Resolutions - Is Coffee *Actually* Healthy?
Is there anything better than a piping hot cup of coffee on a frigid winter day, or the first cold brew of a beautiful summer? For a lot of us… likely not. Coffee is the way we kick off a day, pick up an afternoon, and rehash the work week with a friend on the weekend. Besides saving us an untold amount of cash, is there any health benefit to giving up coffee? Or is it actually making us live longer? Today we talk Professor Rob Van Dam from George Washington University and answer the question of caf, decaf, or no-caf: what science tells us about coffee, caffeine, and health.
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Guest
Rob Van Dam is Professor of Nutrition and Exercise Sciences at George Washington University. He is known for his work on nutrition and physical activity in the development of chronic diseases.
The Takeaways
History of Coffee
Coffee’s origins can be traced back to Ethiopia where it was first discovered.
Coffee has been implicated throughout history in sparking political and intellectual movements such as the Enlightenment, and helping to fuel periods such as the industrial revolution where people had to work long hours.
Coffee beans are the seeds of the coffee tree. Coffee contains fiber, minerals, potassium, magnesium, vitamin B1, caffeine, and polyphenols such as chlorogenic acid.
Why we thought coffee was unhealthy:
Research in the 1970s indicated that coffee consumption was associated with higher risk of pancreatic and bladder cancer, as well as higher risk of heart attack and stroke.
These studies were flawed because, among other problems, they were correlational, and they did not control for confounding variables.
For example, high coffee consumption is also associated with many bad health habits, such as high stress, lack of sleep, and smoking.
These other variables appear to be responsible for the association between coffee and negative health outcomes.
Why we now tink coffee is healthy:
In a 2002 cohort study - people in the Netherlands drinking more coffee had lower risk of Type 2 Diabetes.
Subsequent studies showed that higher coffee consumption was associated with decreased risk in liver cancer, liver cirrhosis, Parkinson’s disease, heart disease and stroke
Drinking 2-4 cups of coffee/day leads to a longer lifespan.
Caffeine also improves athletic performance.
Caffeine
Caffeine is an adenosine receptor antagonist. Translation: The buildup of adenosine in the brain and its binding to adenosine receptors makes you feel drowsy. Caffeine makes you feel more alert by blocking adenosine receptors.
Because people metabolize caffeine at different speeds, its effects can be extremely variable.
For some people, caffeine may lead to sleep disturbances and anxiety. For others, it only helps them be more focused and alert.
If you consistently have caffeine, you develop a caffeine tolerance. This is hwy abruptly reducing caffeine intake leads to caffeine withdrawal.
The health benefits of coffee are independent of caffeine for some diseases, but for others, such as Parkinson’s, caffeine appears to be crucial.
Things to consider when choosing whether or not to drink coffee:
How quickly do I metabolize caffeine?
Does it affect my sleep?
Does it cause symptoms of anxiety?
Does it make me jittery?
How am I drinking this coffee? Am I adding sugar and other additives which may negate the health benefits from the black coffee?
How am I brewing this coffee?
Paper filters reduce the harmful compound cafestol the most.]
Boiled coffee, such as Turkish or Greek coffee, has the highest concentrations of cafestol, which has been shown to increase cholesterol.
Brewed coffees such as espresso are somewhere in the middle.
Studies
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Juna [00:00:02] Guys, today is the episode that is going to make me or break me.
Eddie [00:00:06] Uh - oh?
Juna [00:00:07] This episode may be the most important episode of this entire year. I mean, I guess we've only had four episodes technically because like the beginning of the year, but you guys get what I mean.
Eddie [00:00:17] Okay, so what are we talking about today?
Juna [00:00:19] I have been a proud Starbucks gold member since the wee young age of 15.
Eddie [00:00:25] What we're doing an episode on Starbucks our in-depth look into capitalism?
Juna [00:00:30] Eddie No, we are doing an episode on My Life's Blood, my most favorite beverage of all time. My Holy Grail. The thing that I wrote my college essay on. Today's episode is on coffee.
Eddie [00:00:43] You got into Harvard with a cup of coffee.
Juna [00:00:46] I got into Harvard with an extraordinarily structured and beatifully worded bench going guys. And it was an essay on coffee. I thought it was pretty funny, but it was an essay on coffee.
Eddie [00:00:56] So what was it about?
Juna [00:00:57] It doesn't matter. It had coffee and it was mostly about coffee. But one can say I'm extremely attached to coffee. I love it. I've had it for forever. So today, in our final installment of our In New Year's Resolutions series, we are tackling one of the most common New Year's resolutions, which is actually to give up coffee. So is coffee good for us? Or is that delicious cold brew-- energy, wakefulness, focus improving, mood boosting effects included-- just too good to be true? Today. Caff? Decaf? Or no caff? I'm Juna Gjata.
Eddie [00:01:35] And I'm Dr. Eddie Philips, associate professor at Harvard Medical School.
Juna [00:01:39] And you're listening to Food, We Need to Talk. The only podcast that has been scientifically proven to get you caffeinated just by listening. Let's start off with our review. Shout out for this week. Eddie, will you please do the honors?
