The Bitter Truth About Coffee (or is it?)
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The Bitter Truth About Coffee (or is it?)
Yesterday, we asked you for your (health-related) views on coffee. The results were clear: if we assume the responses to be representative, we’re a large group of coffee-enthusiasts!
One subscriber who voted for “Coffee is a healthy stimulant, hydrating, and full of antioxidants” wrote:
❝Not so sure about how hydrating it is! Like most food and drink, moderation is key. More than 2 or 3 cups make me buzz! Just too much.❞
And that fine point brings us to our first potential myth:
Coffee is dehydrating: True or False?
False. With caveats…
Coffee, in whatever form we drink it, is wet. This may not come as a startling revelation, but it’s an important starting point. It’s mostly water. Water itself is not dehydrating.
Caffeine, however, is a diuretic—meaning you will tend to pee more. It achieves its diuretic effect by increasing blood flow to your kidneys, which prompts them to release more water through urination.
See: Effect of caffeine on bladder function in patients with overactive bladder symptoms
How much caffeine is required to have a diuretic effect? About 4.5 mg/kg.
What this means in practical terms: if you weigh 70kg (a little over 150lbs), 4.5×70 gives us 315.
315mg is about how much caffeine might be in six shots of espresso. We say “might” because while dosage calculations are an exact science, the actual amount in your shot of espresso can vary depending on many factors, including:
- The kind of coffee bean
- How and when it was roasted
- How and when it was ground
- The water used to make the espresso
- The pressure and temperature of the water
…and that’s all without looking at the most obvious factor: “is the coffee decaffeinated?”
If it doesn’t contain caffeine, it’s not diuretic. Decaffeinated coffee does usually contain tiny amounts of caffeine still, but with nearer 3mg than 300mg, it’s orders of magnitude away from having a diuretic effect.
If it does contain caffeine, then the next question becomes: “and how much water?”
For example, an Americano (espresso, with hot water added to make it a long drink) will be more hydrating than a ristretto (espresso, stopped halfway through pushing, meaning it is shorter and stronger than a normal espresso).
A subscriber who voted for “Coffee messes with sleep, creates dependency, is bad for the heart and gut, and is dehydrating too” wrote:
❝Coffee causes tachycardia for me so staying away is best. People with colon cancer are urged to stay away from coffee completely.❞
These are great points! It brings us to our next potential myth:
Coffee is bad for the heart: True or False?
False… For most people.
Some people, like our subscriber above, have an adverse reaction to caffeine, such as tachycardia. An important reason (beyond basic decency) for anyone providing coffee to honor requests for decaff.
For most people, caffeine is “heart neutral”. It doesn’t provide direct benefits or cause direct harm, provided it is enjoyed in moderation.
See also: Can you overdose on caffeine?
Some quick extra notes…
That’s all we have time for in myth-busting, but it’s worth noting before we close that coffee has a lot of health benefits; we didn’t cover them today because they’re not contentious, but they are interesting nevertheless:
- Coffee is the world’s biggest source of antioxidants
- 65% reduced risk of Alzheimer’s for coffee-drinkers
- 67% reduced risk of type 2 diabetes for coffee-drinkers
- 43% reduced risk of liver cancer for coffee-drinkers
- 53% reduced suicide risk for coffee-drinkers
Enjoy!
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The Humor Habit – by Paul Osincup
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Ask not for whom the bell tolls… It could be tolling for anyone. Don’t worry about it.It’s probably fine.
More seriously (heh), laughter is good for healthy lifespan, also called healthspan. It eases stress and anxiety, gives our brains neurochemicals they need to function well, and is very pro-social too, which in turn has knock-on positive effects for our own mental health as well as those around us.
This book is a guide to cultivating that humor, finding the funny side in difficult times, and bringing a light-hearted silliness to moments where it helps.
The title suggests it’s about habit-building (and it is!) but it’s also about knowing where to look in your daily life for humorous potential and how to find it, and how to bring that into being in the moment.
The style is that of an instruction manual with a healthy dose of pop-science; first and foremost this is a practical guide, not a several-hundred page exhortation on “find things funny!”, but rather a “hey, psst, here are many sneaky insider tricks for finding the funny“.
Bottom line: this book is not only a very enjoyable read, but also very much the gift that keeps on giving, so treat yourself!
Click here to check out The Humor Habit, and strength your funny-bones!
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Mind Gym – by Gary Mack and David Casstevens
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While this book seems to be mostly popular amongst young American college athletes and those around them (coaches, parents, etc) its applicability is a lot wider than that.
The thing is, as this book details, we don’t have to settle for less than optimal in our training—whatever “optimal” means for us, at any stage of life.
The style is largely narrative, and conveys a lot of ideas through anecdotes. They are probably true, but whether they occured entirely as-written or have been polished or embellished is not so important, as to to give food for thought, and reflection on how we can hone what we’re doing to work the best for us.
Nor is it just a long pep-talk, though it certainly has a motivational aspect. But rather, it covers also such things as the seven critical areas that we need to excel at if we want to be mentally robust, and—counterintuitively—the value of slowing down sometimes. The authors also talk about the importance of love, labor, and ongoing learning if we want a fulfilled life.
Bottom line: if you are engaged with any sport or sport-like endeavor that you’d like to be better at, this book will sharpen your training and development.
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On This Bright Day – by Dr. Susan Thompson
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This book is principally aimed at those who have struggled with emotional/comfort eating, over-eating, and/or compulsive eating of some kind.
However, its advices go for the “little compulsions” too, the many small unhealthy choices that add up. Thus, this book has value for most if not all of us.
The format is: each day has a little quotation, followed by a short discussion of that, which is then underlined by an affirmation for the day.
