The
first controversy, as recent as 1972, was about the possible link
between caffeine and heart disease. The
issue remains undecided till
today. But the general view is
that caffeine can't do
much harm to the heart except in very
high doses to sufferers of irregular heartbeat. Here again filtered coffee is considered much less of a risk than boiled
coffee. Studies as to any link between caffeine and cancer - cancer of the
pancreas, bladder, kidney or urinary
tract - are also inconclusive. The complicating factor
in such studies is that many
heavy coffee drinkers are also
smokers.
Again no
link between caffeine and
breast cancer is
proved. However pregnant and nursing women are advised
against heavy coffee use
- drinking more than six
or seven cups
a day. Caffeine
passes easily through the placenta to the unborn child and
through the mother's milk to the breast-fed baby.
Studies are still on whether caffeine could produce low birth
weight for any birth defects.
In fact how caffeine actually works in the human
system has yet to be
completely understood. The prevailing theory
is that caffeine stops the depressant effects of adenosine,
one of
the chemicals the body makes to
control neural activity. Caffeine blocks the adenosine receptor sites
in cells. The theory is not perfect,
for various reasons one of which is that
there are different types of
adenosine receptors, but is widely accepted.To
the advocates of coffee, this property of caffeine gives
it the ability to increase
alertness and enhance performance, more
so when one is tired or bored. But
caffeine can at best increase mental
activity, not upgrade its quality - despite
what the generations of writers
have assumed-that coffee makes them
think more clearly. A
part of the
coffee effect may
well be psychological.
Yet the
effects of caffeine are not
imaginary. Many studies confirm what most people know -
coffee keeps you awake. It also increases the number of times you wake
up at night, depending on how much you
drink and on how sensitive you are.
Variation among people is great.
Caffeine does interfere with some
phases of sleep, though
it is not known to decrease
rapid-eye-movement (REM)
sleep the way alcohol interferes with
it. The sleep disturbance caused by coffee is said to be more severe
in older people.
Incidentally, coffee, black or with milk, doesn't
sober you up from the effects of alcohol. Caffeine however is of some help in
recovering from the effects of tranquillizers like Valium. Again caffeine is a diuretic and thus
dehydrating. So don't think that
drinking coffee will slake your thirst.
Coffee, both regular and decaffeinated, has a laxative effect.
Does
coffee cause stomach ulcers ?
There is no definite answer
to this,
though coffee is known to make ulcers
worse. Coffee does simulate the secretion of gastric acids but
how much of it is due to
caffeine and how much is due to other
substances in coffee is not
clear.
How much caffeine is contained in a five-ounce
cup of coffee ?
It could be between 80 to 100 milligrams for a preparation
of average strength. In
comparison, a similar cup of tea may contain 20 to 50 milligrams of caffeine,
with the tea brewed for 5 minutes.
A twelve-ounce bottle of Coca
Cola contains 45 milligrams
of caffeine and Pepsi Cola
38. Ordinarily an
oral dose of 85 milligrams is
needed to produce some caffeine effect
but this too depends on individual sensitivity.
Is
caffeine addictive ? Those accustomed
to, but deprived of it, report
irritability, inability to
work well, nervousness
and restlessness. But the worst,
and most common, complaint is the headache that comes with giving up
caffeine. The headache can be dull or
severe, a short-lived one or even lasting over a
day. And such headaches gets cured with caffeine. No wonder so
many over-the-counter headache remedies include caffeine.
If caffeine is so painful to give up, can
caffeine tolerance be compared to
addiction to other drugs ? The answer,
whatever the apologists of
coffee may say, is yes.
Caffeine use does
fit several standards of drug addiction : compulsion to continue use,
tolerance for the drug, and the withdrawal syndrome. If caffeine is addictive
or harmful, coffee drinkers still have a route open to them, and that is of the
decaffeinated coffee. Now more than
20 per cent
of the coffee
consumed in USA is
decaffeinated. It is another matter,
most of the decaffeinated coffee is so terrible.
First of all, the
inferior Robusta coffees are
decaffeinated, not only because they are cheaper but also because they yield more caffeine,
which can be sold to soft drink and medicine companies. Again these coffees having
more "body" can stand decaffeination better.
It
is only
now that Arabica beans,
which are of
higher quality, are
being decaffeinated.
Decaffeination is done by two methods : the
water-process and the chemical-process.
The problem with the
water-process, where beans are
first steamed and then soaked in water,
is that it
strips out most of the body and
the flavouring compounds, along with caffeine.
A few improvements have been made of
late, yet the coffee
decaffeinated by this process is
a shadow
of its former self.
In the chemical method, the most efficient
chemical employed is methylene
chloride. To an extent methylene
chloride is toxic but the quantity left
in decaffeinated coffee is too
negligible to pose any
risk. Coffee decaffeinated with
methylene chloride certainly
tastes better.
A new process using supercritical carbon
dioxide is showing much promise. It
claims to retain all the
taste of
coffee while removing 97 per cent
of caffeine from it.
Yet there
is an unmistakable
trend away from
coffee, decaffeinated or otherwise.
In its place the consumption of soft drinks is
increasing. It can't be only the
fear of
caffeine, because many soft drinks contain caffeine too. In fact Pepsi
is test-marketing a special cola
with extra caffeine the young can drink
to wake themselves up instead of the usual morning coffee.
Coffee companies
are worried. Coffee, like
tea may
lose its image with
young people. They are
fighting back by
bringing better quality blends on
the market, even using brand names to refer to coffee like soft drinks. They are trying to give coffee a youthful
image in advertisements, rather than relying on a logo to sell the
product. Some feel that the answer lies
in promoting iced coffee and sweetened coffee drinks, to compete directly with
soda. Coffee mixed
with bits of nuts and dried
fruits and stirred with
flavouring extracts has evoked good response.
Yet these are essentially gimmicks. The major appeal of coffee still lies in drinking straight coffee
because it tastes good and peps you up, whatever be the trouble with caffeine.
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