A couple of weeks ago I discovered Dunkin’ Donuts cereal. It’s still on my shelf and while it’s a little too sweet for me for breakfast I do snack on it sometimes after dinner. I never been too personally experienced with the Dunkin’ brand I put it on my radar for the purposes of the new JAVAWAVA. Here’s a great, informative piece put out by CNBC a couple of years ago when Dunkin’ invested $100M in an ambitious effort to shore up their coffee operations.
Tag: coffee
The Dark Side of Coffee
Coffee as a drink that has been around for millennia, as well as being widely consumed by billions of people. It’s a very social drink, can be infinitesimally versatile (varieties, flavors, brewing methods, etc.), and is often touted for its health benefits. What’s not to love about coffee? Coffee (like many things in this world) has a dark side. There are several points I could discuss, but its biological impact on our health will be the focus. Coffee’s negative effects stem primarily from caffeine. Caffeine is a drug, specifically a stimulant that tends to increase the activity of the brain and nervous system.
It can make one feel more active, less tired, or delay tiredness. However, that characteristic of caffeine is what can make it very unhealthy. Caffeine (as I detailed in my coffee nap post) works by competing with serotonin, the sleepy molecule, in the brain. So long as a significant amount of caffeine persists, serotonin can’t do its job. In the short term and upon waking up, that’s okay, as it’s exactly what people want. However, in the long term, it’s not easy on the brain. We need sleep for a reason, and that’s primarily to clear the brain of toxic metabolic waste that accumulate while awake.
Caffeine persists in the body a lot longer than you would think. In average healthy adults, caffeine has a half-life of about 6 hours, taking an additional 6 hours to fully metabolize it. Though its noticeable effects will have long subsided after 6 hours, its still locking serotonin out 6 hours after. As such, people can have a harder time falling asleep, as well as sleep less, have less quality sleep (deep sleep), and spend more time awake (we wake up many times during sleep, but they’re so short in duration we never notice it). Also, the 6 hours half-life is just an average; the range for caffeine’s half-life in people can range from 1.5 to as long as 9 hours.
For many, the simple fix to this is to simply stop consuming caffeine 12 hours before we would sleep. For those cursed with a slower metabolism of caffeine, it’s probably best to avoid caffeine altogether. Thankfully, decaf coffee (97% caffeine removed) does exist, which tastes just as great and retains the same health effects of coffee. Nevertheless, it’s essential to adapt if it means bettering our own health. Balance, moderation, and change can fix many problems. Drink responsibly! Or not. Or not drink at all.
Why does spilled coffee leave behind a ring?
I’m not talking about coffee you somehow manage to get stuck on the bottom of your cup, but that coffee in itself dries weirdly. The outlines of spilled coffee are always darker than the inner edges or its center. Surprisingly, how this happens or why has been left unanswered by science for years until recently. What they discovered is how to control the physics behind coffee rings, which is the angle coffee droplets are placed on a surface, to the point they could stop coffee rings entirely.
Why so much research in a seemingly pointless phenomenon? Well, because science. Nothing is ever totally pointless in science and can always have profound consequences; afterall, penicillin, was seemingly discovered by accident. Anyways, the science behind coffee rings would supposedly help in the field of blood diagnostics, blood diseases and anemia.
Morning cup of coffee can cause a morning poop
I’ve never been an avid consumer of coffee, until I met Mike. It’s not that I disliked coffee or anything, but simply because I couldn’t make my own. Anyways, one of the effects I first noticed when I drank coffee was the urge to poop first thing in the morning or soon thereafter. I thought that was just a coincidence. Apparently, scientists have known that for decades, and have some theories on why that is (though there’s no clear cut explanation as to why, yet). Even decaffeinated coffee has that effect, which for the most part, rules out caffeine as the sole aggressor.
All that is known is that coffee stimulates and increases gastrin levels, which in turn stimulates and speeds up peristalsis (the wavelike contractions of the GI tract, usually referred to as gastric motility), as well as increase gastrin levels, hormones that further stimulate the colon. Of course, everyone is different, and many probably don’t experience this; nor are there any extensive studies on just how much people are affected other than a small 1990’s study. Does coffee have this effect on you? Good luck on trying to have this topic as casual conversation to your coffee pals, lol.
Sources: Insider, Health.com, NIH.gov