Eddie [00:02:03] Yes. From New Orleans State of mind. "Best ever. If I could only choose one podcast to listen to on a deserted island, this would be it. If I were on death row, I would choose this podcast to be my last podcast. It's that good. I look forward to each new episode. Thank you." Juna, I know that we want to be, quote, the last word. Yeah, this person is just taking it too literally, yeah.
Juna [00:02:33] You know, I know what a combo. Honestly, the way to get shouted out is to just compliment us as much as possible. There's like, an exponentially higher chance you're going to be shouted out on the show. So thank you so much, New Orleans State of Mind. So if you tell Apple that you like the show and you give us a review, it helps other people find the show and it tells Apple this is a good show. So it really, really helps us out and we really appreciate it. So let's meet today's guests.
Rob Van Dam [00:02:57] Yeah. My name is Rob Van Dam, and my title is Professor of Nutrition and Exercise Sciences at George Washington University.
Juna [00:03:06] Now, Rob grew up in New Orleans where coffee was everywhere.
Eddie [00:03:10] Well, I think it was like.
Juna [00:03:12] Oh, no, I'm sorry. Rob grew up in the Netherlands where coffee was everywhere.
Rob Van Dam [00:03:16] And it's almost impossible to avoid because it's such a big part of the social fabric. Every meeting or every social visit you have people offer coffee. So I've always drank about three or four cups of coffee per day, relatively small cups.
Eddie [00:03:30] I feel like even here in the U.S., it's almost impossible to avoid coffee. Remarkably, I made it through college, medical school, internship and residency without drinking coffee, because during my internship I just rode the adrenaline when the emergency was over. Well, at least I could fall asleep.
Juna [00:03:49] My God. Okay, well, that's like, the greatest achievement of all time. I've never even heard of such a thing. That's insane. Because now, now that you drink coffee, do you realize what an achievement that is like? That's like a crazy achievement.
Eddie [00:04:00] I was so fear driven.
Juna [00:04:01] Yeah, I guess so. Okay, So what made you start drinking it then?
Eddie [00:04:04] Well, you know, when you're on call every third night, it is awful. I survived because I always figured that the next couple of nights I could catch up on my sleep.
Juna [00:04:13] Okay.
Eddie [00:04:14] But as soon as we had our first child, it was like we were on call every single night. And all of a sudden, I needed coffee just to function the next day.
Juna [00:04:24] Okay, so how old is Jesse now?
Eddie [00:04:26] So our oldest, He's almost 29. That's a lot of coffee under the bridge.
Juna [00:04:32] Okay, so I did not even wait for college. I have been drinking coffee since I was 15, and I was a Starbucks gold member, like I said. So if you're not on the you know, on the cool people list with all the cool people on the street.
Eddie [00:04:45] Go on. What is a gold card?
Juna [00:04:46] Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. So basically, we had this program. It was like you go a certain number of times, you get to the green level. If you're in the green level, you get nothing. You go some more, you get to the gold level, and if you're on the gold level, they send you a card. It was like a gold card. So now it's not as fun anymore because these are phones like it's no fun. But like back in the day it was so cool because you got a special shiny gold card. So I was like, Yeah, I'm so special because you then you swipe at the register and like, I mean, the whole point was like, you got special perks, like you got free alternative milks or like free refills, whatever. But it's like, I don't care about the perks. I want the card. So anyways, I've been going to Starbucks so often, which honestly now that I am thinking about it, this really explains my financial situation of is really just a really explains a lot about the state of my finances truly. But I went so often that I maintained gold status my entire life at Starbucks. And my family is Eastern European, so they have always had Turkish style coffee on the stove. Like, you know, that's a.
Eddie [00:05:47] Really thick one. I remember drinking.
Juna [00:05:49] It's really thick. Yeah. So I feel like I've always grown up around coffee.
Eddie [00:05:53] It's kind of amazing if you think about it. Coffee, a substance that contains a powerful drug, caffeine. It's been part of human societies for hundreds of years.
Rob Van Dam [00:06:03] Yeah. So the history of coffee is interesting. It's not as long as the history for tea. There is anecdotal evidence that people used to chew coffee berries in Ethiopia, but actually preparing coffee is a more recent phenomenon. It first went from Africa to the Middle East. People started preparing coffee there, and then in the 16th century, coffee was introduced in Europe as well. And so by the 17th century there were many coffee houses where people gather to talk about politics and science and other topical issues. And it is thought that these coffee houses have also contributed to the Enlightenment and political developments, as well as the Industrial Revolution, that people needed to work long hours doing boring tasks in factories. So coffee is now a very intrinsic part of our economy and people's personal lives as well.
Eddie [00:06:57] Juna, if I may interrupt Rob here for a second for a brief, maybe historical, more likely apocryphal side note.
Juna [00:07:04] Cue the music. Sorry I had to beat you to it.
Eddie [00:07:08] And one of the most widely circulated legends about how coffee was first discovered is the legend of Kaldi. In the ninth century, the story goes, an Ethiopian goat herder named Kaldi noticed that his goats would get very energetic if they nibbled on the berries from a certain bush. So of course, he tried them himself. He felt amazing afterwards, so he brought them to the place of worship in the village where the head monk declared them the devil's work and threw them into the fire. And then when the delicious smell wafted through the air, the first brewhouse, the head monk ordered that the embers be removed and water be poured over them to preserve their smell. And after drinking this water, let's just say the monks were convinced.
