The Coffee-Cortisol Connection, And Two Ways To Tweak It For Health
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Health opinions on coffee vary from “it’s an invigorating, healthful drink” to “it will leave you a shaking frazzled wreck”. So, what’s the truth and can we enjoy it healthily? Dr. Alan Mandell weighs in:
Enjoy it, but watch out!
Dr. Mandell is speaking only for caffeinated coffee in this video, and to this end, he’s conflating the health effects of coffee and caffeine. A statistically reasonable imprecision, since most people drink coffee with its natural caffeine in, but we’ll make some adjustment to his comments below, to disambiguate which statements are true for coffee generally, and which are true for caffeine:
- Drinking
coffeecaffeine first thing in the morning may not be ideal due to dehydration from overnight water loss. Coffeecaffeine is a diuretic, which means an increase in urination, thus further dehydrating the body.- Coffee contains great antioxidants, which are of course beneficial for the health in general.
- Cortisol, the body’s stress hormone, is generally at its peak in the morning. This is, in and of itself, good and correct—it’s how we wake up.
Coffeecaffeine consumption raises cortisol levels even more, leading to increased alertness and physical readiness, but it is possible to have too much of a good thing, and in this case, problems can arise because…- Elevated cortisol from early
coffeecaffeine drinking can build tolerance, leading to the need for morecoffeecaffeine over time. - It’s better, therefore, to defer drinking
coffeecaffeine until later in the morning when cortisol levels naturally drop. - All of this means that drinking
coffeecaffeine first thing can disrupt the neuroendocrine system, leading to fatigue, depression, and general woe. - Hydrate first thing in the morning before consuming
coffeecaffeine to keep the body balanced and healthy.
What you can see from this is that coffee and caffeine are not, in fact, interchangeable words, but the basic message is clear and correct: while a little spike of cortisol in the morning is good, natural, and even necessary, a big spike is none of those things, and caffeine can cause a big spike, and since for most people caffeine is easy to build tolerance to, there will indeed consistently be a need for more, worsening the problem.
In terms of hydration, it’s good to have water (or better yet, herbal tea) on one’s nightstand to drink when one wakes up.
If coffee is an important morning ritual for you, consider finding a good decaffeinated version for at least your first cup (this writer is partial to Lavazza’s “Dek Intenso”—which is not the same as their main decaf line, by the way, so do hold out for the “Dek Intenso” if you want to try my recommendation).
Decaffeinated coffee is hydrating and will not cause a cortisol spike (unless for some reason you find coffee as a concept very stressful in which case, yes, the stressor will cause a stress response).
Anyway, for more on all of this, enjoy:
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Omega-3 Mushroom Spaghetti
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The omega-3 is not the only healthy fat in here; we’re also going to have medium-chain triglycerides, as well as monounsaturates. Add in the ergothioneine from the mushrooms and a stack of polyphenols from, well, most of the ingredients, not to mention the fiber, and this comes together as a very healthy dish. There’s also about 64g protein in the entire recipe, so you do the math for how much that is per serving, depending on how big you want the servings to be.
You will need
- 1lb wholewheat spaghetti (or gluten-free equivalent, such as a legume-based pasta, if avoiding gluten/wheat)
- 12oz mushrooms, sliced (any non-poisonous edible variety)
- ½ cup coconut milk
- ½ onion, finely chopped
- ¼ cup chia seeds
- ¼ bulb garlic, minced (or more, if you like)
- 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 1 tbsp black pepper, coarse ground
- 1 tbsp lime juice
Method
(we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)
1) Cook the spaghetti according to packet instructions, or your own good sense, aiming for al dente. When it’s done, drain it, and lastly rinse it (with cold water), and set it aside.
2) Heat the olive oil in a skillet and add the onion, cooking for 5 minutes
3) Add the garlic, mushrooms, and black pepper, cooking for another 8 minutes.
4) Add the coconut milk, lime juice, and chia seeds, stirring well and cooking for a further two minutes
5) Reheat the spaghetti by passing boiling water through it in a colander (the time it spent cold was good for it; it lowered the glycemic index)
6) Serve, adding the mushroom sauce to the spaghetti:
Enjoy!
