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Habitual coffee intake shapes the microbiome, modifies physiology and cognition

nature.com

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Re: Habitual coffee intake shapes the microbiome, modifies physiology and cognition

#211

Post by ziml77 »

fedeb95 wrote: post #55

thirty-one participants were moderate coffee-drinkers (CD, i.e., people that usually consume between 3 to 5 cups of coffee per day). 3-5 is moderate? To me, 3 is already high. Also, sample size is pretty low and they're all Irish.

One early in the morning, one maybe a bit before lunch, and one in the afternoon. Doesn't seem too out there. And you probably approach 5 cups if you're normalizing the size of a cup and seeing that people generally get bigger cups than that (I'd imagine one large cup in the morning and another in the afternoon would easily put you at 5 for the purposes of the study)

Re: Habitual coffee intake shapes the microbiome, modifies physiology and cognition

#212

Post by Scipio_Afri »

ButlerianJihad wrote: post #96
sixtyj wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 1995, NASA did spiders experiment. Caffeine is a siginificant impulsivity trigger. :) https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/nasa-spiders-drugs-experime...

Warning: those photos in the dot-com website are negative images, not the original black-on-white. Lousy with animated ad banners, too. https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20100033433/downloads/20... Don't ask me why some blogger posted the PDF in 2013, and also don't ask me how English Wikipedia editors determined that a Wordpress blog is a "Reliable Secondary Source". I did locate the original on NASA's own website…

What a find! It's on page 106 but I didn't immediately do a control-f to find it or look at the table of contents. My gosh, all the stuff I flipped through before that... some things haven't changed (e.g. Digikey and National Instruments ads).

Re: Habitual coffee intake shapes the microbiome, modifies physiology and cognition

#213

Post by WesleyJohnson »

This discussion has been particularly insightful. I'm 47 and have been drinking 2 to 3 Mtn Dew Kickstarts a day for probably 10 years. I don't feel high, or jittery, or like I'm bouncing off walls. I have no trouble falling asleep, even drinking caffeine right up until bed time. But, I also have trouble focusing, am working with a psychologist on a possible ADHD (primarily inattentive) diagnosis, never dream, and am very forgetful.

Based on everything I'm reading below, and a "discussion" with Gemini, it's highly probable all of this is related. I know AI isn't a doctor, and confirmation bias and all of that, but even if it's all nonsense - backing off on caffeine or quitting entirely can only help.

So I'm going to star to day, by trying to not have any after 2pm. My regular bedtime is around midnight, so that's 10 hours. We'll see how it goes.

Thanks HN!

Re: Habitual coffee intake shapes the microbiome, modifies physiology and cognition

#214

Post by addaon »

bichiliad wrote: post #192
blopp99 wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a similiar case with influeza the past december. I didn't eat for 4 days, fever for a long time, and low energy during the whole 4 weeks it took me to get back to normal. I couldn't drink coffee or alcohol during those 4 weeks, and notice that I didn't get any migraines after those 4 weeks even when I, for the past 12 years, knew exactly how I got them reliably. I didn't make sense to me to keep drinking coffee…

I had wild food poisoning and had a similar experience (took me out for weeks, didn’t drink coffee). I assume the body must have some sort of gating mechanism for pain; I have absolutely had caffeine withdrawal before, but not that time. I’ve since cut back and switched to tea, which I believe has helped with my anxiety.

I’m in the same spot after 4-5 weeks of norovirus. Couldn’t touch the stuff. Before, was at probably three to five cups a day. Biggest difference was waking up and feeling awake instead of in need of coffee… but I do miss it, too. Trying to decide what the new steady state is going to be. I’ve been doing one cup a day then switching to decaf while traveling, but that’s harder at home.

Re: Habitual coffee intake shapes the microbiome, modifies physiology and cognition

#215

Post by jcalvinowens »

I used to drink a small amount of blisteringly strong coffee in the morning and after lunch, but nowadays I drink a massive amount of relatively weak coffee throughout the entire day. Weaker than you'd ever get from a shop or in an office.

That's been a big win for me: I feel like I get to enjoy the coffee more, and it eliminated the negative effects for me.

I no longer feel like I suffer when I don't have it. I miss it, the way I miss the sunlight in my office on a cloudy morning, but it's strictly a positive for me when it's around. I only get headaches if I go from 100 to 0, even one day of reduced intake is enough to avoid it for me.

When I'm exhausted and going to bed, I'll go fill the coffee machine, and catch myself thinking "oh boy, it's going to feel so great to wake up at 6am and drink this". Then I shake my head at myself and laugh and how absurd that sounds :D

Coffee is above running hot water in my hierarchy of needs. Seriously. If I were forced to choose between coffee and alcohol for the rest of my life, I'd choose coffee in a heartbeat.

Re: Habitual coffee intake shapes the microbiome, modifies physiology and cognition

#217

Post by ziml77 »

sdevonoes wrote: post #48

I must be weird, but coffee (or caffeine) doesn’t really “wake me up” in the mornings and I could drink it in the night and still sleep well. Because of that I don’t drink coffee; I prefer tea

I also don't find that caffeine wakes me up or keeps me alert. I used to have it a ton because I like the taste but then mostly stopped because I was having some anxiety issues and wanted to be sure caffeine wasn't a factor. Stopping it was zero problem at all for me, which doesn't align with what others say about stopping consumption. I don't know if my body's metabolism of it is super fast or if my brain is weird in some undiagnosed way that prevents the caffeine from working "correctly"

Re: Habitual coffee intake shapes the microbiome, modifies physiology and cognition

#218

Post by Nifty3929 »

beej71 wrote: post #196

I drank a lot of coffee until I forgot to pack instant on a 3 day backpacking trip. Headache the whole time that I cured in 5 minutes by drinking a mt dew the minute we got back to civilization. Figured it wasn't worth it and weaned off. Then it turned out my rate of getting migraines dropped off considerably. But I love coffee, so I tried decaf. Migraines returned to being more frequent. So that was that. If I could…

PSA: decaffeinated coffee contains about 1/3 as much caffeine as regular - so far from caffeine free.

Re: Habitual coffee intake shapes the microbiome, modifies physiology and cognition

#219

Post by adammarples »

throwatdem12311 wrote: post #117
adammarples wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This week as I tried to lower my coffee usage or stop altogether, I had dropped from 3 cups a day to 1. That one suddenly started to make me feel noticeably high, like a bump of cocaine in the morning. I realised that I craved it in the same way and it clicked for me - coffee is literally just a drug I like to take by myself and read the newspaper. It's no different. It's the first thing I think of in the morning bec…

I went from 60oz per day to 36oz. I went from perpetually stimulated to basically on stimulated during work hours. Even with a minor cutback, I’ve noticed the change in potency of an individual dose as well. My next goal is to cut back to one fully caffeinated drink in the moring and then doing decaf the rest of the day. The ritualistic habit is the hardest thing to break for me. Also the social aspect of “let’s go f…

As it is with a lot of addictions

Re: Habitual coffee intake shapes the microbiome, modifies physiology and cognition

#220

Post by deepsun »

What surprises me is how many people drink coffee first thing in the morning. The organism is literally in wake-up mode, with cortisol spiking ~30min after wake up. So you get a caffeine AND a spike in cortisol at the same time.

Better to wait at least couple of hours after waking up.

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