coffe for a few days at least twice every semester, just in case.
Even at peak coffee, more coffee still stimulates my mind and makes me infinitely more focused. The only times coffee hasn't worked is when I'm genuinely sleep deprived, although I typically get 6-8 hours of sleep.
I would not conclude an effect of caffeine ingestion. You may be getting the alertness boost from placebo effect, conditioned response or even just the fact of taking a break. I get an alertness boost from getting up to fill a glass of water, for example. I don't have to actually drink from the glass to get the effect.
I hesitate to contribute anecdotal evidence but my experience has been very similar. In college, I routinely took 200 mg caffeine pills and I would always stop cold turkey after exams, when I was usually hitting about 300 mg a day. Definitely felt the alertness almost every time I consumed more caffeine and, surprisingly, never had any withdrawal symptoms outside of drowsiness.
I went fifteen months without consuming any caffeine or heavily acidic foods to get my GERD back in control. I don't think I've ever felt the same mental stimulation away from coffee. I understand that since I've been drinking coffee for such a long time it could have long-term effects, but I can't find anything that supports caffeine having long-term effects on the brain other than some mood and sleep patterns.
So, I'd be inclined to believe my baseline levels are generally around where I am now (a cup of coffee every few days). Taking from that, I do have a lot of faith that coffee is still a great mental stimulant for me, and it's not just bringing me back to my old normal.
Of course, I know I can't provide anymore evidence of this other than personal experience. I don't happen to have an MRI machine in my closet.
This is common with many types of drugs, especially stimulants. Your body's systems are homeostatic, they have a self regulating balance. When you introduce a drug that disrupts this your body attempts to compensate.
This is why users of stimulants, like caffeine, have to increase dosages over time to maintain the same effects. It's also part of why you have withdrawal.
I'm pretty sure that's the case, at least for myself. If I drink coffee every day, then I have normal levels of mental function when I am on caffeine and lower than normal at other times. I like coffee though and decaf just doesn't have the flavor, so I alternate weeks with and without coffee. Seems to work for me.
Definitely. If I drink more than a cup of coffee (admittedly, coffee here is strong stuff) per day, I would get anxious, derpy, and a little physically dependent. I restrict my caffeine to one cup of coffee per day and one or two cups of tea in the afternoon for just that reason.
Reading this gave me chills - the symptoms of withdrawal described here are not unlike those of a heroin addict gone cold turkey.
I can't imagine normal healthy people routinely taking a drug and teaching their children to take one. And yet this happens with coffee all the time. Many are even proud of their addiction ("coffee snobs").
As a recovered heroin addict I can say they're very different from going cold turkey. The symtoms may be the same but the intensity is the huge difference. Also, the mental process is very different too. Whenever people ask me what it's like I always say I'd rather have the pain of childbirth or terminal cancer. Pure hell is what it is. Oddly enough though, it's often times the more "benign" addictions that are hardest to kick. Maybe because there's less pressure to do so or because they're more socially acceptable.
Caffeine, like heroin,isn't completely bad in and of itself though. It's the effect of taking too much and becoming dependent on it that are the real problems. Even vitamins can be harmful to your health if you take too much (which is luckily quite hard to do because the body just can't absorb them efficiently, at least in pill form).
Drugs aren't bad. Behaviors are bad. What we do with them are bad. I'd have no problem having a cup of coffee with my child (if I had one and the kid was old enough). Now, had I not experienced real, severe addiction myself I don't think I'd feel this way and I can understand if others can't understand why I feel this way.
"'What’s it like,' Karla asked me once, 'cold turkey off heroin?' I tried to explain it. 'Think about every time in your life that you’ve ever been afraid, really afraid. Someone sneaks up behind you when you think you’re alone, and shouts to frighten you. The gang of thugs closes in
around you. You fall from a great height in a dream, or you stand on the very edge of a steep cliff. Someone holds you under water and you feel the breath gone, and you scramble, fight, and claw your way to the surface. You lose control of the car and see the wall rushing into your soundless shout. Then add them all up, all those chest-tightening terrors, and feel them all at once, all at the same time, hour after
hour, and day after day. And think of every pain you’ve ever
known—the burn with hot oil, the sharp sliver of glass, the broken bone, the gravel rash when you fell on the rough road in winter, the headache and the earache and the toothache. Then add them all up, all those groin-squeezing, stomach-tensing shrieks of pain, and feel them all at once, hour after hour, and day after day. Then think of every anguish you’ve ever known. Remember the death of a loved one. Remember a lover’s rejection. Recall your feelings of failure and shame and unspeakably bitter remorse. And add them all up, all the heart-stabbing griefs and miseries, and feel them all at once, hour after hour, and day after day. That’s cold turkey. Cold turkey off heroin is life with the skin torn away.'"