Juna [00:08:03] Wow. Eddie, I formally request Eddie story time. I think that'd be a great Tik Tok channel. You reading stories? It would be so good. Anyways, is this a real story? Is my question to you?
Eddie [00:08:17] The story is real. Yeah, but the facts will that's something else. I don't know if you knew this, but I got my public speaking start, giving tours at Yale.
Juna [00:08:26] Whoa. You were a tour guide. Of course. I feel like that literally fits you so well.
Eddie [00:08:30] Not only that, but for one brief semester, I was the head tour guide.
Juna [00:08:33] Really?
Eddie [00:08:34] Yes. Yes. It was like. It was the epitome of my whole Yale experience.
Juna [00:08:38] Wow. Okay.
Eddie [00:08:39] And there's nothing better to train someone to speak than to walk backwards. Talk hour and a half, talking and making stuff up.
Juna [00:08:48] So what he does on this show, in fact, every single day. I'm just kidding,
Eddie [00:08:52] The story is real, but the facts are questionable. I like another version where all of history is divided into. You've heard of B.C.? Yeah, right. That was, of course, before coffee.
Juna [00:09:02] Right.
Eddie [00:09:03] Or more politically correct. We like to say BCE, which before the coffee era. Right. And we are celebrating the new year 2023 CE of the coffee era.
Juna [00:09:15] My personal BCE is 7 a.m. to 8 a.m. and then it's like 8 a.m. on is like CE.
Eddie [00:09:21] And it hangs out with you all day. Right. Also, we are always talking about rats and mice on this podcast. They're usually the subjects in a lot of the studies that we discuss. I thought it would only be fair if we also included those goats.
Juna [00:09:34] You know, if there's one thing you are, it's fair. You're always including all the animals in our episodes. So let's figure out if coffee is a health drink as I am praying it is. Or not. So coffee obviously has many components to it. So we're going to have caffeine actually later in the episode. I know it's a really exciting topic for everyone, but they're stimulating.
Eddie [00:09:58] It's a stimulating, stimulating topic.
Juna [00:10:01] But there's so many other compounds in coffee which people don't often hear about.
Rob Van Dam [00:10:06] Coffee is a plant food. So it's a it's the seed of the coffee tree. So, yeah, it has some characteristics of a similar to fruits and vegetables. So it includes many different components. So it includes some fiber and minerals like potassium and magnesium, even a little bit of vitamin B1 and also a lot of other compounds, so called polyphenols like chlorogenic acid.
Juna [00:10:33] Now, historically speaking, coffee has not always had the best reputation.
Eddie [00:10:37] I mean, it has so many upsides for making you feel more awake to tasting so good, to keeping you focused longer. It even improves athletic performance. I guess there has to be some kind of downside.
Juna [00:10:50] Right. There always has to be.
Rob Van Dam [00:10:52] In the seventies, the 1970s, there was evidence that people drinking more coffee had a higher risk of sort of cancers like pancreas, cancers of bladder cancer, as well as a higher risk of heart attacks or stroke.
Eddie [00:11:06] Well, mic drop.
Juna [00:11:08] Okay shows over.
Eddie [00:11:08] I mean, it was over. Sorry. Bye bye, guys.
Juna [00:11:11] Just kidding, guys. Okay. No, no, we can't trust these studies because there is actually problems with these studies.
Eddie [00:11:17] Problems? I love when we critique questionable science. What happened in these studies?
Juna [00:11:21] Well, it comes in the way the studies were actually designed. So in these studies, basically the way it worked was like they ask you, do you drink coffee? Yes or no? And they ask you, do you have health problems? Yes or no? And that was kind of it. And it turned out that's not a very good way of conducting science. For example.
Rob Van Dam [00:11:36] In many populations, it's widely observed that people drinking more coffee also are more likely to smoke. Of course, those many people drink coffee who don't smoke, but there is a correlation and often these habits go together. Of course, smoking is a very powerful risk factor for different types of cancers, as well as if it gets vascular diseases. So if you don't fully control for the smoking habit that it may seem of coffee's detrimental effect to the smoking instead of coffee that's responsible.
Juna [00:12:07] I mean, think about the people, you know, who drink the most coffee, right?
Eddie [00:12:11] It might be those who aren't sleeping well, maybe they have really stressful jobs.
Juna [00:12:16] Right. So actually, it's very unfortunate. But like a lot of the behaviors and lifestyle factors that aren't necessarily the healthiest are associated with higher coffee consumption. So in those cases, it's not the coffee that's leading to worse health outcomes. It's like all the rest of it, like the 4 hours of sleep or whatever.
Eddie [00:12:34] Wait, Juna, are they sleeping only 4 hours because of all the coffee they drink? Or are they so busy working that they need the coffee to stay awake the next day?
Juna [00:12:42] Right. So we don't actually know. But if you have a ton of jobs, you have a very stressful life. You have kids to take care of. This add that whatever you can imagine, that your life doesn't allow you to get a lot of sleep. So you use coffee to get you through the next day or whatever, or even people who get enough sleep. But they just have really stressful jobs, like they just use coffee. They're chugging it all day long just to get through the day.
