As a lover of coffee - rich, black, strong, wonderful coffee - I have always, always advocated its use. The rich polyphenols in good coffee is not to be dismissed. The wonderful effects on the nervous system, mood booster, immune system support, and antioxidant support was always reason enough for me keep drinking it daily.
Until I got ill back at the beginning of July and I haven't had a drop since.
Now before you think I've succumbed to the dark side where the joyless resides, I'm still an advocate of coffee. I have had some very strange symptoms from the caffeine withdrawal and I've had some incredibly positive outcomes from cutting it out.
In hindsight, I'd say I was heavily reliant on caffeine to get me through the day. Even 1 cup a day affected me. 3 cups was my maximum intake before I got the jitters and nausea. A person's caffeine limitations is usually genetic. I'm obviously a slow metaboliser of caffeine and I don't need an expensive genetic profile test to find that out!
Upon complete elimination I suffered headaches almost non-stop for 2 weeks. I kept waking in the night with severe anxiety, trouble sleeping in general, and throughout the day I was exhausted. It persisted so much I was actually really worried I'd exhausted my adrenal hormones through over-reliance on coffee (yes, that is possible). So reliant on that perk first thing, I'd wake up feeling pretty awful and feeling like something was missing.
All these years it turns out coffee was dehydrating me
However, the instant positives were I required less water consumption to be hydrated, and my elimination pathways were very efficient. Very. How do I know this? There's a reason us nutritional therapists are obsessed with your urine colour and defecation regularity etc. Okay, maybe obsession is a smidge too far, but we value those functions very highly. They give enormous insight into a person's health. All these years it turns out coffee was dehydrating me. Even that one, beautiful cup of coffee I ritualistically drank in the garden every morning had been affecting my hydration and my digestive system! I know my body extremely well and I've discovered a new normal for me. There is much confusion, (and sometimes quite heated discussion), on coffee's diuretic effect, with some health experts stating confidently that consuming coffee is still a liquid and there will be some hydration benefit nonetheless. I admit, I was in that camp, until my personal experiment proved otherwise.
It's been 8 weeks of no caffeine and, few surprises here, my 3-day monthly migraines I've experienced for the last 3 years seem to have gone. I would religiously experience a pounding headache for 3 days solid every. single. month.
I knew it was hormone and anxiety related. Acupuncture helped a lot, but ditching the caffeine has been a game changer.
Caffeine is a double-edged sword
Caffeine has a half life of 8 hours in most people. Yes, you read that right: 8 hours. That's a long time for the drug to be hanging around in your body, and for some, that 1 cup of coffee in the morning can still be circulating in your system come the evening - right when you need to be winding down.
I did some digging on my newfound experience with caffeine and it turns out that caffeine, like many things in life, is a double-edged sword. In small, therapeutic amounts it's a powerful intervention to promote antioxidant status and it can stimulate insulin sensitivity,
except when consuming the beloved baked food, such as a croissant, with your morning coffee. The high sugar intake coupled with caffeine decreases insulin sensitivity which is a risk factor for type 2 diabetes!
In small quantities, caffeine is neuro-protective and can help mitigate the symptoms of dementia, but in large quantities the total opposite has been found, whereby promotion of neurodegeneration occurs and exacerbation of neurological issues.
Small and large quantities then becomes subjective. As I mentioned earlier, much of our ability to metabolise (break down) and eliminate caffeine is genetics driven. Exposure of any drug can speed up these processes, (caffeine being no different) but only to a certain degree in some people based on their genes. As with any alkaloid or drug, it is best to start low and go slow.
Anyone with a thyroid issue should be *very* careful with coffee consumption
Would I drink caffeinated coffee again? Absolutely. But do I need it anymore? Absolutely not. My concern with reliance on caffeine is what it does to women's hormones in particular. It drives up cortisol levels, and high cortisol levels negatively impacts the conversion of inactive thyroid hormone to active thyroid hormone (T4 --> T3). Anyone with a thyroid issue should be *very* careful with coffee consumption.
This caffeine elimination experiment of mine has taken me by surprise. I didn't realise I was so attached to it, physiologically and emotionally. It's very difficult to be objective about your own health, even when you are an expert on nutrition. I've loved this impromptu experiment. There's power in a streak, and I plan to continue it for a little while longer yet (8 weeks and counting). The benefits I've felt from not having caffeine have been so stark that I'll be very careful when I do drink it again. I was the very same with pasta, grains, cereals, and all things gluten many years ago. Once I eliminated these foods, it positively changed my health so dramatically that I indulge in them very occasionally and oh, so very carefully. Caffeine will perhaps become no different for me.
If you read this and felt a little annoyed, or a little resistance, perhaps you would benefit also from easing off the coffee for a little while.
Test the theory. See for yourself. Let me know how you get on.
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