Is It Time to Quit Coffee for Good? | Hacker News Reader

Is It Time to Quit Coffee for Good?

esquire.com

17 pointsmedler47 comments

> “I’ve talked to many people who are a year off of caffeine and they’re still dealing with crazy symptoms, everything from neuropathy to psychosis,” Bivens says. These people have suffered a “caffeine injury,” as he calls it, and he’s certain there are untold numbers of others out there also suffering needlessly.

For some reason in our culture we have a tendency to pick a bogeyman and attribute all our medical problems to that bogeyman, whether it be caffeine, seed oils, animal fat, sugar, carbs, lack of vitamin D, or what have you.

I suppose, stated a certain way, even obvious statements like "medical problems are caused by something" can seem controversial.

Everything is caused by something. I posit that everything is not caused by one thing.

Even in this article, the extreme claims against caffeine are by people who are simultaneously abusing sugar.

> I posit that everything is not caused by one thing.

And I'll posit that there's not many people disagreeing with that obvious statement, which makes it sound a lot like a straw man argument.

Do you actually care to say what your actual disagreement with anything the article says is, or are you just trying to engage in sophist wordplay?

The anti-caffeine people profiled attribute myriad problems, including psychosis, to caffeine, even years after quitting caffeine. That they still have these problems years after quitting caffeine is actually evidence that those problems were never caused by caffeine, but they instead see it as evidence that caffeine can cause long-lasting “caffeine injury.” The point I’m making in my original comment is that this kind of thinking is actually quite common.

> That they still have these problems years after quitting caffeine is actually evidence that those problems were never caused by caffeine, but they instead see it as evidence that caffeine can cause long-lasting “caffeine injury.”

To be fair, it's evidence of both of those things.

If you want to criticize the evidence that caffeine causes psychosis, do that--I actually agree with you on that.

But what you were doing, was waxing poetic about an extremely general societal problem you made up. The fact is, caffeine probably is the cause of some of the issues mentioned in the article (and I agree, probably not all the problems mentioned in the article). It would be worthwhile to have a conversation about what evidence is convincing and what is not, but what you did was dismiss the whole possibility of caffeine as a cause, calling it a bogeyman. Doing that actually contributes to a real problem noted in the article, which is that caffeine is not being discussed critically.

I can’t criticize the evidence that caffeine causes psychosis, because there is no evidence, and the burden of proof is on those who believe it does cause psychosis.

What I was doing was musing about a possible link between the anti-caffeine craze and the numerous anti-X crazes that preceded it. It is fascinating to me that many people, are eager to choose one (1) trapping of modern life and believe it causes so many different ills.

I did not intend to dismiss all the concerns about caffeine raised in the article—I was really just reacting to the quote, which presents a more extreme view of caffeine than the rest of the article.

Simple people want simple solutions.

> For years, Bivens had been consuming close to 1,000 milligrams of caffeine per day, two and a half times the daily recommended limit and the equivalent of more than ten cups of coffee.

There it is ...

But seriously, everyone can use more sleep.

One damaging effect of the US failure to switch away from imperial measurements is that most people are confused about coffee consumption data. From the article:

> Patients would report drinking just a few cups of coffee a day, only to reveal that their idea of one cup was a forty-ounce thermos. “At three of those a day, they were drinking more than 1,000 milligrams of caffeine,” Cherniske says.

This is an extreme example, but even a much less extreme case is commonplace and problematic. A large cup (the vessel) of coffee at most cafés is 20oz--but that's 5 cups (the imperial unit of measure). A study I read a few years ago tracked people's moods and found that people's moods correlated higher with coffee intake peaking at 3 cups, dropping at 4 cups but still remaining positive, and then plummeting into the negative at 5 cups. A single large coffee at many cafés will already put you at the 5 cup range.

Unfortunately your comment just adds to the confusion re: imperial measurements. Which "cup" are you talking about?

- A US cup is 8 fluid oz

- An imperial cup is 6.67 fluid oz

- A "coffee cup" is generally 4 to 5 oz but varies and has no standard definition.

Your cup is 4 oz so I assume the later, not imperial cup.

Seems like any real discussion of coffee quantities needs to avoid referencing cups altogether. It's an ambiguous unit of measurement - why make people guess?

I love coffee, and 1 cup a day is all I've needed for years. Never have I had issues limiting my intake.

But I've noticed in spite of improving my dental habits, my gum health has remained pretty poor. I've wondered if it may have something to do with the acidity of my coffee (no sugar, since I drink it black), so as an experiment, I've tried switching to loose leaf black tea instead.

I've noticed I don't get nearly as jittery from a couple cups of black tea vs a cup of coffee. I also get sleepy as I should at normal times in the evening. Completely anecdotal, but at least to me it feels that the rise and fall of the caffeine boost I get is more gradual, without crashes or rougher withdrawals.