Eddie [00:13:01] So back to the new sleep deprived parents, right?
Rob Van Dam [00:13:05] There's also some other issues in these early studies that often people use the case control design. So they compared people with certain diseases to people without diseases. And of course, having the disease itself may change your lifestyle or your memory of what lifestyle you have, including coffee consumption. So that's really less reliable than the studies that we currently do, where we look at healthy people, we look at their lifestyle habits like coffee consumption and followed them over time.
Juna [00:13:35] So this is called a prospective cohort study.
Rob Van Dam [00:13:38] So they we measure people, they don't have the disease yet, which makes their reporting much more reliable. And then we followed them for 10,20 sometimes 30 years and see if they develop different chronic diseases.
Eddie [00:13:49] Okay. And do these prospective cohort studies show a different result?
Rob Van Dam [00:13:53] So newer studies that have a better study design, they don't find these detrimental effects of coffee consumption or need a cancer or cardiovascular diseases.
Eddie [00:14:04] Yes, this is more of what I want to hear you. And it's so interesting. We just climb on to these studies that confirm our own habits.
Juna [00:14:11] And whenever we find that agrees with us, we're like, Yeah, guys, this is awesome. Study is so awesome.
Rob Van Dam [00:14:17] Yeah. So early in the 2000's people started to observe beneficial health effects of coffee. So we did a cohort study that was published in 2002 where people in the Netherlands drinking more coffee had a lower risk of Type two diabetes. So that was a very surprising result. And many people didn't believe that at first. But it has now been replicated in about 30 forward studies across the world that find very, yeah, quite consistent results, but also for other health outcomes for liver diseases in particular like liver cancer or liver cirrhosis. Higher coffee consumption is associated with lower risk of this type of cancer, this type of liver disease. And interestingly, caffeine consumption has also been associated with lower risk of Parkinson's disease.
Juna [00:15:05] So the great news for everyone who loves coffee is that coffee intake is actually linked to living longer.
Rob Van Dam [00:15:12] So people drinking more coffee in many cohort studies have been shown to have a slightly longer lifespan and be less likely to died or are doing the study. So it may be that all these different beneficial health effects kind of come together and also resulting in a slightly longer lifespan.
Eddie [00:15:34] What I'm hearing is I may have to increase my coffee intake. I'm only at one. That's a big cup, maybe two a day right now. I got to start chugging now.
Juna [00:15:42] Okay, well, hold on.
Rob Van Dam [00:15:44] It's really drinking about 2 to 5 cups of coffee. That seems to be the sweet spot where people have a lower risk of premature mortality. But having very high coffee consumption doesn't seem to be as beneficial. And that aligns with the findings for heart disease and stroke.
Eddie [00:16:02] Okay, so don't go crazy with the coffee, but at least there's no need to not drink coffee.
Juna [00:16:08] Or is there, at least for some people. We're going to talk all about it right after this break.
Eddie [00:16:19] And we're back. Hopefully you had a coffee or two over that break. And we're talking with Professor Rob Van Dam from George Washington University.
Juna [00:16:28] So far, we've learned that coffee was associated with cancer risk back in the 1970s. But it turns out that it was a conclusion based on some poorly conducted studies. So now better design studies have found that coffee is actually very beneficial for diseases like diabetes, heart disease and even Parkinson's. So now you may be wondering what is it in the coffee that is so beneficial?
Eddie [00:16:50] Well, could it be the caffeine?
Juna [00:16:53] That's one possibility. And for certain diseases, the caffeine is definitely really crucial. But for others, it actually seems like it's irrelevant.
Rob Van Dam [00:17:01] For Parkinson's disease, that's really seems to be the caffeine. For liver disease is maybe combination of caffeine and other compounds best for some of our health outcomes. There really doesn't seem to be a difference in findings for decaffeinated coffee and caffeinated coffee. So for type two diabetes and endometrial cancer, for example, we see the same results for decaffeinated and caffeinated coffee. So it seems to be other components in coffee rather than the caffeine that's responsible for these potential health benefits.
Eddie [00:17:32] So for those diseases where it's not the caffeine, what is it in the coffee that's creating these benefits?
Juna [00:17:38] Well, researchers aren't exactly sure, but we have a few leads.
Rob Van Dam [00:17:43] So it is a molecule called glycolic acid high concentrations in coffee. It does seem to reduce insulin resistance and improve glucose tolerance to specific pathways in animal models. So you see, if you get that specific compound to mice or rats that they improved insulin sensitivity and are less likely to get diabetes. Of course, it's not so clear in humans, but it the same effect at play and that it's just this one compound what is a lot of compounds in coffee or a combination of different compounds that has beneficial effects on perhaps the risk of diabetes.
Eddie [00:18:22] Okay. You know. Now, can I make a request?
Juna [00:18:25] Eddie, I will allow you to make a request.
Eddie [00:18:26] Oh, thank you. Well, we've discussed the health benefits of coffee, but what about the energetic goats running around the field? In other words, can we talk about the caffeine?
Juna [00:18:35] Okay. Yes, that is a great segway. We're going to be talking about the caffeine because let's face it, caffeine is one of the best parts of drinking coffee. It's probably the first thing you think of when you think of coffee. So let's dive a little bit into the caffeine. Caffeine is actually an adenosine receptor antagonist and.