Want to learn more?
For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:
- The Magic of Mushrooms: “The Longevity Vitamin” (That’s Not A Vitamin)
- The Many Health Benefits of Garlic
- Black Pepper’s Impressive Anti-Cancer Arsenal (And More)
- If You’re Not Taking Chia, You’re Missing Out
Take care!
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Healthy Hormones And How To Hack Them
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Healthy Hormones And How To Hack Them!
Hormones are vital for far more than they tend to get credit for. Even the hormones that people think of first—testosterone and estrogen—do a lot more than just build/maintain sexual characteristics and sexual function. Without them, we’d lack energy, we’d be depressed, and we’d soon miss the general smooth-running of our bodies that we take for granted.
And that’s without getting to the many less-talked-about hormones that play a secondary sexual role or are in the same general system…
How are your prolactin levels, for example?
Unless you’re ill, taking certain medications, recently gave birth, or picked a really interesting time to read this newsletter, they’re probably normal, by the way.
But, prolactin can explain “la petite mort”, the downturn in energy and the somewhat depressed mood that many men experience after orgasm.
Otherwise, if you have too much prolactin in general, you will be sleepy and depressed.
Prolactin’s primary role? In women, it stimulates milk production when needed. In men, it plays a role in regulating mood and metabolism.
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How To Avoid UTIs
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Psst… A Word To The Wise
Urinary Tract Infections (UTIs) can strike at any age, but they get a lot more common as we get older:
- About 10% of women over 65 have had one
- About 30% of women over 85 have had one
Source: Urinary tract infection in older adults
Note: those figures are almost certainly very underreported, so the real figures are doubtlessly higher. However, we print them here as they’re still indicative of a disproportionate increase in risk over time.
What about men?
Men do get UTIs too, but at a much lower rate. The difference in average urethra length means that women are typically 30x more likely to get a UTI.
However! If a man does get one, then assuming the average longer urethra, it will likely take much more treatment to fix:
Case study: 26-Year-Old Man With Recurrent Urinary Tract Infections
Risk factors you might want to know about
While you may not be able to do much about your age or the length of your urethra, there are some risk factors that can be more useful to know:
Catheterization
You might logically think that having a catheter would be the equivalent of having a really long urethra, thus keeping you safe, but unfortunately, the opposite is true:
Read more: Review of Catheter-Associated Urinary Tract Infections
Untreated menopause
Low estrogen levels can cause vaginal tissue to dry, making it easier for pathogens to grow.
For more information on menopausal HRT, see:
What You Should Have Been Told About Menopause Beforehand
Sexual activity
Most kinds of sexual activity carry a risk of bringing germs very close to the urethra. Without wishing to be too indelicate: anything that’s going there should be clean, so it’s a case for washing your hands/partner(s)/toys etc.
For the latter, beyond soap and water, you might also consider investing in a UV sanitizer box ← This example has a 9” capacity; if you shop around though, be sure to check the size is sufficient!
Kidney stones and other kidney diseases
Anything that impedes the flow of urine can raise the risk of a UTI.
See also: Keeping Your Kidneys Healthy (Especially After 60)
Diabetes
How much you can control this one will obviously depend on which type of diabetes you have, but diabetes of any type is an immunocompromizing condition. If you can, managing it as well as possible will help many aspects of your health, including this one.
More on that:
How To Prevent And Reverse Type 2 Diabetes
Note: In the case of Type 1 Diabetes, the above advice will (alas) not help you to prevent or reverse it. However, reducing/avoiding insulin resistance is even more important in cases of T1D (because if your exogenous insulin stops working, you die), so the advice is good all the same.
How do I know if I have a UTI?
Routine screening isn’t really a thing, since the symptoms are usually quite self-evident. If it hurts/burns when you pee, the most likely reason is a UTI.
Get it checked out; the test is a (non-invasive) urinalysis test. In other words, you’ll give a urine sample and they’ll test that.
Anything else I can do to avoid it?
Yes! We wrote previously about the benefits of cranberry supplementation, which was found even to rival antibiotics:
❝…recommend cranberry ingestion to decrease the incidence of urinary tract infections, particularly in individuals with recurrent urinary tract infections. This would also reduce the [need for] administration of antibiotics❞
Read more: Health Benefits Of Cranberries
Take care!