There was a heroin addict who filmed himself going cold turkey for his family, and at the end of the video, was himself on camera, having a brain hemorrhage.
You're right that it's very extremely different than caffeine but a brain hemorrhage? That's not typical of opiate withdrawal at all. In fact, even in the most severe cases of opiate addiction, the withdrawal itself is rarely life threatening. Very rarely life threatening. The drug class that does have a potentially fatal withdrawal syndrome is the benzodiazepines (anxiety meds like Xanax and I'm not sure if alcohol is in that same class but it has the same withdrawal syndrome). The danger with those are fatal seizures most of the time. But opiate withdrawal can't kill you unless there are other underlying conditions or something. I say this because drug education in the U.S. is awful and most people only know the misinformation they were taught in school and get the wrong idea from something like what you mentioned, a video where the guy has a hemmorage at the end which was most likely unrelated to opiates.
That said, all addiction is very similar. I would say that people more often than not really mean dependence rather than addiction when it comes to caffiene but the problem is that most people think of those terms as being the same thing. They're not. Dependence can exist separately of addiction but addiction will always go together with dependence. Dependence is (very simplified here for brevity) when your body relies on a substance from outside itself to function normally. Usually that's because you've put a substance in for so long that your brain downregulates certain chemicals because you're replacing what's already there with something from the outside. Take the substance away and it takes a bit for the body to realize you won't be putting in any more nicotine or caffiene or opiates so it takes a while before it starts producing enough acetylcholine or adrenaline or endorphins or whatever the case may be. Addiction is dependence plus a certain set of behaviors (again, trying to be brief and simple here). A caffeiene "addict" (read: dependant) isn't going to rob the local Starbucks to get a fix like a true addict would. You don't see these caffeine addicts ruining their lives because their persuit of coffee is interfering with their jobs or their marriage and such.
There's a big difference not only between the withdrawal syndromes but I also think an important point is to stop thinking of these people with such stories as addicts. They're probably just dependent. A guy who gets sick if he stops taking his antidepressants is dependent. A guy who can't stop himself from downing medication X and puts his persuit of substance X above all else with serious negative consequences in other areas of his life is an addict.
Opiate withdrawal can be extremely unpleasant, but the direct health risks are very low. Things like methadone exist to make things psychologically easier and reduce the rate of relapse. As mentioned, alcohol withdrawal is actually much more dangerous.
Anecdotal evidence I know, but I was a three cups/day guy for a while then quit cold turkey. After about a week of feeling a bit fuzzy and irritable I was back to normal. Is this atypical or something?
Nope, that's typical. I looked up the data a while back. 1-2 weeks is the general timescale for developing dependence and for withdrawal. Once your neurotransmitters reset, you're pretty much back to normal.
But, yes, drug and alcohol detox units save the beds for alcoholics (who can die during detox) and not for heroin addicts (who tend not to die during detox).
Hey now, let's not lump all addiction together. I'm a coffee snob (I drink 2 2-oz shots a day), but I'd say that 60% of it is because I love the taste of coffee. The other 40% is the ability to regulate my alertness better and that it's tough to find good decaf coffee.
I've quit caffeine several times. Each time I get headaches each morning (which can be controlled fine with aspirin) for about a week. Then I'm done. I've always gone back though after a couple months. I'm also addicted to chapstick. Those are my two addictions and I'm fine with them.
I recommend reading "Shantaram" if you want to get a written sense (not that I can confirm its accuracy) of the total hell that is cold turkey off heroin. Both may be tough and painful to quit, but in "Shantaram" the turn off heroin is described as: imagine everything that is in any way good in your life, your being: warmth between your toes, energy to look up at the sky, hope for tomorrow, etc: now imagine every single shred of that positive-chemical-energy is shredded. What's left is all the horrible pain of being with none of the chemicals that help us get by. Or something like that. Great book, mostly about Bombay in the 80s and heroin only has small focus, but really worth the read!
