"Caffeine Blues" (Stephen Cherniske, M.S.) -- Wake up to the "hidden" dangers of America's # 1 Drug.....some REALLY troubling insights about especially coffee for women.
LOVED your article. How much caffeine do we really believe Matcha Tea contains??? And is the impact on the body similar? What about the impact on the adrenals over time (stimulant dependent?). I went coffee, tea, caffeine free in 1990 and never looked back. Same with meat. Same with sugar, same with dairy. Gluten free since 2010. 68 yrs old -- no meds, no ailments (other than a mechanical issue related to a back surgery exacerbated by a car accident @10 years ago. Exercise, walk (1 1/2 - 2 miles) daily, eat simply, organically and enjoy EVERY BITE. (Filtered, structured when I can) water is the favorite drink of choice (between meals -- no snacks). Hovering @ 5 - 7 pounds more than my high school weight (off course, I'm @ 1 1/2 inches shorter now!).
Keep up the great work and thanks for caring about us! I've found that denying self and holding out for the better things changes your attitude, appetite and desires. No more type A!!!!
That is the funny part. You think you escaped caffeine because you chose cacao, but cacao has caffeine too, plus theobromine. So the issue was never coffee. The issue is the habit, the dose, and how people romanticize one plant while demonizing another. 🙄
This is a superb post! I had never thought about coffee in that particular way—as a provider of unearned chemical benefits. Like MSG instead of naturally fermented fish sauce, for example. Everyone always blathers on about how coffee is bad for you in some way or other, but this makes sense.
Coffee must not degrade our opioid receptors—otherwise, I’d have been a goner a long time ago. In this sense, it’s superior to synthetic opioid pharmaceuticals, at a much lower price point and with a much lower risk profile. Hmmmm.
Great article. I've quick coffee twice and it took over a year before the craving disappeared. This article explains so much! By the way, I switched to a Matcha Latte (organic almond milk, stevia (no sugar) some time ago. 👍👍👍 More energy, clarity and stillness.
So you quit coffee and replaced it with matcha… another caffeinated drink. Congratulations, you changed the color of the cup and called it freedom. 😂☕🍵
You are still stimulating the body. The only difference is that matcha comes with better marketing.
My body doesn’t get addicted to coffee. I can drink it all day long for extended periods and then go without for weeks without feeling anything. I don’t feel a caffeine response either. But I wonder if it’s because I’m “allergic” to codeine. Not a true systemic allergy reaction, just an upchuck to get rid of it. Even IV. Wonder if it’s connected
Interesting. I can take it or leave it also. Usually do decaf because I get jittery from caffeine very easily. Don’t know about any reaction from codeine, but I am very careful about any stimulating affect as there is a low tolerance of stimulants that runs in my family. I do know though that exercise is the same for me as well. No matter how much or what kind I do, the only joy is when I stop, lol. No uplift or whatever effect. Because I am way too heavy I keep trying but nothing special there either. Have never taken any illegal drugs so that I don’t about those things.
Thanks for strongly supporting my long held hunch that green tea is magnitudes more healthy for us than coffee! As I sip a dark roast right now haha! These days I drink both however: coffee in the morning, green tea in the afternoon. But I did find that I had ZERO coffee withdrawal symptoms by spending 24-hours dry fasting (one day of no food and no drink whatsoever). After that, no headaches or cravings or anything coffee related. Kind of interesting, for those considering quitting the bean juice; not sure what was going on physiologically but just saying.
If you start your day with 12 oz of coffee, overstimulate your body, then add sugar, milk, syrups, and who knows what else, what do you expect your body to do?