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No Time to Panic – by Matt Gutman
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Matt Gutman is not a doctor or a psychologist. He’s a journalist, accustomed to asking questions and then asking more probing questions, unrelenting until he gets the answers he’s looking for.
This book is the result of what happened when he needed to overcome his own anxiety and panic attacks, and went on an incisive investigative journey.
The style is as clear and accessible as you’d expect of a journalist, and presents a very human exploration, nonetheless organized in a way that will be useful to the reader.
It’s said that “experience is a great teacher, but she sends hefty bills”. In this case as in many, it’s good to learn from someone else’s experience!
By the end of the book, you’ll have a good grounding in most approaches to dealing with anxiety and panic attacks, and an idea of efficacy/applicability, and what to expect.
Bottom line: without claiming any magic bullet, this book presents six key strategies that Gutman found to work, along with his experiences of what didn’t. Valuable reading if you want to curb your own anxiety, or want to be able to help/support someone else with theirs.
Click here to check out No Time To Panic, and find the peace you deserve!
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Perfectionism, And How To Make Yours Work For You
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Harness The Power Of Your Perfectionism
A lot of people see perfectionism as a problem—and it can be that!
We can use perfectionism as a would-be shield against our fear of failure, by putting things off until we’re better prepared (repeat forever, or at least until the deadliniest deadline that ever deadlined), or do things but really struggle to draw a line under them and check them off as “done” because we keep tweaking and improving and improving… With diminishing returns (forever). So, that’s not helpful.
But, if we’re mindful, we can also leverage our perfectionism to our benefit.
Great! How?
First we need to be able to discern the ways in which perfectionism can be bad or good for us. Or as it’s called in psychology, ways in which our perfectionism can be maladaptive or adaptive.
- Maladaptive: describing a behavioral adaptation to our environment—specifically, a reactive behavioral adaptation that is unhealthy and really is not a solution to the problem at hand
- Adaptive: describing a behavioral adaptation to our environment—specifically, a responsive behavioral adaptation that is healthy and helps us to thrive
So in the case of perfectionism, one example for each might be:
- Maladaptive: never taking up that new hobby, because you’re just going to suck at it anyway, and what’s the point if you’re not going to excel? You’re a perfectionist, and you don’t settle for anything less than excellence.
- Adaptive: researching the new hobby, learning the basics, and recognizing that even if the results are not immediately perfect, the learning process can be… Yes, even with mistakes along the way, for they too are part of learning! You’re a perfectionist, and you’re going to be the best possible student of your new hobby.
Did you catch the key there?
When it comes to approaching things we do in life—either because we want to or because we must—there are two kinds of mindset: goal-oriented, and task-oriented.
Broadly speaking, each has their merits, and as a general topic, it’s beyond the scope of today’s main feature. Here we’re looking at it in the context of perfectionism, and in that frame, there’s a clear qualitative difference:
- The goal-oriented perfectionist will be frustrated to the point of torment, at not immediately attaining the goal. Everything short of that will be a means to an end, at best. Not fun.
- The task-oriented perfectionist will take joy in going about the task in the best way possible, and optimizing their process as they go. The journey itself will be rewarding and a tangible product of their consistent perfectionism.
The good news is: you get to choose! You’re not stuck in a box.
If you’re thinking “I’m a perfectionist and I’m generally a goal-oriented person”, that’s fine. You’re just going to need to reframe your goals.
- Instead of: my goal is to be fluent in Arabic
- …so you never speak it, because to err is human, all too human, and you’re a perfectionist, so you don’t want that!
- Let’s try: my goal is to study Arabic for at least 15 minutes per day, every day, without fail, covering at least some new material each time, no matter how small the increase
- …and then you go and throw yourself into conversation way out of your depth, make mistakes, and get corrections, because that’s how you learn, and you’re a perfectionist, so you want that!
This goes for any field of expertise, of course.
- If you want to play the violin solo in Carnegie Hall, you have to pick up your violin and practice each day.
- If you want to be a world-renowned pastry chef, you have to make a consistent habit of baking.