I've been addicted to coffee before, quit it for a couple of years, then chose to start drinking it again. It wasn't nearly as bad for me as described here. Sure, it's a week in which your life sucks more than usual, and you have a kind of constant nagging headache. But then it's over, and you're fine. It's really nothing like a heroin addict going cold turkey; though I've never tried heroin, from what I've heard of going cold turkey on heroin, it's far more harrowing. Perhaps the OP is exaggerating slightly, or perhaps he had a stronger reaction than I did. Given other people I've talked to who have quit caffeine, their experience is about like mine; a week or so of nagging headaches and just feeling kind of lousy (like a low-grade flu), and then you're fine.
I decided later on that I really liked the regularity of coffee; something hot and stimulating every morning, that I would be able to look forward to. I also like the taste of coffee (once I acquired a taste for it). And caffeine does improve productivity; the additional wakefulness and concentration are helpful. Now, when you get addicted, you lose that benefit; the same amount of caffeine puts you back at your baseline performance. But I can, on occasion, have a second cup of coffee when I need a little boost; it's a lot easier for me to do that when I'm drinking coffee regularly, since if I have caffeine when I'm not drinking it regularly, I find it makes me a little too jittery and anxious. Being used to it helps smooth out its effects.
Now, that's not to say that caffeine isn't without its downsides. That week of withdrawal symptoms did suck; and if I need to quit again, or don't have access to caffeine for a few days, it sucks all over again (especially if I'm too sick to drink coffee, I now wind up with withdrawal symptoms on top of my existing problem). And for some people coffee is too hard on the stomach, or can cause other problems like anxiety; whether that's the case for you depends on your body.
Caffeine can be either helpful or harmful, depending on the person and how you use it. The harm generally is fairly mild. I started drinking it this time around consciously, knowing full well what it's like to quit, and knowing what the advantages are, and I decided that the advantages outweighed the disadvantages, at least for myself.
I doubt the author's experience was actually as bad as going cold turkey off heroin, but he does describe a caffeine intake amount that is nearly unbelievable to me and I'm someone who probably drinks way too much caffeine myself.
>I can't imagine normal healthy people routinely taking a drug and teaching their children to take one. And yet this happens with coffee all the time. Many are even proud of their addiction ("coffee snobs").
It also happens with sugars, salt, corn syrup and tons of other stuff.
Lots of things can be a "drug". Coffee, when drank in moderation, is actually absolutely beneficial to one's health.
I can't speak to salt, but the classic explanation for sugar and high fructose corn syrup is Robert Lustig's UCSF presentation[0]. Midway through he discusses the differences between HFCS and sugar in how they metabolized, including the brain aspects. (Hint: consider the long-term effects of alcohol up there.) Definitely worth the 90 minute investment of attention.
Consuming large amounts of them can cause you to have temporary bursts of pleasure, which then cause you to crave them more when they are missing. Have you never had the experience of eating something salty, and realizing that you craved more, to the point where you ate too much salt? Or had some sugar, and then had a sugar crash a little while later, where you got grumpy until you could have something to eat?
That does not make salt or corn syrup a "drug", which is what brador asked about.
Your definition is so broad as to make the term "drug" meaningless, as it means that even water is a drug. Yes, after swimming in the ocean waves for an hour, cold freshwater is pure pleasure, and if I haven't had enough water for a while I start to suffer from dehydration.
A friend of mine has to eat a small amount every few others, else she becomes irritable. I've sometimes forgotten to eat until the afternoon, with little effect on my personality. Does that mean that food is a drug to her, or that she's more addicted to food than I am?
Obviously not.
Can you come up with a better definition of "drug" which makes makes sense? That is, one where "water" and "food" are not drugs, but for which salt and corn syrup is a drug?
I don't really know. I was explaining the above comment, not agreeing with it.
One of the problems is that we have this value judgement associated with the word "drug." Once you label something a "drug", it acquires a negative connotation.
One thing that distinguishes a drug from something like water is that you actually, physically depend on water; you cannot live without it. You can, however, live without sugar (though of course, your body will break down complex carbs into sugar). You can't live without salt, though there's a wide range between how much you need and how much many people eat.
I hope that "drug" also acquires a positive connotation. Aspirin is a drug. Insulin is a drug. Penicillin is a drug. During pollen season, I reach for my loratadine.