Eddie [00:18:56] Let's translate that for the contestants playing along at home.
Rob Van Dam [00:18:59] So what it means is that it reduces the effects of adonosine.
Juna [00:19:04] Okay, so here's what you need to know. Basically, guys. We have a molecule that we use for energy called ATP. Right?
Eddie [00:19:12] Right, So that's adenosine triphosphate, a three phosphate on a base of adenosine.
Juna [00:19:18] Yeah, so the only important parts about that are it's adenosine attached to some other stuff. And then as you go throughout your day, the chemical bonds between all those molecules are being broken until only the adenosine is left.
Eddie [00:19:30] And when you break the bonds, you get lots of energy, but then you keep on building up the adenosine.
Juna [00:19:36] Right. So it's like the longer you're going throughout your day, the more adenosine is being built up from all the ATP you're metabolizing, right? So the adenosine is building up in your brain and in your brain there are receptors for the adenosine. So the way to think about receptors is like they're special cells that are made to receive other molecules, right?
Eddie [00:19:55] So that's like the lock and the adenosine fits it like a key that, right?
Juna [00:19:59] Yeah. So like the adenosine is a certain shape and this shape happens to perfectly fit into this receptor and they fit in each other, just like you said, just like a lock and key. So it turns out the adenosine binding to these receptors is actually really important.
Rob Van Dam [00:20:13] So throughout the day we get more tired and then the cells start fighting more and more to its receptors. And that makes us drowsy and sleepy. That makes us sleep at night.
Eddie [00:20:26] Oh, okay, cool. So the longer you're awake, the more adenosine is building up and the sleepier you get.
Juna [00:20:33] Right. So these receptors bind to adenosine is the feeling of drowsiness. Like, that's how we feel drowsy. But here's the thing about caffeine.
Rob Van Dam [00:20:42] So because caffeine is a very similar structure to this signaling molecule called adenosine, then it binds to the same receptors. And then adenisone is not able to bind as well to these receptors, making the function of adenosine be less pronounced so you get less sleepy and less drowsy over time and more alert. So that's a good thing.
Eddie [00:21:07] Caffeine is basically blocking the receptors because it looks so similar to adenosine.
Juna [00:21:13] Exactly. So do you get it? It's an adenosine receptor antagonist. AKA it blocks (antagonist) the adenosine receptor. Do you get it? Does it make sense?
Eddie [00:21:25] Sense? I do. But if you're listening and you're lost, the good news is it really doesn't matter. You don't have to know how coffee works for it to work. Now, of course, we know there are also some negative effects to caffeine.
Rob Van Dam [00:21:37] So some of the negative health effects of caffeine are clearly that it may affect your ability to sleep or even the regularity of your sleep if you drink caffeine too late during the day. And some people have anxiety symptoms. They may feel simply a bit nervous or anxious if they drink too much caffeine or coffee.
Juna [00:21:57] And how much of the good versus bad side effects of caffeine you encounter is basically very, very individual.
Rob Van Dam [00:22:04] So people can drink lots of lots of coffee during the day and not have any of these detrimental effects. So other people say, well, if I drink any coffee in the afternoon and I have difficulty sleeping, and it does make sense from the biology perspective because we notice a lot of difference in how fast people metabolize caffeine.
Juna [00:22:25] So long story short, if you feel like you get a lot of negative side effects from caffeine, Rob says it may be because of the way you metabolize it.
Rob Van Dam [00:22:33] So there's some genetic determinants of death, so of so variance and it's liver enzymes, genetic variants that change how you live. Enzymes function whether you metabolize caffeine faster or slower, but it's also lifestyle factors. So, for example, if you're a smoker, you metabolize caffeine much faster. If you use oral contraceptive pills, you metabolize caffeine much slower. If you become pregnant, particularly during the third trimester, caffeine metabolism is much slower. So you may see that during life, if you change your lifestyle or you have certain health conditions or use of certain drugs, you may get become more sensitive to caffeine.
Juna [00:23:12] Eddie, I already know what kind of caffeine metabolizer you are.
Eddie [00:23:16] What do you mean? You know?
Juna [00:23:17] You just waltz in here all arrogant with your cup of coffee at 3 p.m., you're like, Yeah, I'm just going to drink my coffee now.
Eddie [00:23:25] Well, sometimes I've had a long tasting patients and I got to perk up to be on the podcast.
Juna [00:23:30] Yeah, well, you know, if I did something like that, I'd be up till 4 a.m.. Okay. I'm just like, What does this man do it? I'm like, Eddie, why are you drinking that right now? You're like, It's great, guys. I just fall asleep at 8 p.m., like normal. It's fine. I'm just kidding. He doesn't see the APM, but if I had that, I would literally not be able to sleep. So I drink my coffee at 7 a.m. and I still barely get six and a half hours no matter how tired I am that night.
Eddie [00:23:50] Oh, so I know what kind of caffeine metabolizer you are.
Juna [00:23:54] So Rob says that people are actually pretty good about knowing the type of person they are and compensating for it.
