Coffee linked to Longevity

Synopsis:
“A bunch of people getting excited over nothing”

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People just love to hear that something they love to eat/drink turns out to be “good for them”.

Chocolate (only the bitter stuff, sorry)
Coffee (without all the crap dumped in)
Red wine (nope)
Olive oil (unless you get fat I guess)
Blueberries (okay, I eat this)
Whole grains (I doubt it)
Honey (no thanks)

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I looked for this video on this forum but couldn’t find it. This is perhaps the most interesting thing I’ve listened to ever. Pollan helps us here by being extremely transparent in his process on quitting caffeine and then failing to stay unaddicted when using caffeine again for cognitive benefit.

All the coffee lovers will be haters if I was to come down on coffee. Plus I love coffee too much to hate it. And there is a lot of evidence that coffee is healthy and perhaps the trigger for the development of modern civilization (watch the video).

My question to myself is this: when I say out loud, yes I am addicted to coffee, and yes my sleep would be better if I didn’t drink coffee (or maybe any caffeine: watch the video), and yes I would be a calmer less stressed (better?) person if I didn’t drink coffee ……BUT I am going to keep drinking coffee anyway because I like it……

How does that fit into my worldview?

I am still thinking about my answer. Which begins with: I have no idea what kind of a person I am without caffeine or caffeine withdrawal so I cannot answer accurately. I have been on caffeine since I could drink Coca-Cola (3 yo?)

What other addictions have I rationalized as acceptable over the years?

(1) Alcohol, Drank a lot. I’m down to a few drinks per year now
(2) Fast food. I loved Burger King. It took me a long time to quit fast food. Okay, pizza a couple times a year at the office.
(3) Soda. I bought in bulk. None since 2009
(4) Coffee? I have switched to green tea multiple times. But that’s not the same as quitting caffeine
(5) Protein / energy bars. I lived on these things. None for the last few years.
(6) ?

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Here’s the related article by Pollan

I might have a coffee addiction but it doesn’t have me.

I quit coffee last week. I gave away my keurig and coffee bean grinder (burn the ships). I’ve gone back to green tea, and my green tea usage is limited to the AM and to 4 tea bags per day (used as many times as I want). I’ve started drinking hibiscus tea whenever I need “something”. It is very tangy (Prolon taught me to like it). I’ll take extra creatine if I need a pick-me-up (I haven’t so far).

My sleep is up by 1-2 hours a night over the last 5 days. Coincidence? I doubt it.

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I will quit coffee for a few weeks and see how it affects my sleep. I have quit coffee before, and it feels amazing when I, after a break, have my first espresso again. My plan is to try and reduce coffee drinking to drinking espresso on two separate mornings during a week.

When it comes to cofee, I have also noticed that I feel different when I take 200 mg caffeine in pill form, compared to taking a mug of coffee. I don’t get the same kind of crash, when taking caffeine in pill form.

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Good idea. It will be hard. Pollan tried to only have his coffee (espresso) on sundays to preserve the amazing feeling he got from being caffeine naive. He couldn’t contain it. His brain found all sorts of ways to get him to drink coffee. I believe he still tries to drink green tea as a distraction (ala methadone) from coffee some of the time

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Update. Since quitting coffee about 2 weeks ago my sleep is much better. I have done other things so there is some confounding but I’m very happy with the results. I wake up feeling refreshed for the first time in memory.

Last night I slept for 9.5 hours. I had a 9.5 hour night last week too. I haven’t slept more than 8 hours in years, I’m pretty sure; but certainly I haven’t had two in 7 days.

The other things I’ve done:
(1) lights out in house at sundown except for dimmed incandescent bulbs by my sitting chair; thanks Scott Zimmerman and Nira Lighting
(2) sitting under NIR lamp and bulbs for several hours in AM (before gym opens)
(3) HRV biofeedback at night
(4) all electronics off at 8pm; I can read a real book as much as I want (very dim light)
(5) no eating after 7pm; no large meal after 5pm (mostly that means I eat a small dinnner now)
(6) no melatonin before sleep; I take 10mg when I get up at 2am (+-) to pee; idea from John Henning

Coffee is dead to me.

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All of these seem sensible, and sleep is critical to longevity, so good on you for taking care of that, congrats. Regarding coffee, as you know, there are the fast and slow metabolizers, the latter seem to derive less if any benefit. You can check to see if you are a slow metabolizer. If you are a fast metabolizer, and drink coffee only in the morning, you may still be able to enjoy the benefits without affecting your sleep - in any case there’s research showing that drinking coffee in the morning is better in any case. The other thing is that if it is the caffeine that is the problem, you can always switch to decaf - research seems to indicate that you get most of the coffee benefits from decaf too. However, if you want to avoid coffee altogether, I get it.

There are slow and fast metabolizers of caffeine. I found out long ago that I am a fast metabolizer. I can drink as much coffee as I want until about 5 pm without it affecting my sleep.
When it comes to sleep protocols, one size doesn’t fit all.

I also question the blue light hypothesis. I have noticed no appreciable effect.

My sleep protocol consists mainly of always going to bed at the same time and rising at the same time every day. I take melatonin 2 hrs before bedtime to set the biological sleep cycle for the time I go to bed. I don’t understand John’s rationale for taking melatonin if you wake up during the night because all of the literature I have read says it only adjusts the sleep cycle it does not per se make you sleepy. The only times I wake up during the night and cannot go right back to sleep is if something has caused me to be upset or worried. In that case, I take trazodone to go back to sleep.

“The metabolism of caffeine is primarily influenced by genetic variations in the CYP1A2 gene, which encodes the enzyme responsible for metabolizing caffeine. Individuals can be categorized as either “slow” or “fast” caffeine metabolizers based on their CYP1A2 genotype. Specifically, the rs762551 polymorphism in the CYP1A2 gene is a well-studied variant that affects caffeine metabolism. Carriers of the C allele (AC or CC genotypes) are considered slow metabolizers, while those with the AA genotype are fast metabolizers.[1-3]”

“Understanding whether one is a slow or fast metabolizer of caffeine can help individuals make more informed decisions about their caffeine consumption and its potential health impacts.”

If I read the article and chart correctly, only about 12% of Americans are slow metabolizers.
That is why such a large number of Americans drink coffee and don’t complain that it affects their sleep.

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Sleep cycles are HPA cycles. Melatonin inhibits cortisol. Cortisol wakes you up. Hence when you run out of melatonin from the CSF you wake. You need to get the autonomous nervous system into the parasympathetic state for which both melatonin and breathing exercises are a tool.

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