The Health Blog by Ryan Healy

Kick the Caffeine Addiction

That's my New Year's resolution: to kick my caffeine addiction.

How addicted am I? I drink two cups of coffee every morning, seven days a week. By most people's standards, I'm only mildly addicted, if at all. But I figure I ought to call a spade a spade...

I'm reading The pH Miracle right now, and it reports:

"Caffeine is addicting. You could take the word of researchers at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine for it—or simply observe your own headaches when you've been deprived of your morning jolt. Eighy-two percent of volunteers for that Johns Hopkins study showed withdrawal symptoms when they were given a placebo instead of their usual dose of caffeine. Official estimates are that more than 80 percent of adults in the United States regularly consume enough caffeine to produce addiction." (pp. 88)

By the way, I've experienced those headaches when I've skipped my morning fix. I was surprised by National Geographic's explanation for these headaches:

"Going without caffeine for a day and a half increases blood flow in the brain, which may explain why people get headaches when they first give it up."

Hmm... More blood flow to the brain. Sounds like a good thing to me!

Fortunately, it's been two days since I've had any coffee and I've experienced no headaches. On January 1st, I had just one cup of coffee instead of my usual two, and then no coffee yesterday or today.

No matter how much coffee/soda you drink, it's probably best to cut back your normal consumption first to limit whatever withdrawal symptoms you may experience from kicking your own caffeine addiction.

Three cups/cans a day? Cut back to two a day, then one a day, then zero. And so on. You get the idea.

Caffeine and Pregnancy

There's a great article about caffeine in the January 2005 issue of National Geographic. I just finished reading it this morning.

My wife is pregnant right now and has not had regular coffee since conception to protect the baby. So I was a bit surprised when I read this:

Even for pregnant women, a population the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advises to avoid caffeine if possible, risks appear to be small, as long as daily intake is kept to moderate levels. Michael Bracken, a perinatal epidemiologist at the Yale School of Public Health, has tracked the habits of thousands of expectant mothers over the past two decades. "Based on current evidence, we can safely say to a pregnant woman, if you're under 300 milligrams of caffeine per day—that's about one to two cups of coffee—you're not doing anything harmful to the child."

I don't know. I'm still not convinced. Seems like the caffeine has got to be affecting the baby somehow. My personal choice would still be to cut the caffeine in spite of this finding.

Here's a link to the National Geographic that talks briefly about caffeine and pregnancy. You might try to pick up a copy at a bookstore so you can read the article.