Photo by Refracted Moments™I have believed for a long time that caffeine is worse for you than alcohol or tobacco. It is just as addictive, and it is not a controlled substance. We seem to force feed it to our kids. Many people only get through college by using it to stay awake studying. If you stop consuming it, you will go through withdrawal symptoms. Because it is not as strictly regulated as alcohol and tobacco, and it can take a similar toll on your body when used in excess, I classify it as worse than either. I eliminated caffeine from my diet in the late 90s and have been much happier for it.
When I was growing up, I used to get cluster migraine headaches. Many of the drugs to combat a migraine headache contain some form of caffeine, and the only time I ever have caffeine these days is if I feel a migraine coming on and take one of those drugs. While caffeine was a principal ingredient in the fight against the migraines, I also discovered that it was a principal cause for them as well. Stress and caffeine can both be migraine inducing; put them together and I had one guaranteed. As a senior in high school, I went blind for two weeks when I had a long series of strung together migraines that caused varying degrees of hallucinations.
While I took many steps and tried many ways to get my migraine headaches under control, I think that eliminating caffeine from my diet had the greatest effect. I had the poison out of my system, which meant that my brain did not need to go into hyper drive quite as often. On top of that, my stress levels decreased as well because I was sleeping much better and I did not have a craving for a soda every hour on the hour. I have had no trouble maintaining a healthy weight for my entire adult life, due in part to not having to give in to cravings for soda.
Eliminating caffeine from my diet was not the be-all and end-all solution to all of my problems. It was only a piece of the puzzle. I just feel that nothing but good has happened as a result of my dietary change, and I do think that it was the largest part of getting my migraine problem under control. Rather than clusters of 6-30 migraines in a few month span a few times per year, I now get maybe one or two migraines every year. When I do get migraines now, they are far less severe than they used to be and rarely require me to halt everything in my life for a day or two. In college, I avoided the problem of staying awake to study by going to bed early and getting sleep rather than cramming for a test.
When I talk about the matter with folk that I know, my recommendation is always to try eliminating it from their diet for 30 days. Commit to having no caffeine for 30 days, and if you do not feel that things have improved then go back to consuming it. By committing to 30 days, you will get past the withdrawal symptom hump and will start to notice the benefits of not having it in your system constantly. You will also have kept up the habit of not consuming caffeine for long enough to keep it going if you choose to do so. Once you make 30 days, the rest is easy. Having that hard 30 day set of time, you can keep telling yourself only 2 more weeks, only 10 more days, and finally, you can tell yourself you don’t need it anymore.
Give up coffee? Blasphemy! I didn’t start drinking it until about 10 years ago 🙂 I drink coffee mostly when I work. It hasn’t been good for my acid reflux problem (now past). I’m sure you are right though. It probably contributes in large part to a lot of other issues.
Two interesting tid bits:
Caffeine is the worlds most widespread drug.
Nothing with caffeine is served in the whitehouse.
I gave it up for awhile while i was pregnant and it was tough, especially the first few days, ouch.
Oh, I just love it, though… I will continue to ponder this.
I gave it up because it was causing/agravating a mental illness. I felt totally withdrawn and depressed for years and consumed caffine regularily. I finally was able to pinpoint the primary cause as caffiene. It’s been about 6 months since I started cutting back and now I’ve been completely off it for about 3 months. It’s like I’ve woken up emotionally. I feel connected to people again and I can function. I don’t feel like hiding and I don’t feel as negative about things that used to make me want to cry. I don’t think it affects everyone the same way, but if you get seasonal affective disorder or depression you probably shouldn’t have caffiene at all.
Just saying, I think it’s a more serious drug than advertised.
I’m glad you were able to finally recognize the problem and to fix it!
what data indicates this?Worse then cigarettes?I beg to differ…
I don’t point at any hard data that it is worse. It is my opinion that it is worse (as mentioned above) because it is not regulated and it is not usually considered an addictive substance. Our children tend to get hooked on and abuse caffeine at a much earlier age than they do with tobacco or alcohol.
Plus, in my personal experience, neither tobacco or alcohol contributed to my going blind for two weeks, so I have a personal reason above and beyond the health issues for disliking caffeine.
I agree. Technically, a caffeine user will outrun a caffeine free smoker (not many people in that category, caffeine addition usually precedes nicotine addiction). But still, I believe if we want to see a sub-2:00 marathon, the right guy will need to give up caffeine. I have not had any since I joined the LDS church 14 years ago. Now at the age of 33 I can race a marathon at 90% of my max heart rate start to finish. My biomechanics limit my speed and economy, so I am stuck at 2:24 for the marathon, but I am thankful for being able to do that with my limitations, and attribute it in part to being caffeine free for a long time.
I understand your personal dislike for caffeine, and that it isnt for everybody, and that is it is easy to become dependent on, but to suggest that it is worse for you than tobacco or alchohal is silly.
Tobacco is a carcinogen, and alchohal can cause serious physical damage to your body.
caffeine is the most anti-oxidant rich food on the planet. It helped my performance at running and lifting weights tremendously, as well as helping me perform better in college.
i think you should present a balanced view thats all.
*coffee s the most anti-oxidant rich food on the planet.
“caffeine is the most anti-oxidant rich food on the planet.”
Caffeine is not a food. It is a specific molecule. As such, it has no anti-oxidants, soda has very few if any anti-oxidants in it.
clearly you cant read, i corrected my error in the subsequent post.