Your definition is one characteristic between a drug and a non-drug, but it doesn't suffice. Meat is not essential, as the various vegetarians and vegans on this planet confirm. Does that make meat a drug? A Google search says that a few dozen people have asked, and answered that in the affirmative.
While Vilhjálmur Stefánsson and others showed that people can survive on just meat and entrails; are vegetables drugs?
I read that. It's one of the worse Wikipedia pages I've come across. Did you see that it cites the same paper twice, with different style for each one?
Anyway, I read the paper. It concludes "we suggest that sugar, as common as it is, nonetheless meets the criteria for a substance of abuse and may be “addictive” for some individuals when consumed in a “binge-like” manner. This conclusion is reinforced by the changes in limbic system neurochemistry that are similar for the drugs and for sugar. The effects we observe are smaller in magnitude than those produced by drug of abuse such as cocaine or morphine; however, the fact that these behaviors and neurochemical changes can be elicited with a natural reinforcer is interesting. _It is not clear from this animal model if intermittent sugar access can result in neglect of social activities as required by the definition of dependency in the DSM-IV-TR_ (American Psychiatric Association, 2000). Nor is it known whether rats will continue to self-administer sugar despite physical obstacles, such as enduring pain to obtain sugar, as some rats do for cocaine (Deroche-Gamonet et al., 2004). Nonetheless, the extensive series of experiments revealing similarities between sugar-induced and drug-induced behavior and neurochemistry, as chronicled in Sections 4 and 5, lends credence to the concept of “sugar addiction”, gives precision to its definition, and provides a testable model."
As you can see (assuming my HN markup-foo is strong), sugar has not been shown to (or shown not to) lead to the definition of "dependency" for humans, which is a neglect of social activities. So this remains a conjecture with some supporting evidence, but not enough to make the statement that sugar is or even can be an addictive substance.
Do you have a citation for the "caffeine is healthy" claim? This seems like rationalization to me; as a non-drinker of caffeine, coffee seems like the number one legal drug in the Western world.
There is evidence of a bunch of mild benefits (and also mild risks). I'd currently say it looks like a small net benefit, but with a confidence interval that would include negative territory. In general, it seems reasonable to drink coffee if you like it. It certainly is an addictive drug, though.
Caffeine has been relentlessly studied for evidence of ill effect and, as you know, science publishing is biased toward positive results (so expect to see one positive p=0.05 outcome for 20 studies of a non-effect). I suspect that the puritan streak in our society which suspects that anything we enjoy must have an underlying evil plays a role.
In any event, the evidence of the ills of caffeine is so poor as to suggest a smattering of false positives. The studies showing positive effects should be viewed with similar skepticism, although if it does have some role in preventing Alzheimer's surely that's enough on its own.
It seems to me hard to really say whether caffeine is healthy or not. Rather the modern western lifestyle -- a lifestyle we've agreed to, or accepted, for the most part -- that has very little to do with biological rhythm needs to be evaluated for its health effects. As long as we're going to accept that everyone is going to work long mid-days in unison, sleep 8 hours per night, in unison, etc: then we're going to appreciate aids (fluorescent lights, caffeine, heaters, air conditioners, melatonin, food) that help us conform with everyone else.
Some may not feel they need caffeine as much as others: so be it. But the idea that any of us can really be deemed healthy or not, due to whether or not caffeine is part of the diet, seems to me to lose the forest through the trees
I've been without coffee for two months now. Having been someone that loved coffee and needed it to "survive" the daily work environment, if I was to have just quit it voluntarily, it wouldn't have happened.
For me I was on a business trip where I fell ill prior to the flight home. Lets just say that it wasn't pretty, my girlfriend picked me up from the Airport struggling to stand up. The next week I wasn't able to eat anything surviving on water.
Seeing that I consumed an unhealthy amount of coffee daily, and how I hadn't had one in a week, I decided to make the break while I could. I was already weak from what ever I had picked up on that trip, but it was nothing to the next few weeks. I was lucky to only get mild headaches, but the lethargy and the sleepless nights drove me insane.
Having read this article, I'm now re-thinking what I eat as well. I too challenge the heat of my curries... and thanks to desk jobs I don't get out that much. Looks like I'll be changing things shortly.