But of course, the problem is the coffee. Please. 🙄
Coffee has many beneficial compounds and properties; when consumed in moderation. Here is a list of all the research on its therapeutic potential: https://greenmedinfo.com/substance/coffee
Thanks so much Sayer! I appreciate you taking the time to show me. 🥰As you point out too - there are risks. And with everything we ingest, we should know more about it and the potential pitfalls. In that spirit, I recently read that tea and particularly mass marketed teas (black and green) are high in fluoride as a result of the plant’s affinity of taking it up from the soil and water. Further, the article read that this is particularly troublesome for the thyroid as fluoride uptake in the thyroid will displace iodine. Iodine is essential for the thyroid to function properly. I was wondering if you had heard anything about this. Down here in Texas, we drink gallons of iced black tea throughout the year. It is THE DRINK in every restaurant. AND fluoride is in our tap water. I don’t know how to source a healthy non-fluoride tea. I will try to link the article where I got this info.
I looked at the article again and I think I misunderstood something about fluoride displacing iodine. If iodine is low, the thyroid will use fluoride instead, implying that increasing iodine or decreasing fluoride would be helpful. Anyway, I was surprised to learn about tea. Even that healthy matcha I make myself everyday could be an even heavier dose of fluoride as the tea leaves are ground up rather than steeped. Keeping steeping times to less than 2 minutes will reduce the fluoride levels (I believe I learned this from Alter AI). Here is the article from substack about the thyroid (in it is the info about fluoride). https://lukecadell.substack.com/p/the-silent-hypothyroidism-epidemic?r=r6ahu&utm_medium=ios
I knew there was more to this "caffeine" blame story. I had emailed a naturopathic doctor years ago with help to quit coffee and he said he had no better advice than the general obvious actions I could take and then to let him know if I found a solution. At that moment I wish I had never had my first cup!
Your article is misleading. Boublik et al. found compounds in coffee which bind to the opioid receptor but do not activate the receptor. They act as opioid receptor antagonists. If they bound to the receptor and activated it, they would be acting as opioid receptor agonists.
These compounds block the receptors from binding to endogenous and exogenous opioids, so reducing the degree to which opioid receptors are activated.
So they will increase sensitivity to pain and will not be addictive. Opioid agonist drugs are addictive.
See also my observations and etiological hypothesis for Restless Legs Syndrome and Periodic Limb Movement Disorder, which are two different diagnostic categories for the same underlying condition: https://aminotheory.com/rlsd/briefsumm/ and, in greater detail: https://aminotheory.com/rlsd/.
The opioid antagonists in coffee increase the risk of RLS / PLMD. I have reports of coffee drinking before bed increasing the risk of RLS / PLMD. (Caffeine addiction leads to withdrawal effects at bedtime which increases the risk of RLS / PLMD. A small or perhaps large amount of caffeine just before bed eliminates the withdrawal effects to some degree and so can reduce the risk of RLS / PLMD.)
The opioid antagonists in coffee can also be expected to increase sensitivity to pain and to disrupt sleep.
Appreciate your feedback, however, my lifelong experience of coffee directly is what lead me to write this article - not just academic technicalities. That said, coffee has many profound benefits as well, and in retrospect, I should have highlighted this database as well.
Wonderful, thanks Sayer Ji. One aspect that you haven't touched upon is the effect of caffeine on NO production. According to Mark Sloan at https://endalldisease.com/ caffeine scavenges NO which according to his research is a good thing because NO is a back up mitochondrial Oxygen uptake promoter and only kicks in when CO2 levels drop. CO2 is the primary O2 uptake promoter. This is contrary to the accepted narrative, so please investigate this effect as it is of profound importance. Matcha also has caffeine to provide this effect, as does Methylene Blue. Like Dr Mercola, I prefer to use MB very lightly, say 3-4 drops in water prior to NIR therapy. Could you also comment upon the claim that MB promotes DNA uptake of Graphene Oxide, GO. TIA
You've won me over, good man! I have ordered your book and a green matcha tea set! My only regret is that I did not "meet" you sooner, Sayer Ji. I love your work but, as a somewhat "aged" woman, I could have done with you a few decades ago! No use crying over spilt milk, as they say. I am doing all that I can now to be here to see all the "good things" roll out. If I can get another five years in good health I will be grateful and will enjoy every minute of it. I am counting on you to assist me in getting there! :)
I have never had a problem.stopping coffee for awhile, especially when traveling on vacation. No headache or anything, exceot I do sleep longer.. Different mindset, no need to perform rather absorb as I enjoy on vacation. Interesting when I do drink it, sometimes when I have allergies I do not smell it well but do the drinking by habit. That is when I will try matcha.