I do miss the flavor of coffee though; not crazy about the tannins in black tea. I may give matcha a try next.

Try a moderately oxidized oolong or a shou puer first imo. They have a lot (or more) of the robustness of black tea without as much tannin. Japanese green teas are technically very fine but they are usually extremely vegetal, and likely to be strange or disappointing if you're not specifically seeking that.

Matcha is basically an entirely different drink with separate preparation tools and quality criteria etc. It's a fun thing to get into if you want a mildly hobby-like source of caffeine.

Our grandparents used to drink coffee from cups roughly 2dl in size, i.e. 6 oz -- which still is the official coffee cup definition. Nowadays, typical coffee cups are double that, and some people use triple-sized or even larger.

I guess the lesson is that we overindulge on everything we can unless we have considerable self-discipline. Bad thing about coffee is that we don't often recognize this habit as needing to be disciplined.

Drink a 7-11 Big Gulp of coffee every day, and yeah it'll hurt you. But an 8-10oz mug a day isn't too bad. I'm sure many coffee addicts wish they weren't addicts (not most, just any group of 1,000 or more people could count as "many"). But it's not something that needs quitting or we wouldn't be happy and healthy into our 80's.

My grandparents had smaller mugs, sure, but they also each had "six cup a day" habits, where cup is the badly named and confusing Imperial measurement we like in the US. That's still more than my "four and a half cups a day" habit currently, even though I often drink it all in a larger sized mug. Really the biggest difference the mug sizes lead to is number of trips to/from the coffee machine and how much of the coffee I drink colder from it sitting in the same mug for longer with larger surface area to cool it.

These days I drink my cup in the morning 5 days a week. I quit drinking caffeine for about a month every year, and when I start drinking it again that first cup always a shocker. It gives me jitters and makes me extremely hyper. It's pretty easy to forget that caffeine is a stimulant when you are drinking it every day.

I would be surprised if the guy wasn't being negatively affected given the amount of caffeine he was drinking, even with resistance. And like most things you put in your body (even water!), moderation is super important. You are going to get a scary story when someone is doing something in excess like that.

With that said, I'm surprised we (at least in the US) don't have labeling saying "Hey, this contains a stimulant! Like with all drugs, maybe have a think before putting it in your body and practice some moderation. The recommended serving limit is X."

> "People don’t understand that caffeine is an actual drug," says Bivens.

When I'm asked by doctors/nurses what medications I'm on, I'll say things things like "caffeine 200mg/day" and generally get met with blank stares like "do you expect me to care about this". It really is a societal blindspot.

I'm sure I'm more aware of it due to my pattern of quitting caffeine cold turkey and enduring the two or three weeks of withdrawal (lethargy, nausea, constipation, depressive thoughts). Gradually ramping down just doesn't seem to work for me (enough of the symptoms to still be debilitating, over an even longer time).

It most certainly is a drug. It seems most people want to shy away from that fact because "drugs are bad".

My experience has been that caffeine is good for me, but the delivery mechanisms we use need a lot of work. I've found good results using extended release caffeine pills to avoid jitters and a crash. I also find that drinking caffeine is a problem because it makes it more difficult to pace my dosing consistently. Also, just not trying to use caffeine to get by with regularly not sleeping enough is huge.

I've had scares of friends nearly dying to caffeine overdose from pills.

Drinking your caffeine may make "consistent" dosing harder, but it more importantly it makes accidental overdosing somewhat harder because you consume liquids a lot slower than you can consume pills and your bladder acts as a natural dose limiter over time.

My experience is the opposite, it's a lot easier to consume more caffeine than you intended when it's dissolved in a liquid. The big risk of overdose is when you mess with powder you have to measure out yourself, anything pre-dosed is much safe by comparison.

Not at "natural" quantities of "dissolved". Tea and coffee only have so much naturally. Sodas mostly stick to about those averages. Obviously "energy drinks" are a wild west sometimes, and drinker beware, but in the context of "safe doses", it is very hard to overdose on tea and coffee (and chocolate and most sodas).

japanese green tea contains 2-3x more coffeine than coffee but the release time is much slower and more consistent. if spikes are a problem i recommend looking into it. it's very tasty too if prepared correctly. (hojicha, roasted green tea, on the other hand has very little coffeine)

I love coffee! Until recently I would drink 4 coffees a day everyday. At least 120 coffees a month! For decades

I had a theory, that if I cut back on coffee for a month and then drink my usual 4 cups a day I’d get a bigger kick!

So I bought one of those nespresso machines and made one espresso in the morning and then one decaf.

I tried this for a month and was SHOCKED!!!!!!!