One kicker that has happened to my health since this change, an ailment that I had never had prior to the removal of coffee, has caffeine as a way to help reduce the effects. My body... hates me.
Never having liked the taste of coffee, I rarely drink it. I think the first time I had one was in a school field trip where everyone decided to pull our first all-nighter. Now I only use it when I need to finish something with a deadline and I can't possibly sleep to do it (this would be mitigated with better time management, but alas, this is how it is).
Never having made an habit of it though, a single espresso (1 once) gives me the jitters, a slight disturbing feeling in my heart area and keeps me fully pumped up for about ~4 hours if I am falling asleep when I take it.
I think this way of using it is much more valuable than "wasting" it by accustoming my body to a morning "pick-me-up" ritual.
I used to be addicted to soda as a kid, but quit it in high school. Now 21, I can count the number of caffinated beverages I've drunk on my hands since 16. I get the same reaction to caffeine now.
It is really scary to think the norm is to guzzle that stuff like candy daily.
I love coffee and drink it pretty much every day. The issue I found with coffee drinkers in North America (when I lived there) was that most people would order huge cups of extremely sweetened coffee. I use to call it sugar water with coffee flavor. The general level of quality of coffee was also quite poor.
I generally drink my coffee with a little bit of milk and no sugar. It is quite easy to do when you get an amazing shot of espresso (or make it yourself at home with an AeroPress for eg.)
I never really feel any kind of disturbing feeling from coffee. I do get that feeling from energy drinks and generally avoid them.
I agree with your utilitarian approach to coffee, I drink it with the same mindset. The only problem is I love the taste, the smell, just the whole experience of a good cup of coffee.
I just finished my first year without it. First few months were pretty hard, but I got over it. Saved a bunch of money, got more confident in social situations, lost some weight. It was good enough, I've just started my second year...
It’s interesting how they’re both so important to humanity. We socialise over alcohol all the time, and we’re more productive with a little bit of caffeine each day. Plus it’s generally safer to drink beer and boiled beverages than water.
Since both green teas and black teas are made from the same plant -a plant that contains caffeine- it seems likely both tea variants contain caffeine. The withering & oxidation processes might increase the caffeine in black teas though: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_processing
If you want a caffeine free tea that tastes well (imo), consider Rooibos tea. It contains no caffeine whatsoever: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rooibos
I like Rooibos tea. Just ordered a huge bag from Amazon. But because it doesn't have caffeine, it doesn't have the same wakefulness effect that tea does.
I also drink coffee sometimes. And even though both contain caffeine there is big difference. When I talk about tea's wake-fullness it is more like alertness, a much more gradual and pleasant effect than coffee. Coffee is like having someone constantly slapping me on the face. It is more noticeable and it is too distracting. But I also happen to like the taste of a good cup of coffee so I drink it then quit after a while, get headaches, go back to my tea and then after a month of two do it again.
This seems like the place to point out the difference between a tea and a tisane: rooibos is a tisane, or "herbal tea," because it is not made from a tea plant.
Sort of an odd question, but have you found that the flora of your mouth changed when you cut out all of the acidity and sugary drinks? Less plaque \ bad breath?
How long does it take you to go from first opening your eyes when you awake, to being 'normally awake'? One of my big things is to get out of bed ASAP and get a dose of caffeine right away (powdered, usually). It's a fairly small dose (50mg) but I found that I really despise the first few waking moments enough to keep it up.
I quit caffeine cold-turkey about a month ago and when I was still drinking caffeine I was much like you brewing a killer espresso at home or having an energy drink on the way to work.
The basic gist seems to be that caffeine allows you to not have a healthy morning ritual. After you quit you'll have to learn to have a decent breakfast and ideally some exercise as well, since otherwise you'll most likely just be a zombie until lunch every day.
Well I don't drink coffee (i can't remember if I've ever finished a cup), and I love to sleep (not an early bird). I can tell you that I have to wake up at Retty early hours (like 5 in the morning or earlier, never the same hour) due to my work, and I never feel sleepy the way coffee drinkers do. Neither I need to exercise.
I am also aboe to have heavy breakfasts very early, unlike coffee drinkers who usually can't eat more than a toast.
I don't know that many people who doesn't drink coffee, so I don't know if my experience is common or not.
Going off caffeine gives me 2-3 days of indescribable headaches, then it's a pronounced fatigue for another 2 weeks. It ain't pretty.