I already drink daily variations of green tea - caffinated. When I drink black or green caffinated tea I get the creeps, irritated, feels awful. But not with coffee, sometimes it calms me.
But, even when it does not affect me much, I always remember the first time I had fresh roasted ground dark coffee at a roasting shops. Wow, a beautiful crisp experience in many ways. The memory is only matched in reality a few times a year!
This is interesting. I’ve reduced my coffee consumption over the years to where I enjoy a cup in the morning & that’s it. My late afternoon choice of beverage is a matcha tea.
A few years ago, I woke up one morning to a nasty headache. And the usual cure - a cup of coffee - did nothing. I limped along for a few days with this miserable headache… and then I noticed I accidentally put decaffeinated beans in my coffee tin. One regular cup of coffee & my headache was gone.
I’m not sure what effect one feels from a decaf brew. For me, it’s the enjoyment of taste, but nothing else.
"Caffeine Blues" (Stephen Cherniske, M.S.) -- Wake up to the "hidden" dangers of America's # 1 Drug.....some REALLY troubling insights about especially coffee for women.
LOVED your article. How much caffeine do we really believe Matcha Tea contains??? And is the impact on the body similar? What about the impact on the adrenals over time (stimulant dependent?). I went coffee, tea, caffeine free in 1990 and never looked back. Same with meat. Same with sugar, same with dairy. Gluten free since 2010. 68 yrs old -- no meds, no ailments (other than a mechanical issue related to a back surgery exacerbated by a car accident @10 years ago. Exercise, walk (1 1/2 - 2 miles) daily, eat simply, organically and enjoy EVERY BITE. (Filtered, structured when I can) water is the favorite drink of choice (between meals -- no snacks). Hovering @ 5 - 7 pounds more than my high school weight (off course, I'm @ 1 1/2 inches shorter now!).
Keep up the great work and thanks for caring about us! I've found that denying self and holding out for the better things changes your attitude, appetite and desires. No more type A!!!!
i drink raw cacao daily and love it :)
That's an excellent alternative. I'll have to write about that too. Thanks for bringing it up Meghan.
You definitely should! Raw fermented cacao, specifically from Costa Rica, is such a nutrient-dense superfood.
And it’s delicious! I drink it regularly.
That is the funny part. You think you escaped caffeine because you chose cacao, but cacao has caffeine too, plus theobromine. So the issue was never coffee. The issue is the habit, the dose, and how people romanticize one plant while demonizing another. 🙄
How about an article on cacao chocolate
In water milk?
This is a superb post! I had never thought about coffee in that particular way—as a provider of unearned chemical benefits. Like MSG instead of naturally fermented fish sauce, for example. Everyone always blathers on about how coffee is bad for you in some way or other, but this makes sense.
Coffee must not degrade our opioid receptors—otherwise, I’d have been a goner a long time ago. In this sense, it’s superior to synthetic opioid pharmaceuticals, at a much lower price point and with a much lower risk profile. Hmmmm.
Great article. I've quick coffee twice and it took over a year before the craving disappeared. This article explains so much! By the way, I switched to a Matcha Latte (organic almond milk, stevia (no sugar) some time ago. 👍👍👍 More energy, clarity and stillness.
So you quit coffee and replaced it with matcha… another caffeinated drink. Congratulations, you changed the color of the cup and called it freedom. 😂☕🍵
You are still stimulating the body. The only difference is that matcha comes with better marketing.