- If you want to write a bestselling book, you have to show up at your keyboard.
Be perfect all you want, but be the perfect student.
And as your skills grow, maybe you’ll upgrade that to also being the perfect practitioner, and perhaps later still, the perfect teacher.
But just remember:
Perfection comes not from the end goal (that would be backwards thinking!) but from the process (which includes mistakes; they’re an important part of learning; embrace them and grow!), so perfect that first.
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Prostate Health: What You Should Know
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Prostate Health: What You Should Know
We’re aware that very many of our readers are women, who do not have a prostate.
However, dear reader: if you do have one, and/or love someone who has one, this is a good thing to know about.
The prostate gland is a (hopefully) walnut-sized gland (it actually looks a bit like a walnut too), that usually sits just under the bladder.
See also: How to Locate Your Prostate*
*The scale is not great in these diagrams, but they’ll get the job done. Besides, everyone is different on the inside, anyway. Not in a “special unique snowflake” way, but in a “you’d be surprised how much people’s insides move around” way.
Fun fact: did you ever feel like your intestines are squirming? That’s because they are.
You can’t feel it most of the time due to the paucity of that kind of nervous sensation down there, but the peristaltic motion that they use to move food along them on the inside, also causes them push against the rest of your guts, on the outside of them. This is the exact same way that many snakes move about.
If someone has to perform an operation in that region, sometimes it will be necessary to hang the intestines on a special rack, to keep them in one place for the surgery.
What can go wrong?
There are two very common things that can go wrong with the prostate:
- Benign Prostate Hyperplasia (BPH), otherwise known as an enlarged prostate
- Prostate cancer
For most men, the prostate gland continues to grow with age, which is how the former comes about so frequently.
For everyone, due to the nature of the mathematics involved in cellular mutation and replication, we will eventually get cancer if something else doesn’t kill us first.
- Prostate cancer affects 12% of men overall, and 60% of men aged 60+, with that percentage climbing each year thereafter.
- Prostate cancer can look like BPH in the early stages (and/or, an enlarged prostate can turn cancerous) so it’s important to not shrug off the symptoms of BPH.
How can BPH be avoided/managed?
There are prescription medications that can help reduce the size of the prostate, including testosterone blockers (such as spironolactone and bicalutamide) and 5α-reductase inhibitors, such as finasteride. Each have their pros and cons:
- Testosterone-blockers are the heavy-hitters, and work very well… but have more potential adverse side effects (your body is used to running on testosterone, after all)
- 5α-reductase inhibitors aren’t as powerful, but they block the conversion of free testosterone to dihydrogen testosterone (DHT), and it’s primarily DHT that causes the problems. By blocking the conversion of T to DHT, you may actually end up with higher serum testosterone levels, but fewer ill-effects. Exact results will vary depending on your personal physiology, and what else you are taking, though.
There are also supplements that can help, including saw palmetto and pumpkin seed oil. Here’s a good paper that covers both:
We have recommended saw palmetto before for a variety of uses, including against BPH:
Too much or too little testosterone? This one supplement may fix that
You might want to avoid certain medications that can worsen BPH symptoms (but not actually the size of the prostate itself). They include:
- Antihistamines
- Decongestants
- Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs)
- Tricyclic antidepressants (most modern antidepressants aren’t this kind; ask your pharmacist/doctor if unsure)
You also might want to reduce/skip:
- Alcohol
- Caffeine
In all the above cases, it’s because of how they affect the bladder, not the prostate, but given their neighborliness, each thing affects the other.
What if it’s cancer? How do I know and what do I do?
The creator of the Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) test has since decried it as “a profit-driven health disaster” that is “no better than a coin toss”, but it remains the first go-to of many medical services.
However, there’s a newer, much more accurate test, called the Prostate Screening Episwitch (PSE) test, which is 94% accurate, so you might consider asking your healthcare provider whether that’s an option:
The new prostate cancer blood test with 94 per cent accuracy
As for where to go from there, we’re out of space for today, but we previously reviewed a very good book about this, Dr. Patrick Walsh’s Guide to Surviving Prostate Cancer, and we highly recommend it—it could easily be a literal lifesaver.
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