Some people use caffeine because they think it helps them, just the same way people smoke tobacco none of them are good for you and i believe they are both are just as bad and im a smoker and i love caffeine but it was easy for me to quiet smoking then to cut off the caffeine when i was pregnant….
Well everything that is too much is bad for you. But I don’t think caffeine is worse than smoking tobacco.
What a crock of ****. Alcohol and tabacco are the two largest causes of substance-use-related deaths in England (and the rest of Britain, most of Europe and many parts of the rest of the world… and yes… that’s right… also in the United States! – I’m English if you didn’t guess). Just because alcohol gave more noticably painful symptons, does not mean that it biologically worse (that is to say more of a killer than alcohol or tabacco). You are basing this on your own personal experience, rather than actual pharmacological, anatomical, physiological or neurological evidence. A typical American, running off great ideas and no hard evidence. You **** ****!
Jason, thank you for your comment. I’ve edited out the profanity as it has no real place on my site. That said, I don’t disagree that my opinion on caffeine is related to my own experiences, nor do I think that the problems for an individual are worse than for alcohol or tobacco related deaths. In fact, if you read the article above again, and take a look at the comments below the article, you’ll see that’s what I’m stating, specifically the one I made on Feb 15, 2007.
Just because caffeine doesn’t directly lead to overdosing and death, though, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t cause a whole host of other problems that lead to a larger burden on the health care system. Caffeine alone isn’t to blame, but it is certainly one of the worse culprits.
I have no idea what the situation is like across the pond as I haven’t made it to Britain yet, but there are certainly a large number of obese people in the United States.
Coffee and caffeine are as bad if not worse than alcohol, meth and nicotine. Caffeine is a lot like meth, though milder and legal and pushed on kids and approved by doctors as ok in “moderation”.
Caffeine is supremely addictive. Most kids and doctors are addicts. Coffee and caffeine affects important hormones in the body like cortisol and adenaline, increasing cortisol levels, which is the way of death, messes with the brain and gaba (which alcohol counteracts), causes blood sugar to drop due to its insulin raising effect, and combined with sugar, rapidly adds visceral fat.
anyone defending it should be give it up for a week and then lets talk about it
This is true for me, at least as far as alcohol goes. I don’t use tobacco. A coffee makes me feel drained of energy and short of breath for a couple of days after drinking it. I’ve been back and forth with the coffee for years because it’s so addicting. I quit when i feel worn out or high strung. It doesn’t have the same affect on everyone, but there are a lot of crazy people out there, chances are the ones you know drink coffee. And chances are they wouldn’t recognize the connection between their coffee drinking and their energy level or behavior. Reading about how something is an anti-oxidant and healthy might be helpful to get some feedback, but don’t believe everything you read. Test things for yourself and base it on your own experience.
IF someone told me: For the rest of your life you can either have alcohol or coffee—so which is it? The coffee would win every time. And I like my drinks.
I’m not going to argue that it’s addicting. 🙂
My granddad became 96 smoking all his live. so he will say. smoking is the way to become old.
you say that caffeine is bad. because it plays a role in your migraine.
Individual belief is not science. Lets have a look at the International society of sports nutrition position stand: caffeine and performance
this is science and it shows that a lot of athletes can
run faster bij taking 3gr/kg caffeine.
http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1550-2783-7-5.pdf
You know what else can make you run faster? Steroids. Doesn’t mean that they’re good for you.
Caffeine is a drug. All drugs in moderation may have a beneficial impact in some way shape or form, and all drugs can be hazardous to your health if you take too much. Caffeine is a drug that many people take too much of and that we addict our children to at a young age. If you don’t think that caffeine is a drug, try cutting it out of your diet for 30 days. The first couple weeks are going to really suck. If you get withdrawal symptoms from consuming caffeine, then how is that a good thing?
I know a lot of people who have died horrible deaths from smoking and drinking,alcoholics can die from suddenly quitting alcohol. You have no idea of the destruction alcohol does to your mind, liver, kidneys, or the damage smoking does to your circulation, lungs.
I had a drink problem once and could barely walk from the pain I was in, i was literally wasting away. This article is both dangerous and insulting. Alcohol is a deadly poison that kills, do not make light of it by saying caffeine of all things s worse.
I’m not trying to insult alcoholics. I’m pointing out that the vast majority of Americans are suffering from more health problems as a result of caffeine than they are from smoking or alcohol. The cumulative effect on our health care system is also much larger.
It doesn’t take much to over consume a healthy limit on cocaine, and yet cocaine is a much smaller problem to most people than any of the afore-mentioned drugs. To the individual that does consume too much cocaine, however, then yes, I’m sure that they’ll be in worse shape than if they took a similar amount of caffeine.
Yes!
This is a great article on the effects of caffeine. Thanks for confirming my thoughts on this matter.
Give me a bottle of cider in a night, and in just a few minutes my nose turns red and I feel sleepy.
Give me a can of Redbull to drink within 15 minutes. No side effects and I feel great.
No doubt for a fact both aren’t good when consumed in excess, but if you’re a retard that chooses to ignore this and just drink either of these relentlessly like a fish, then the negative effects inevitably will slap you in the face – You just have to be smart and remember the word “moderation”. Don’t forget alcohol isn’t a controlled substance either, and just because it hides within the intense sweetness of a woowoo, doesn’t mean it’s not there. Always read the label to check alcohol/caffeine content in drinks.