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Addicted—to a long life
Make that a triple espresso, if you would—with a capuccino on the side. Oh, and I’ll take a large double double to go as well.
Can you blame me? Just as we think the world is supersaturated with coffee, news comes that two more scientific studies have concluded coffee consumption is associated with a longer life expectancy.
The studies involved some 750,000 people, and were conducted over a period of 16 years. In one study of Europeans, men who consumed coffee were 12 per cent less likely to die during the study period than non-coffee-drinking males; while women who drank coffee clocked in at seven per cent higher. In the other study, in which the participants were US residents from different backgrounds, one cup a day drinkers were also 12 per cent less likely to die. These findings are consistent with those of previous studies from the US and Japan.
One additional finding from the US study was that the positive difference jumped to 18 per cent) among drinkers of more than one cup a day—50 per cent better than the single cup group. If that finding holds, you’ll be able to argue not only that coffee helps prolong your life, but also that the more you drink, the more likely you are to live a longer life. I can picture the marketing campaigns that Big Coffee will come up with now that they have been handed this manna from heaven: “Come to Tims: spend 18 minutes with us and you’ll get it back later”; “Mc- Cafe: we have the elixir of life”; “Starbucks: we told you it was good for you, we just didn’t know how good.”
Researchers aren’t yet buying this connection, mindful of the old statistical adage that correlation is not causation. It may rain every time you wear your blue shirt, but it doesn’t mean that wearing the blue shirt causes it to rain. What they do seem prepared to say is that people need n’t worry about the adverse effects of drinking coffee.
However, the party poopers at Health Canada worry about the downside of caffeine. The federal health agency warned as recently as this May that “consuming too much caffeine can cause insomnia, headaches, irritability and nervousness,” and recommended that healthy adults limit their intake to the equivalent of three, 8-oz cups of coffee a day (an extra large Tims coffee is 24oz). So any suggestion that people hook themselves up for daily caffeine dialysis on the theory ‘the more the merrier’ is likely to face a bucket of cold water from the feds.
And there are still lots of unanswered questions. If there is a causal connection, how does it work? And if caffeine is the effective agent, why do people who drink decaffeinated coffee seem to experience the same benefits as caffeinated coffee users? Moreover, what are the non-coffee drinkers ingesting as an alternative— water, milk, beer or something even more toxic; and do they tend to eat Cheetos and surf TV channels more than coffee drinkers?
As most of us can vouch from personal experience, coffee is a stimulant, a pick-me-up. But caffeine is also addictive. According to one source (Smithsonian.com), it has similar properties to a chemical called adenosine, which when released in the brain induces tiredness. Caffeine, which has a similar molecular struture, jumps into and blocks the receptors in the brain where the adenosine would normally move, and the result is greater alertness and energy.
This blocking in turn stimulates the production of dopamine and adrenalin, enhancing the effect. But the brain responds by creating more adenosine receptors, thereby requiring you to ingest more coffee to achieve the same effect as you had before. Hence, you become addicted to caffeine.
In fact, I didn’t know until I did a little research this week that caffeine withdrawal has been recognized by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders as a mental disorder. The symptoms, which last about 7- 12 days, are fatigue, headaches and throbbing pains, nausea and irritablity. Chemically, the brain has become used to caffeine and its withdrawal is traumatic, although by the end of the withdrawal period the brain will naturally decrease the number of its adenosine receptors to pre-addiction levels. It’s a seductive addiction because it’s so easy to become dependent and the downside doesn’t appear until you try to give it up. Yet to call ourselves addicts is to diminsh our stature in front of our mirrors. Better to call caffeine ingestion a habit instead; a good habit, on balance.
What will our great-great-grandchildren say about us? That we were hopeless caffeine addicts who stuck around too long? Or that we were wise centenarians who, despite our peculiar habit, found the secrets of longevity through science? Let’s stick around, somehow, to find out. .
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