However, if coffee must be eliminated from your diet, I believe you can always use caffeine pills - same energy without any side effects on the stomach.
I like the taste of coffee but don't feel like a need or want the caffeine boost. Decaf coffees don't taste the same though either. So once in a while I go for about a week or so of drinking coffee, then quit and pay for it with headaches.
I switched to decaffeinated coffee a couple of years ago (why?[1]). I was drinking about 250mg worth of caffeine a day before I stopped. I had a week of bad headaches, interrupted sleep, night sweats and crankiness and I was done. It's not nice but it's only a week or so. I avoided taking painkillers to mask the symptoms as some contain caffeine (especially the "Express" versions) to speed up the body's metabolism and get them into the bloodstream quicker; suffering the full symptoms also serves as a reminder of why I was doing it.
Decaf still contains some caffeine, so my 5 cups a day are probably still giving me ~25mg or so of caffeine. I drink it because I like the taste of coffee although I'm considering giving it up completely. I'm not a coffee snob and I'm happy with the taste of instant coffee.
25mg is still less caffeine than is contained in a single can of Coke (36mg).
Years ago I stopped eating chocolate and drinking soda for both dental and health reasons (I want to avoid the increased risk of Type II Diabetes from large intakes of sugary drinks).
I still, once a week maybe, have a non-decaf coffee if decaf isn't available, but I try to limit myself to one that day as I do notice the buzz from having a full strength coffee again.
1. Primary driver was in preparation for some long distance cycling where I'd be getting <10 hours (in total) sleep[2] over 4 days. I needed caffeine to have its old effect of giving me a temporary boost in case I was a few hours from somewhere where I could comfortably get some sleep[3]. Secondary driver was that it's a pernicious drug that I wanted to drop any dependency on.
2. I cope with sleep deprivation very well, indeed I coped a lot better with lack of sleep than a lot of other people on the event. Having children is good training for sleep deprivation (or at least not getting more than 3 hours sleep in a single stretch).
3. My planned naps (one or two hours a day) staved off most of the problems but I did get caught out a couple of times. One was at night and so I loaded up with coffee (many locals along the route set up roadside stalls giving out free coffee and food to riders) to keep myself awake for the three hours to the next control where I slept; the other was during the day when it was nice and sunny so I had an hour long nap on some grass by the road side.
When I'm coming up to weightlifting competitions I wean myself off coffee (by progressively substituting regular coffee for decaf in my espresso machine) for the same reason: I want to increase the effect on mental energy, but not have the side-effects such as sweaty hands or shakiness.
I get more work done without caffeine. When I use caffeine, my attention level spikes and plunges. The increased productivity of the spikes doesn't make up for the dips.
if you haven't (though i suspect you have) i would suggest giving napping one more try now you're caffeine free. it's seriously good if you can get it to work.
Good thought, andrew, but it still doesn't work for me. It's hard to wake up from a nap, and I'm dazed - and tired! - afterwards. I've tried this all times of day, and each time it's like being clobbered by a baseball bat.
I have had similar issues so mostly a "nap" for me is closing my eyes while laying down in a dark room for 20 minutes at most, often with my hands behind my head.
This was my thought. The author does mention a combination of drugs that his doctor put him on, which is probably the "triple therapy" of antibiotics and a proton-pump inhibitor.
After this part of the story, incidentally, is when he starts getting better. Maybe it was the lack of coffee, but the antibiotics were probably helpful too.
Author is not talking about that, but from what I know testing for H. Pylori and E. Coli is part of any endoscopy. Stomach ulcers may and do appear even if there is no harmful bacteria in a stomach.
This is scary to read. GERD, Barrett's Esophagus and acid reflux is not to be taken lightly. It is life altering. I have a relative who has to take 3 days every year to be sedated and have their throat stretched, another 3 later to have it scoped and this is after the surgery that effectively tied her esophagus in a knot (she can't physically vomit).
If you're popping antacids all of the time, be wary.
I used to have some very bad problems with acidity as well, to the point where my doctor thought I might have had acute ulcerative colitis, but what fixed it for me was sleeping more, eating better, and exercising more frequently.
I still drink 1-3 cups of coffee a day (every few months I go for a week without coffee, just to make sure I can still function without it), and have had no flare-ups or problems since I changed the rest of my lifestyle habits.