The main thrust of the book is to promote mindful eating, and it does this well with daily reminders that are helpful without being preachy.
Bottom line: if you enjoy “daily reader” type books and would like a daily reminder to practice mindful eating, then this book is for you!
Click here to check out On This Bright Day, and enjoy your food mindfully, every day!
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The Circadian Rhythm: Far More Than Most People Know
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The Circadian Rhythm: Far More Than Most People Know
This is Dr. Satchidananda (Satchin) Panda, the scientist behind the discovery of the blue-light sensing cell type in the retina, and the many things it affects. But, he’s discovered more…
First, what you probably know (with a little more science)
Dr. Panda discovered that melanopsin, a photopigment, is “the primary candidate for photoreceptor-mediated entrainment”.
To put that in lay terms, it’s the brain’s go-to for knowing approximately what time of day or night it is, according to how much light there is (or isn’t), and how long it has (or hasn’t) been there.
But… the brain’s “go-to” isn’t the only method. By creating mice without melanopsin, he was able to find that they still keep a circadian rhythm, even in complete darkness:
Melanopsin (Opn4) Requirement for Normal Light-Induced Circadian Phase Shifting
In other words, it was a helpful, but not completely necessary, means of keeping a circadian rhythm.
So… What else is going on?
Dr. Panda and his team did a lot of science that is well beyond the scope of this main feature, but to give you an idea:
- With jargon: it explored the mechanisms and transcription translation negative feedback loops that regulate chronobiological processes, such as a histone lysine demathlyase 1a (JARID1a) that enhances Clock-Bmal1 transcription, and then used assorted genomic techniques to develop a model for how JARID1a works to moderate the level of Per transcription by regulating the transition between its repression and activation, and discovered that this heavily centered on hepatic gluconeogenesis and glucose homeostasis, facilitated by the protein cryptochrome regulating the fasting signal that occurs when glucagon binds to a G-protein coupled receptor, triggering CREB activation.
- Without jargon: a special protein tells our body how to respond to eating/fasting at different times of day—and conversely, certain physiological responses triggered by eating/fasting help us know what time of day it is.
- Simplest: our body keeps on its best cycle if we eat at the same time every day
This is important, because our circadian rhythm matters for a lot more than sleeping/waking! Take hormones, for example:
- Obvious hormones: testosterone and estrogen peak in the mornings around 9am, progesterone peaks between 10pm and 2am
- Forgotten hormones: cortisol peaks in the morning around 8:30am, melatonin peaks between 10pm and 2am
- More hormones: ghrelin (hunger hormone) peaks around 10am, leptin (satiety hormone) peaks 20 minutes after eating a certain amount of satiety-triggering food (protein does this most quickly), insulin is heavily tied to carbohydrate intake, but will still peak and trough according to when the body expects food.
What does this mean for us in practical terms?
For a start, it means that intermittent fasting can help guard against metabolic and related diseases (including inflammation, and thus also cancer, diabetes, arthritis, and more) a lot more if we practice it with our circadian rhythm in mind.
So that “8-hour window” for eating, that many intermittent fasting practitioners adhere to, is going to do much, much better if it’s 10am to 6pm, rather than, say, 4pm to midnight.
Additionally, Dr. Panda and his team found that a 12-hour eating window wasn’t sufficient to help significantly.
Some other take-aways:
- For reasons beyond the scope of this article, it’s good to exercise a) early b) before eating, so getting in some exercise between 8.30am and 10am is ideal
- It also means it’s beneficial to “front-load” eating, so a large breakfast at 10am, and smaller meals/snacks afterwards, is best.
- It also means that getting sunlight (even if cloud-covered) around 8.30am helps guard against metabolic disorders a lot, since the light remains the body’s go-to way of knowing the time.
- We realize that sunlight is not available at 8.30am at all latitudes at all times of year. Artificial is next-best.
- It also means sexual desire will typically peak in men in the mornings (per testosterone) and women in the evenings (per progesterone), but this is just an interesting bit of trivia, and not so relevant to metabolic health
What to do next…
Want to stabilize your own circadian rhythm in the best way, and also help Dr. Panda with his research?
His team’s (free!) app, “My Circadian Clock”, can help you track and organize all of the body’s measurable-by-you circadian events, and, if you give permission, will contribute to what will be the largest-yet human study into the topics covered today, to refine the conclusions and learn more about what works best.
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Oat Milk vs Almond Milk – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing oat milk to almond milk, we picked the almond milk.
Why?
This one’s quite straightforward, and no, it’s not just our bias for almonds
Rather, almonds contain a lot more vitamins and minerals, all of which usually make it into the milk.
Oat milk is still a fine choice though, and has a very high soluble fiber content, which is great for your heart.
Just make sure you get versions without added sugar or other unpleasantries! You can always make your own at home, too.
You can read a bit more about the pros and cons of various plant milks here:
Enjoy!
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The Lost Art of Silence – by Sarah Anderson
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From “A Room Of One’s Own” to “Silent Mondays”, from spiritual retreats to noise-cancelling headphones, this book covers the many benefits of silence—and a couple of downsides too.
In an age where most things are available at the touch of a button, a little peaceful solitude can come at quite a premium, but what it offers can effect all manner of physical changes, from reduced stress responses to increased neurogenesis (growing new brain cells).
The tone throughout is a combination of personal and pop-science, and it’s very motivating to find a little more space-between-the-things in life.
The book is best enjoyed in a quiet room.
Bottom line: if you get the feeling sometimes that you could rest and recover fully and properly if you could just find the downtime, this book will help you find exactly that.
Click here to check out the Lost Art of Silence, and find peace and strength in it!
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