I have stuck with this 1 espresso and 1 decaf per day system and have significantly more energy. Energy levels don’t crash and I wake up more alert. I would have never guessed this would happen.

I’ll never go back to more than 1 regular coffee a day.

I became addicted to caffeine in graduate school. After many years, I finally quit entirely 5 months ago, simply because I no longer wanted to be addicted to it or schedule my activities around it.

The key was to cut down my caffeine intake very slowly, over the course of many weeks, instead of trying to go cold turkey. It takes patience, but I never experienced withdrawal symptoms.

I feel fine now and have no intention to go back. I do occasionally have a cup of green tea, maybe once a week at most, but there's no danger of my returning to my old habit.

One data point here. Trying to quit cold turkey in my 20s and 30s always led to massive headaches, but in my 50s and 60s, no problemo.

Cold turkey might have gone fine, but I was afraid to find out. :-)

Like many chemicals in your body, you build a tolerance over time, caffiene is no different. But your body only retains the caffeine tolerance for about a week.

About every four weeks I like to do a caffeine reset, where I avoid all caffeine products for 7 days. Then, the next time I have a cup of coffee, it's like getting hit in the face with a bucket of pure energy. Combined with a grapefruit and I'll feel like a being of pure energy all day.

Why grapefruit? Enlighten me, please.

https://www.roastycoffee.com/grapefruit-and-coffee/

It may extend the effects of caffeine amongst another things.

Just be aware of the interactions between grapefruit and certain meds.

chems in grapefruit are well known to interfere with medications and drugs.

explanation with video and written examples of interactions: https://www.fda.gov/consumers/consumer-updates/grapefruit-ju...

This topic always garners a lot of polarizing views. One thing I would recommend people take a look at is the caffeine and cortisol relationship.

I'm the CEO of Rasa, one of the "coffees" made from chicory root and other adaptogenic herbs. If anyone has questions, happy to bring in our Chief Herbalist to answer.

>Chief Herbalist

What credentials does a "Herbalist" require? Is it a protected field? Or is this like all the supplements that say they are "lab tested" by a lab owned by the supplement industry?

The question becomes how you define "herbalism" and in what cultures? i.e. Chinese herbalism is different from Jamaican. That said, in the United States, you can become a registered herbalist with the American Herbalist Guild, which involves seeing at least 200 patients over 2 years, a board interview with case studies.

As for the supplements that are "lab tested" by a lab owned by the supplement industry, I can't speak for other companies, but I'm sure that happens, unfortunately. I know that we test ours by independent and good labs, though. I wish there was more transparency around this, but it's been up to the companies to be transparent and the consumer to seek the information.

Edit: Sorry, was off on one number, not 200. 80 patients over 2 years, 400 total hours of clinical experience.

Speaking from my experience in Poland for example, in order to open legal herbalism therapy practice or herbal shop you need to pass two exams (usually preceded by a course with both theoretical and practical lessons) and gain government registered certificate. In case of a shop you also have to adhere to quire strictly controlled requirements based on what type of products you want to sell. If you want to grow and then sell herbs you have to obtain separate certificate (again by passing exams and complying with all requirements for your plantation and rest of the process) and grow them using seeds originating from government mandated sources.

Yes, but replace it with Yerba Mate.

I’m not sure why people start drinking it in the first place. Isn’t coffee just like alcohol, an acquired taste? I tried forcing it into myself both a few times but as those things aren’t particularly healthy I saw no point in developing the habit.

FWIW, I love the taste of coffee, probably more than chocolate. I prefer coffee flavored desserts over chocolate desserts. But I don't drink coffee very often.

From. My. Cold. Dead. Fingers.

Caffiene content information is missing from all coffee brands. It should be made compulsory like all foods display sugar and tobacco products warn about caffiene

Some people are addicted to drugs, others are addicted to controlling other people's lives.

Man, that graphic could use some work: "...and their coffee equivalents". Is it missing the "coffee equivalents" part, or do I just need more coffee this morning? I was expecting "1 oz. of chocolate, or 24% of a cup of coffee". And the graphic is in multiple parts, which is only lightly hinted at with a low-contrast, non-functioning "continue".

That said, well, Betteridge's law of headlines[0] seems to come into play here: no, unless you're drinking 10 cups a day like the person in TFA. Is it time for you to quit? Well, the article was informative if it isn't telling you something a lot of us already know. But I do think many, including myself, could benefit from cutting back.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines

>1000mg caffeine per day >64oz diet coke per day

perhaps a bit of moderation

ray peat would've said otherwise, he did 30-50 cups a day (potency, very strong coffee. not that many actual cups!) at one point.

Latest research shows 3 cups a day are actualy very good for u.

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