Rob Van Dam [00:24:02] You see, for example, that people have a sort of genetic variants that make them more sensitive to caffeine actually compensate themselves. They start reducing their caffeine intake. So I think people tend to find a caffeine or coffee consumption habit that fits their lifestyle, fits that physiology. That's why we don't see as many people that have detrimental effects of caffeine as you would expect, because people find out they have these detrimental effects and then start drinking less caffeine.
Juna [00:24:30] So I think this whole self moderation thing is actually very interesting because at least the people I know in my life are like very good at moderating their caffeine intake. Like my sister, if she drinks any, it really hurts her stomach. So she just like doesn't have any coffee and my mom can drink coffee all day, no problem. So she like has coffee, Right. But then when it comes to food and exercise, people are terrible at self-monitoring.
Eddie [00:24:53] And that's such a good point, right?
Juna [00:24:55] Because my sister Dairy does not agree with her. And then, like, she'll know it and she'll be like, oh, I'm going to be in so much pain, but I'm going to have a cannoli. And I'm like, But you know, it's going to hurt your stomach. What do you mean? She's like, no, my God, just warning you going to have degrees? I'm warning you. I was like, Oh, my Lord.
Eddie [00:25:13] She's warning you because you're going to suffer.
Juna [00:25:15] Yes, Yes, I will suffer the consequences. How does this make sense?
Eddie [00:25:19] So, you know, so much of our time we spend on this show talking about like how to be more mindful and how to make choices that matter and makes sense to you. And I think there's a really important point that somehow people have figured this out with caffeine much better than they have with relating, oh, an extra half hour sleep actually makes me feel better. Or maybe, you know, like I tell patients, "go for a ten minute walk and tell me how you feel". Right. You know, maybe a little better, but have a cup of coffee. You feel that like a half hour later.
Juna [00:25:50] I know if there is a way to, like, make the effects from food or exercise just, like, a tiny bit more instant, I feel like there's just be someone who has problems in the world.
Eddie [00:25:59] Or we just need to be a little bit more mindful and just a little bit more patient maybe.
Juna [00:26:05] Woa, no, that's that's not going to work. So anyways, go back to my my idea is a better idea honestly.
Eddie [00:26:10] I think there's some wisdom here and we'll have to work on this with our listeners.
Juna [00:26:14] Right. Being more mindful of what the things you're doing are making you feel basically. So like I have been drinking coffee for a very long time. It's been ten, 12 years.
Eddie [00:26:26] Do the math. Do the math.
Juna [00:26:27] You know how old I am. It's embarrassing anyways, but I have been not sleeping a ton for a long, long time. So I feel like for the past six or seven, eight years I only sleep six and a half ish hours a day.
Eddie [00:26:42] And we've kind of covered this topic. You know, that's not enough sleep.
Juna [00:26:45] That's like literally not enough sleep. It's like, guys, I like go to bed at a prompt time. I wear my blue walking glasses. Okay, I go to bed. It's like ten or 11 and it's like, no matter what I do, I wake up 6 hours later. So I told everybody in my life I was like, Guys, I'm going to go off caffeine. I was actually inspired by Michael Pollan because he did a whole book on caffeine and about how he stopped drinking coffee for a year and how he slept like a teenager. And I was like, "I'm going to go off caffeine". I told everybody and they said, Juna, that's stupid because you only drink one cup of coffee. You drink it at 7 a.m. It's not the coffee, it must be something else. And I foraged on. I said, Guys, I'm going to try it. So anyways, two ish months ago or something, I stopped drinking caffeinated coffee. And guess what?
Eddie [00:27:30] What happened?
Juna [00:27:31] I sleep like eight, two and a half hours a day.
Eddie [00:27:36] That's a lot more sleep. And you weren't even drinking that much coffee.
Juna [00:27:40] Literally, I was drinking one nespresso pod and my one nespresso pod I think it has like 75 milligrams of caffeine. And I switched to a decaf pod, which still has some caffeine. It's like 25 milligrams. And that's led to like an hour and a half more of sleep a day. Isn't that literally insane?
Eddie [00:27:54] Do you think all of your friends and family didn't want to see a well-rested Juna?
Juna [00:27:59] They weren't ready. They were like, this girl is like worse than six and a half hours. We can't even, it's not even safe to have her on 8 hours of sleep, you know?
Eddie [00:28:06] So this is interesting. So you're getting more energy, obviously, from the sleep than you are from having even that cup of coffee.
Juna [00:28:13] Yeah, yeah, yeah. So anyways, that just goes to show you how different everyone is. And one of the other very interesting things about caffeine is that if you drink caffeine regularly, if you're a regular coffee drinker, you actually build up a tolerance to it.
Rob Van Dam [00:28:27] So most people, when they first drink coffee or tea or other forms of caffeine, they're actually quite sensitive to it. So you may get a like an adrenaline response, a stress response if you first drink coffee and increase your blood pressure very dramatically. So this response, if you keep drinking coffee or other source of caffeine everyday, that within a week it's much attenuated. So you have a much more calm response to coffee after a week than you had before.
Eddie [00:28:57] I'm guessing the other side of the coin is caffeine withdrawal. You know, Juna I've experienced this. If I go one day without coffee, I develop the worst splitting headache and I could barely get through the workday.