My body doesn’t get addicted to coffee. I can drink it all day long for extended periods and then go without for weeks without feeling anything. I don’t feel a caffeine response either. But I wonder if it’s because I’m “allergic” to codeine. Not a true systemic allergy reaction, just an upchuck to get rid of it. Even IV. Wonder if it’s connected
Interesting. I can take it or leave it also. Usually do decaf because I get jittery from caffeine very easily. Don’t know about any reaction from codeine, but I am very careful about any stimulating affect as there is a low tolerance of stimulants that runs in my family. I do know though that exercise is the same for me as well. No matter how much or what kind I do, the only joy is when I stop, lol. No uplift or whatever effect. Because I am way too heavy I keep trying but nothing special there either. Have never taken any illegal drugs so that I don’t about those things.
One of my cousins doesn’t drink coffee or soda because she says caffeine makes her tongue shake Lol
Thanks for strongly supporting my long held hunch that green tea is magnitudes more healthy for us than coffee! As I sip a dark roast right now haha! These days I drink both however: coffee in the morning, green tea in the afternoon. But I did find that I had ZERO coffee withdrawal symptoms by spending 24-hours dry fasting (one day of no food and no drink whatsoever). After that, no headaches or cravings or anything coffee related. Kind of interesting, for those considering quitting the bean juice; not sure what was going on physiologically but just saying.
Coffee is not the problem. Bad habits are.
If you start your day with 12 oz of coffee, overstimulate your body, then add sugar, milk, syrups, and who knows what else, what do you expect your body to do?
But of course, the problem is the coffee. Please. 🙄
People love blaming the cup instead of the habit.
Doesn’t coffee have polyphenols? Weighing risks and benefits, polyphenols are beneficial.
Coffee has many beneficial compounds and properties; when consumed in moderation. Here is a list of all the research on its therapeutic potential: https://greenmedinfo.com/substance/coffee
Thanks so much Sayer! I appreciate you taking the time to show me. 🥰As you point out too - there are risks. And with everything we ingest, we should know more about it and the potential pitfalls. In that spirit, I recently read that tea and particularly mass marketed teas (black and green) are high in fluoride as a result of the plant’s affinity of taking it up from the soil and water. Further, the article read that this is particularly troublesome for the thyroid as fluoride uptake in the thyroid will displace iodine. Iodine is essential for the thyroid to function properly. I was wondering if you had heard anything about this. Down here in Texas, we drink gallons of iced black tea throughout the year. It is THE DRINK in every restaurant. AND fluoride is in our tap water. I don’t know how to source a healthy non-fluoride tea. I will try to link the article where I got this info.
I looked at the article again and I think I misunderstood something about fluoride displacing iodine. If iodine is low, the thyroid will use fluoride instead, implying that increasing iodine or decreasing fluoride would be helpful. Anyway, I was surprised to learn about tea. Even that healthy matcha I make myself everyday could be an even heavier dose of fluoride as the tea leaves are ground up rather than steeped. Keeping steeping times to less than 2 minutes will reduce the fluoride levels (I believe I learned this from Alter AI). Here is the article from substack about the thyroid (in it is the info about fluoride). https://lukecadell.substack.com/p/the-silent-hypothyroidism-epidemic?r=r6ahu&utm_medium=ios
Yes, coffee has alot of health benefits as well. It's a double-edged sword for sure.
I knew there was more to this "caffeine" blame story. I had emailed a naturopathic doctor years ago with help to quit coffee and he said he had no better advice than the general obvious actions I could take and then to let him know if I found a solution. At that moment I wish I had never had my first cup!
Coffee is divine, however, it must be treated like a sacrament in order to be one.
This is wise as hell, sir.
Your article is misleading. Boublik et al. found compounds in coffee which bind to the opioid receptor but do not activate the receptor. They act as opioid receptor antagonists. If they bound to the receptor and activated it, they would be acting as opioid receptor agonists.
These compounds block the receptors from binding to endogenous and exogenous opioids, so reducing the degree to which opioid receptors are activated.
