If you’re anything like me, coffee is a morning staple. I ready the pot each evening so all that’s necessary when feeling my way to the kitchen before dawn is to push the button, see the red light pop on and wait long enough to fill that first cup.
Sometimes I even resort to saving a cup from the previous day and sticking it in the microwave for a minute. It’s enough of a jump start to get me through to the fresh pot.
It’s become an emotional attachment. I enjoy the aroma, flavor and stimulation it provides. After decades, the daily ritual is ingrained, as it is for a reported 80 percent of us.
Is caffeine addictive? Some reports over the years say it is. Others aren’t as certain, at least not under the description of a true addiction, but more appropriately resembling a dependence.
The website for the Clarity Way treatment center in Pennsylvania says while 38 percent of drinkers say they need coffee to get through the day, over time it can alter one’s body and brain. Technically speaking, coffee affects the absorption of “adenosine” within our brains, an important hormone in sleep regulation. It’s believed caffeine accumulates in the brain during our waking state, thereby blocking adenosine receptors and preventing us from feeling tired.
When this happens regularly, the body creates additional receptors in order to cope. These added receptors can mean one needs more caffeine and stronger coffee simply to get the same peppy fix and avoid weariness. And the cycle continues.
At least that’s the way I understand the process as a layman who struggled through a low C in chemistry (but who since the fifth grade could write a story about that student who made an A).
It doesn’t much matter at this point, though. My daily mugging is long established. And there comes a time in life when, well, rewards can outweigh risks when it comes to the things we enjoy.
All I need do to learn about potential negatives from consuming coffee and caffeine is flick a few keys on the laptop and prepare to be besieged with information, as if I were swilling the material from a fire hose. But news of late has been far more encouraging.
For instance, a recent story more to my liking described a recent study that used the U.K. Biobank to examine a decade of health data of nearly 500,000 people. Sounds plenty sufficient to me. After all, in today’s world filled with conflicting information on almost everything, we tend to buy the version that best fits our beliefs, right?
Of the coffee-drinkers in the study, the subjects downed between one and eight cups daily, including brewed, instant and decaf. The good news, sort of, was that those who drank it regularly fared relatively well overall both physically and mentally, in some cases even better than the non-drinkers.
The study left unanswered the questions of how or why this happened because the intriguing nature of coffee is far more complex than I’ve ever realized.
The caffeine we know and require by far is the best known ingredient. But coffee also reportedly contains—grab tight on your cup handles—over 1,000 different aroma compounds and a variety of acids. That includes many so-called phytochemicals with antioxidant and anti-inflammatory ingredients, assorted B vitamins, manganese and potassium.
Dr. Donald Hensrud, an M.D. with the Mayo Clinic with a specialty in nutrition, recently wrote that recent research has discovered no meaningful connection between consuming coffee and the elevated risk of heart disease or cancer.
Some studies have even found an association between coffee consumption and decreased mortality and possibly even cardiovascular mortality. However, this may not be true in younger people who drink large amounts of coffee, he wrote.
So how do the experts account for this apparent flip-flop on the thinking about coffee and health? Well, Hensrud explains the earlier studies didn’t always account for proven high-risk behaviors, such as smoking and physical inactivity, which tended to be more common among heavy coffee drinkers.
It gets even more reassuring where a four-cups-a-day man like me is concerned. “Studies have shown that coffee may have health benefits, including protecting against Parkinson’s disease, type 2 diabetes and liver disease, including liver cancer. Coffee also appears to improve cognitive function and decrease the risk of depression,” the physician wrote.
Yet as I’m headed for a warming refill, I read an inevitable, “on-the-other-hand” sentence that says research appears to bear out that there are some risks. “High consumption of unfiltered coffee (boiled or espresso),” Hensrud wrote, “has been associated with mild elevations in cholesterol levels. In addition, some studies found that two or more cups of coffee a day can increase the risk of heart disease in people with a specific—and fairly common—genetic mutation that slows the breakdown of caffeine in the body.” In other words, how quickly one metabolizes coffee may affect your health risk.
I remain slightly confused. Weren’t we just told a few paragraphs ago there was no proven connection between coffee and an elevated risk of heart disease? Seems there are always exceptions.
I’ve just got to assume my metabolism is humming along fine, especially since I have no plans to quit flipping the switch on that pot each morning and inhaling those anticipated deep sniffs of fresh brew—even if it means living in ignorance and denial.
Mike Masterson is a longtime Arkansas journalist. Email him at mmasterson@arkansasonline.com.