Juna [00:29:11] Yeah, I know the feeling. Well, because I was going to say, like, when I haven't had coffee the first day I went decaf. I was taking a nap at 10 a.m., guys, I literally climbed it. I went from my home office, my desk, Yeah, two feet to my bed. And I crawled in and I took down my shades and I took a nap. I've never taken a nap in my life. I was like, What is literally happening?
Eddie [00:29:32] Can I tell you a story about my caffeine withdrawal?
Juna [00:29:35] Eddie, please. Story time. Story Time by Eddie.
Eddie [00:29:37] So every year I do a fast for Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement.
Juna [00:29:43] Right?
Eddie [00:29:44] And in this kind of fast, you don't drink water, you don't eat anything. Nothing passes your lips formally. If I have not tapered for a good three or four days, I will have the most wicked caffeine withdrawal headache. So usually I remember to taper. A couple of years ago, I just forgot. And there I am, about 1:30, 2 in the afternoon and my head is splitting and I'm thinking now this is when I atone for my sins. I must have done something God awful this year. And the good part of the story is that my son, the one who got me hooked on caffeine almost 29 years ago when he was born, came along and said "Dad. You know, there's that rule that you're allowed to take medicine if you need it on the holiday?" I go," Yeah, like what kind of medicine do I need?" He goes, "How about a caffeine pill?"
Juna [00:30:30] Oh my god.
Eddie [00:30:30] And 100 milligrams of caffeine with a tiny, small sip of water and a 30 minute nap. And I woke up and my headache was gone. And then I could do some proper atonement.
Juna [00:30:42] You know, it's so crazy. The thing about caffeine is that I don't know if you remember the first cup of coffee you had, you probably don't. I don't think I remember either. But like, if you have never had a coffee before and you have a cup of coffee, it's like amazing. Like that day is like, oh, my God, like you're just getting all these things done and whatever. And it's like, if you're a regular coffee drinker, you actually don't have that feeling of alertness and wakefulness every day. It's actually that you need coffee to stay in a normal level of wakefulness at that point, like it's a negative to go off caffeine. But having caffeine is actually like not even positive. It's just keeping you at neutral. So it's really, really interesting because people will think like people that drink coffee have such an advantage in their alertness and they actually don't. If you're a regular coffee drinker, you need coffee to just be normal.
Eddie [00:31:30] That's your state.
Juna [00:31:30] It's your normal state. It's like you need just coffee. And if you go off for two weeks and you like have a cup of coffee again, it's almost like a euphoria. You're just like, Yeah, I can do this, this, this.
Eddie [00:31:39] But you can't. Have you had that cup since you've gone off?
Juna [00:31:41] Oh, yet I do it sometimes just on purpose. If I know like I have a big workout. I'll strategically have a cup of coffee, but like I've pretty consistently sucks the decaf because I do like sleeping the full 8 hours. But if you do want to go decaf or want to stop drinking coffee, going cold turkey is probably going to be a bad idea. So instead we can be more intentional about the way we come off coffee and kind of taper off.
Rob Van Dam [00:32:08] I think if you slowly reduce your your caffeine intake, for example, over a couple of days every day, reduce your caffeine intake by a little bit, I think you're less of a coffee withdrawal than if you suddenly stop drinking coffee. So again, it's more individual variation. So people hardly have any symptoms when they stop drinking coffee. Some people have a lot of difficulty. They may get flu like symptoms and feel very lousy. So I think a gradual approach is best. Generally, it's the worst the first or the second day, and after a few days the symptoms may get a little better.
Eddie [00:32:44] So if you're decreasing your caffeine, remember, it's all about the number, about how much caffeine.
Juna [00:32:50] Right.
Eddie [00:32:50] And the same goes for adding up the caffeine that's in perhaps those energy drinks, the caffeine pills, which occasionally are very helpful. And here's a fun fact. Caffeine actually improves sports performance. So it's actually packed into a number of gels and chomps and everything that you might have in the middle of a long distance event.
Juna [00:33:11] Right. So before we send everyone off to drink their recommended 2 to 5 cups of coffee per day for their health, obviously we should probably mention that not all coffee is created equal.
Eddie [00:33:24] Right, so firstly, coffee does not mean what are they called? Caramel macchiato, peppermint mocha, all those crazy drinks.
Juna [00:33:31] Who is that supposed to be in reference to?
Eddie [00:33:33] No one is particularly just, you know, it's for the listeners, for the general population.
Juna [00:33:38] Eddie, are you telling me that you do not ever, Guys, okay, I know it's a running joke. It's a running joke. Haha. Juna likes peppermint mocha? Ha ha ha. But you truly do not like the peppermint mocha?
Eddie [00:33:50] I don't. I know, that's.
Juna [00:33:52] Ridiculous, but does it make sense?
Eddie [00:33:54] So I don't drink black coffee? That sounds crazy to me.
Juna [00:33:58] Okay.
Eddie [00:33:59] I always have lots of milk. I prefer the nondairy milks just digests a little bit better. But I try to keep the sweet part in the solid thing I'm eating. That might be why, I don't know.
Juna [00:34:12] A scone.
Eddie [00:34:13] A scone. That's the phrase. A scone or a muffin or a homemade cookie or something like that goes.
Juna [00:34:21] Obviously we get it. The health benefit you got from an espresso shot is undone if it has like 50 lbs of sugar in the drink. But that does not change the fact that the pistachio latte.