So they will increase sensitivity to pain and will not be addictive. Opioid agonist drugs are addictive.
See further research on these compounds cited and discussed at my page from 2011: https://aminotheory.com/coffee/.
See also my observations and etiological hypothesis for Restless Legs Syndrome and Periodic Limb Movement Disorder, which are two different diagnostic categories for the same underlying condition: https://aminotheory.com/rlsd/briefsumm/ and, in greater detail: https://aminotheory.com/rlsd/.
The opioid antagonists in coffee increase the risk of RLS / PLMD. I have reports of coffee drinking before bed increasing the risk of RLS / PLMD. (Caffeine addiction leads to withdrawal effects at bedtime which increases the risk of RLS / PLMD. A small or perhaps large amount of caffeine just before bed eliminates the withdrawal effects to some degree and so can reduce the risk of RLS / PLMD.)
The opioid antagonists in coffee can also be expected to increase sensitivity to pain and to disrupt sleep.
Appreciate your feedback, however, my lifelong experience of coffee directly is what lead me to write this article - not just academic technicalities. That said, coffee has many profound benefits as well, and in retrospect, I should have highlighted this database as well.
The truth is we are probably correct, in ways. https://greenmedinfo.com/substance/coffee
Wonderful, thanks Sayer Ji. One aspect that you haven't touched upon is the effect of caffeine on NO production. According to Mark Sloan at https://endalldisease.com/ caffeine scavenges NO which according to his research is a good thing because NO is a back up mitochondrial Oxygen uptake promoter and only kicks in when CO2 levels drop. CO2 is the primary O2 uptake promoter. This is contrary to the accepted narrative, so please investigate this effect as it is of profound importance. Matcha also has caffeine to provide this effect, as does Methylene Blue. Like Dr Mercola, I prefer to use MB very lightly, say 3-4 drops in water prior to NIR therapy. Could you also comment upon the claim that MB promotes DNA uptake of Graphene Oxide, GO. TIA
Very interesting. Thank you
I split the difference: “dirty matchas”
I add powdered green tea to my coffee mix (creatine, collagen, cocoa, cinnamon, coconut oil, cream, honey!) 😛😇😎👍🏼
Nice hack!
You've won me over, good man! I have ordered your book and a green matcha tea set! My only regret is that I did not "meet" you sooner, Sayer Ji. I love your work but, as a somewhat "aged" woman, I could have done with you a few decades ago! No use crying over spilt milk, as they say. I am doing all that I can now to be here to see all the "good things" roll out. If I can get another five years in good health I will be grateful and will enjoy every minute of it. I am counting on you to assist me in getting there! :)
I have never had a problem.stopping coffee for awhile, especially when traveling on vacation. No headache or anything, exceot I do sleep longer.. Different mindset, no need to perform rather absorb as I enjoy on vacation. Interesting when I do drink it, sometimes when I have allergies I do not smell it well but do the drinking by habit. That is when I will try matcha.
I already drink daily variations of green tea - caffinated. When I drink black or green caffinated tea I get the creeps, irritated, feels awful. But not with coffee, sometimes it calms me.
But, even when it does not affect me much, I always remember the first time I had fresh roasted ground dark coffee at a roasting shops. Wow, a beautiful crisp experience in many ways. The memory is only matched in reality a few times a year!
This is interesting. I’ve reduced my coffee consumption over the years to where I enjoy a cup in the morning & that’s it. My late afternoon choice of beverage is a matcha tea.
A few years ago, I woke up one morning to a nasty headache. And the usual cure - a cup of coffee - did nothing. I limped along for a few days with this miserable headache… and then I noticed I accidentally put decaffeinated beans in my coffee tin. One regular cup of coffee & my headache was gone.
I’m not sure what effect one feels from a decaf brew. For me, it’s the enjoyment of taste, but nothing else.
I read recently that many teas, including green tea, contain high amounts of fluoride. Is there a good way to source green tea?