“Pros and Cons
about Consuming Coffee”
Caffeine addict,
It feeling of “hanging out” with a cup of coffee can be described and
understood only by those who consume this hot and precious beverage. The habit
of drinking coffee cannot be compared to anything else. This habit is
especially experienced every time, over and over, each time drinking coffee.
Besides that coffee gives a sense of satisfaction, its consumption has certain
advantages very positive effect on health compared to other ingredients in
our daily intake. Coffee also has negative consequences in terms of health are
closely screaming with the inserted daily amount of coffee in the body. But
then, there are a number of undeniable advantages to come across us should we
decide to throw the coffee out of our life.
First, it'd be better
for diet. Some medicines and dietary supplements for weight loss. Caffeine is a primary ingredient in many
over the counter diet pills, but whether this actually has any effect on weight
loss (the theory is that metabolism in increased) remains undemonstrated in any
rigorous fashion. “Coffee consumption fits into a very healthy diet and, if
anything, may have a beneficial effect,” Dr. Eileen Madden, a toxicologist and
food-safety expert, told a symposium on coffee and health last fall at the New
York Academy of Sciences. There’s a good reason for that caffeine is one
of the very few natural substances that have actually been proven to aid
fat burning. Several studies show that caffeine can boost the metabolic rate by 3-11% (10, 11). Other studies show that caffeine can
specifically increase the burning of fat, by as much as 10% in obese
individuals and 29% in lean people
Second, the other
benefit of consuming coffee is coffee can improve energy levels and make you smarter.
Coffee can help people feel less tired and increase energy levels. This is
because it contains a stimulant called caffeine, which is actually the most commonly consumed
psychoactive substance in the world. After you drink coffee, the caffeine is
absorbed into the bloodstream. From there, it travels into the brain. In the
brain, caffeine blocks an inhibitory neurotransmitter called Adenosine. When that happens, the amount of other
neurotransmitters like nor epinephrine and dopamine actually increases, leading
to enhanced firing of neurons. Many controlled trials in humans show that
coffee improves various aspects of brain function. This includes memory, mood,
vigilance, energy levels, reaction times and general cognitive function.
On the
other hand, Caffeine Is Highly Addictive. About 68% of Americans in 2006 said
they were hooked on coffee, according to the National Coffee Association. This
one has some truth to it, depending on what you mean by "addictive."
Caffeine is a stimulant to the central nervous system, and regular use of caffeine
does cause mild physical dependence "Caffeine exaggerates the
stress response,"
says James D. Lane, PhD, professor of medical psychology at Duke University
Medical Center in Durham, N.C., and a long-time caffeine researcher. "At
the cellular level, caffeine locks the receptor normally used by adenosine, a
brain modulator that provides feedback to avoid overstimulation of nerve cells.
If adenosine is locked up, nothing keeps the nervous system from getting too
excited at a cellular level." And Roland R. Griffiths, PhD, professor in
the departments of psychiatry and neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University
School of Medicine in Baltimore and a veteran researcher in the area. Caffeine
is addictive for some people, he says. “There’s no question that caffeine does
produce dependence, and caffeine withdrawal is a real syndrome."
According
to the other sources, coffee consumption has also negative health effects.
Caffeine is such a powerful stimulant, people are known to have overdosed on
espressos, and drinking too much has been associated with negative health
effects, such as insomnia, jitteriness, dieresis and headaches. The
Mayo Clinic
state that consuming more than 500-600 mg of caffeine a day may lead to
insomnia, nervousness,
restlessness, irritability, an
upset stomach,
a fast heartbeat and even muscle tremors. However, previous research has linked
even moderate amounts of caffeine to
health effects. Last year,
Medical News Today reported on a study
suggesting that consuming 300 mg of caffeine a day during pregnancy may
increase the
risk of low birth weight babies, while other research suggests that
drinking four cups of coffee a day may
increase the
risk of early death.
For
example, A wrongful-death lawsuit filed last week against the makers of Monster
energy drinks claims that 14-year-old Anais Fournier drank two 24-ounce cans of
Monster in the day before she unexpectedly died late in 2011. The coroner's
report described "caffeine toxicity" as contributing to her death.
Just what does it take to ingest a lethal dose of caffeine? The answer is hard
to pin down, in part because it happens so rarely, but it's clearly a hell of a
lot. In an email, Jack James, the editor-in-chief of the
Journal of Caffeine Research,
says that overdose for adults requires roughly 10 grams of caffeine. (People
typically ingest just 1 to 2 mg/kg of caffeine per beverage.) A
2005 Forensic Science International
article on two fatal caffeine overdoses in New Mexico pegs the
figure closer to about 5 grams--an amount that would still require drinking
more than 6 gallons of McDonald's coffee. Whereas a normal cup of coffee might
bring the concentration of caffeine in your plasma to 2.5 to 7 mg/L, the two
people who died in New Mexico--a woman who might've used caffeine to cut
intravenous drugs, and a man whose family said he ingested a bottle of sleeping
pills--both had concentrations 100 times higher. (A
web application called "Death By
Caffeine" uses a benchmark around 6 grams per hundred pounds of
body weight to estimate death, but it's "for entertainment purposes
only.")
So if a
true caffeine overdose is so rare, why has caffeine--perhaps the most widely
used drug in North America--been blamed for contributing to
a handful of
deaths over the years? Perhaps because it almost always works in concert
with other far more nefarious factors such as alcohol or heart conditions.
Indeed, the suit filed in California points out that Fournier suffered from
Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. According to the autopsy report, the cause of death was
a cardiac arrhythmia that the caffeine brought on. But the arrhythmia was also
complicated by "mitral valve regurgitation in the setting of
Ehrlers-Danlos syndrome," which affects collagen synthesis and thus
multiple body systems, including the cardiovascular system.
"Caffeine
toxicity of the kind experienced by Ms. Fournier (if, indeed, that is what she
experienced) is not well understood," James says. "There is
speculation in the literature regarding the possibility of some individuals
having a peculiar sensitivity to caffeine, but there is no clear definition or
understanding of what such sensitivity might be.
"One
thing is clear: Anais's caffeine intake simply would not be harmful for most
people. Two cans of Monster each contain 240 mg of caffeine, which the lawsuit
equated with the caffeine of 14 12-oz. cans of Coca-Cola. While drinking 14
Cokes sounds positively disgusting, the caffeine therein is actually well
within the bounds of what
many people
consume in a day. For instance, Starbucks Pike Place coffee would
deliver that 480 mg of caffeine with just 24 ounces of Joe. As Mark F. McCarty,
an applied nutritionist in San Diego, said: "I don't see another case of a
child who died from acute exposure to the equivalent of four coffee cups of
caffeine. That strikes me as extremely rare. I can't imagine that Monster was
worried about this, because there's nothing in the literature to suggest this
would happen."
