Is Coffee Good or Bad For You?

Photo by Toni Cuenca: https://www.pexels.com/photo/coffee-mug-surrounded-with-coffee-beans-585753/

A common problem with health and wellness information is that our bodies are incredibly complex and have a high individual variability in terms of things like physiology and biochemistry. Articles, videos, podcasts, etc. simply can’t take into account all the variables. Even in-depth research studies can’t account for more than a small percentage of the possibilities.

So, when one goes looking for an answer to a question like, “Is coffee (or caffeine) good or bad for you,” the answer is pretty much always, “It depends.”

In the case of coffee, and for the purposes of this article, I’m talking about coffee with its natural caffeine content intact, the “it depends” part comes down to several factors. The most important of these are probably the health of the individual consuming it, how much caffeine they consume and how often they consume it, how much water they’re also drinking, and what time of day they consume coffee or other caffeinated beverages and foods.

Let’s start with the health of the individual. Most people in reasonably good health can drink up to 4 or 5 cups of coffee per day and enjoy the increased alertness and focus it provides without significant ill-effects, with the one caveat that they cut off their consumption 8 to 10 hours before they go to sleep.

But there are certain health conditions that are typically made worse by coffee and other caffeinated beverages, and therefore people with these conditions are generally advised to limit or avoid consuming caffeine. These include:

• Heart arrhythmias

• Irritable bowel syndrome / acute diarrhea

• High blood pressure

• Glaucoma

• Overactive bladder

• Seizure disorders

• Anxiety and panic disorders

• GERD (gastro-esophageal reflux)

• Sleep disorders

• Pregnancy and breast-feeding

The next issue is how much caffeine one is taking in at a time and how frequently they consume it. It’s generally recommended that to get the benefits of enhanced alertness, focus, and energy that caffeine provides, an appropriate daily dosage is between 100 and 400 mg per day – or about 1 to 4 eight ounce cups of regular coffee. Generally, if you’re consuming towards the higher end of that scale, it’s best to spread it out over several hours rather than taking a big hit all at once.

It’s important to bear in mind that caffeine has a diuretic effect, and as a general rule to maintain healthy hydration, it’s a good idea to drink extra water in about a 2 to 1 ratio to coffee. So, for example, if you are drinking 2 cups of coffee per day, you would want to consume 4 eight ounce glasses of water per day in addition to what you would normally take in.

Yes, that will typically result in a significantly increased need to urinate, so that may be an important consideration in how much coffee you decide to consume.

Finally, we come to the importance of when you consume coffee/caffeine. There’s actually two “whens” that are important.

First, as previously mentioned, it’s a good idea to cut off your caffeine consumption at least 8 to 10 hours before you plan on going to sleep. Even if you don’t notice any particular issues with coffee consumed closer to bedtime, objective sleep diagnostic studies have found that it does cause some degree of sleep disruption in the vast majority of individuals.

The second “when” has to do with caffeine’s effects on a chemical produced by the body called adenosine. Adenosine acts as sort of a clock that tells the body when to sleep.

When you are awake, adenosine levels gradually rise, and as the levels reach their peak at night, it makes you sleepy. While you are sleeping, the adenosine is gradually metabolized and when the levels reach a low point, you tend to wake up.

But when you first wake up, most people still have some adenosine left and it takes one to two hours from the time you wake up to fully or mostly deplete it.

Caffeine blocks the adenosine receptors and interferes with it being metabolized. If you drink coffee right when you wake up, it delays the residual adenosine from being used up. Meanwhile, as you are awake, the production of adenosine starts up again. So, when the stimulant effects of the caffeine wear off, you have more adenosine than you naturally would have, making for a sleepiness “crash” as the caffeine effects wane.

Because of this crash and subsequent crashes with additional caffeine consumption throughout the day, there’s a tendency to consume more caffeine than is really healthy, and/or to consume it later in the day, which leads to sleep disturbances and chronic issues with sleepiness and fatigue.

In most cases, if you delay your coffee/caffeine intake for 90 minutes to 2 hours after you wake, you’ll “burn off” the residual adenosine. Then when the caffeine stimulation wears off, your body is contending with less adenosine to make you sleepy and this helps ward off the cycle of crash – caffeine intake – crash – caffeine intake, etc..

In conclusion, moderate coffee/caffeine consumption is fine for most healthy individuals. By timing your consumption, you can benefit from the enhanced alertness and focus it provides without the issues of disturbed sleep and/or swings in energy that sometimes occur with it.

Until next time…

George F. Best, D.C.