Eddie [00:34:31] Ooh, is really good. It's really.
Juna [00:34:34] Nice. So if you're looking to increase your coffee intake or maybe change your coffee intake, there are actually even differences in how the coffee is brewed.
Rob Van Dam [00:34:44] Yeah. So that's that's an interesting aspect of coffee that they haven't talked about yet. There's also this compound called cafestol, and it reportedly increases people's cholesterol levels, the serum cholesterol in the blood. So that's a detrimental effect. So if you use paper filtered coffee, this compound stays in the paper filter in the draft that you don't drink. And so a paper filled with coffee has a very low amount of this cafestol compound and hardly has any effect on your cholesterol level. So it's not something to worry about. And the same happens when instant coffee is produced.
Eddie [00:35:21] Paper filtered drip coffee and instant coffee seem to be the best ways to reduce cafestol.
Juna [00:35:27] Yeah, and if you want to ensure that you have the most possible amount of cafestol which is very harmful.
Juna [00:35:33] To raise your cholesterol much as possible. Then what you should do is basically boil your coffee the way my parents do. So in summary, should you be making the New Year's resolution to drink less coffee? Well, maybe not.
Rob Van Dam [00:35:48] So I don't think you need to make a New Year's resolution to cut down on caffeine. I think that's one of the takeaways. You can really, I think with a lot of confidence, wake up and root for all the evidence that's out there. Now that coffee for for normal healthy people is not detrimental. So if you like coffee, even quite like coffee consumption and you don't notice that affects your nervousness or your sleep, you can continue that habit and not be concerned about any health effects.
Juna [00:36:16] And for people that don't like coffee.
Rob Van Dam [00:36:19] I also wouldn't say, well, have the New Year's resolution to start drinking coffee if you don't like coffee. I don't think the evidence is so strong that you would say, well, you need to have coffee as part of your lifestyle to really reach these health benefits. So you could do other things like exercising more or eating more fruits or vegetables or nuts or whole grains that may have a clear benefits for a wide range of diseases.
Eddie [00:36:44] And if you already drink coffee, then finding a way to drink it without sugar, or without a lot of extra sugar, could be a great way to make it a healthier habit or even switching from that boiled style coffee to the drip style coffee.
Juna [00:36:57] And if your New Year's resolution is to save some cash money, then maybe the better thing to do is just to invest in a way to make your coffee at home the way I should have done ten, 12 years ago, 12 years ago, and saved myself all the money that I don't have today.
Eddie [00:37:16] And if your coffee consumption is disturbing your sleep, or if you're using the coffee to make up for a lack of sleep, there's probably something much more important to be working on than your coffee habit.
Rob Van Dam [00:37:29] And there's so much evidence coming out that having enough sleep is essential for your mental health, your physical health. So if you drink coffee, it's perfectly fine. But don't use it as a substitute for having enough sleep, In the end, in the long run, it can't substitute for the better mental health effects of just not sleeping enough. So I think what you want to make of a New Year's resolution perhaps getting enough sleep, it's definitely a good one.
Juna [00:37:55] So in the battle for sleep versus coffee, it's always sleep for the win.
Juna [00:38:04] And that is the perfect place to end today's episode. Thank you so much to Rob van Dam. Rob went above and beyond, guys. We had some technical difficulties and he was so generous with his time. Always had the best attitude. It was so nice of him and he gave us such an amazing interview and we're just very, very thankful. We will link to Rob's work on our website, foodweneedtotalk.com. You can find us on Instagram at Food Rich Talk. Please send us some coffee recommendations, particularly for Eddie, who seems to not like sweet. I think he just hasn't tried the right sweet coffee yet. But that's just my opinion. You can find me on Instagram @theofficialjuna and Juna Gjata on Tik Tok and YouTube. You can find Eddie.
Eddie [00:38:47] I'm going to be found having an affogato, which I was introduced to, which is putting some delicious ice cream into the coffee.
Juna [00:38:57] Where did you have that?
Eddie [00:38:59] I had it originally in France.
Juna [00:39:00] So you do like sweet coffee? You your yours is even worse than mine. You put ice cream in your coffee.
Eddie [00:39:06] Oh, it's so good.
Juna [00:39:07] My goodness.
Eddie [00:39:08] And if you and if the ice cream has the little chocolate chips, then they melt and you have at the end of it, it's just my it's just magical. So I don't go for the ones I can't pronounce. But affogato I can now say. Just a scoop of ice cream and you're usually afternoon coffee.
Juna [00:39:24] My goodness gracious. Food. We Need to talk is a production of PRX.
Eddie [00:39:32] Our producers are Morgan Flannery and Rebecca Seidel.
Juna [00:39:36] Tom Bazarian is our mix engineer with production assistance from Isabel Kirby McGowan.
Eddie [00:39:41] Jocelyn Gonzales is executive producer for PRX Productions.
Juna [00:39:45] Food, We Need to Talk was co-created by Carrie Goldberg, George Hicks, Eddie Phillips and me.
Eddie [00:39:50] For any personal health questions. Please consult your personal health provider to find out more. Go to foodweneedtotalk.com.
Both [00:39:59] Thanks for listening!
