What caffeine does to your brain | Hacker News Reader

What caffeine does to your brain

fusion.net

58 pointschapulin41 comments

My father, who is a cardiologist, has all these stories about how they keep trying to prove that caffeine and coffee in general are bad for you, bad for your heart specifically. But the more they try to prove it is bad, the more they keep finding that caffeine is actually good for you and reduces the risk of heart disease. I'll have to ask him for specific studies. Now the sugar they put in the coffee, that's a different story...

On the other hand, it is very easy to prove that a lack of caffeine make me very bad for everyone else.

> caffeine and coffee in general

Why coffee specifically? Other things contain caffeine. Tea, for example.

Tea also contains L-theanine which modulates the effects of caffeine: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10737183

True, but in miniscule amounts. Significantly lower than the doses taken by the people who use L-theanine as a supplement. Also L-theanine to caffeine ratio is all wrong.

>Why pick pure l-theanine and caffeine over green or black tea?

>Most studies done on the l-theanine-caffeine combination have a l-theanine to caffeine ratio that isn't consistent with ratios you would expect from most teas. The studies used about twice as much l-theanine as caffeine by weight. The ratio found in most teas is reversed, with the possible exception of high quality green tea. [1]

[1]: http://www.reddit.com/r/Nootropics/wiki/faq

Which is why I drink high quality green tea.

I would guess because coffee is so widely consumed in the US.

Coffee (but not necessarily caffeine) has been linked to elevated homocysteine which is associated with cardiovascular disease. One such study: http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/76/6/1244.full

I stopped drinking coffe 6 months ago and I feel that I raised my average productivity allot as a programmer, my day is more "even" in lack of a better word. I also sleep better, even if I didnt think I had an issue with that while drinking coffe.

I did the same, but found I was alert as much as with caffine, just unable to control when.

For example I was far less productive in the mornings and after eating, and more alert in the evenings and when I wanted to sleep/relax.

Me too, am naturally a night owl. I am most creative and productive 10pm - 3am. Without caffeine I'm a bit useless during the day - it lets me shift the time when I can be productive. It leaves me a bit dead in the evening though

Same. My average productivity is better and my sleep is much improved. Even if I only had one cup early in the morning, my sleep would still be disrupted.

But unfortunately I have relapsed and am drinking a coffee right now...

I suspect that I would experience the same, if I could stop. I've tried at least a half dozen times in the last few years, but the withdrawal symptoms (headache and intense nausea) never seem to go away, even after several weeks without it. Unfortunately, I can't risk the decreased productivity longer than that.

I believe it likely that all drugs have a net negative effect in the long run. If humans in general had a chemical imbalance so our brains did not function optimally, and caffeine would fix that so that we just functioned better overall, shouldn't evolution have taken care of that by now?

Messing with the signalling systems can be productive in the short run, and certain individuals have other needs, but it is unreasonable to assume it would be good for most people forever. I do drink coffee every day, because I like it, but I would never assume it makes me more alert or smarter in some way.

Evolution doesn't code for just optimal. During the time that we were actually evolving, there existed pressure, for example, to optimize our use of the small amount of food that we had access to, optimizing to be as incospicuous during the dark hours, etc. Signaling processes weren't optimized for access to post-scarcity (in the first-world) availability of sugars, proteins, and fats; sleeping for as long as we do isn't optimal at all (some people have genetics that improve on this, though), and not to mention that the very nature of genetics will definitely produce humans that are sub-optimal in ways that that won't necessarily lead to sterility but will no longer be removed from the gene pool of the species.

I'm not claiming that caffeine will make you super-human but the use of substances like these that may have decreased survivability in pre-historic years (e.g., due to increased metabolism, induced bowel movements that decrease nutrient absorption) may augment several aspects of human cognition (and worsen others) in a way that is towards optimal, for say, coding but suboptimal for, say, creative writing (I don't claim this is true, just provide this as a possible example). Many contemporary college students can definitely attest to both the positive and negative aspects for drugs such as amphetamines (e.g., Adderall) in a manner that one could describe (though misleadingly) as superhuman.

I do agree that use of many of these substances can have seriously deliterious effects with prolonged use, but all studies I have come across refute this possibility for caffeine.

Different people have different caffeine metabolism. I can still feel it 12+ hours later.

i am about 800-1600mg caffeine a day (almost all pill form since brewing and drinking coffee takes too much time) and i do not feel these so called muscle tremors, or abnormal heart rhythms.

Don't. One of my friends went up to 1.5g/day (using crystalline caffeine). After he had to give it up, he spend at least 6 months without energy, lethargic, sluggish, possibly depressed.

After ceasing typical consumption brain goes back to normal in 1-2 weeks. But for huge doses it might be not the case.

(BTW: If anyone knows more info on the length of caffeine withdrawal as a function of does, I would be grateful!)

Yes! And you can test for it, I'm a mixed type myself so no coffee after 6pm: http://www.snpedia.com/index.php/Rs762551

As I see caffeine validated, I wonder about other "upper" substances. I write code a lot better with a lip full of Skoal... And I'm sure there are other beneficial chemical compounds that have been given a black-eye. Certainly seems like there must have been something to all of the people I knew in college doing lines of adderall, who have probably upgraded to another white powder now that they work for Bridgewater...

Vapes are starting to turn into that sort of thing since you can get juice with nicotine. The jury is still out on how bad it is for you, though.

The combination of nicotine and an MAOI is very much more addictive than nicotine alone – unknown substances in cigarette smoke mimic MAOIs.

That is, many of the negative consequences of tobacco come from the delivery method instead of the desirable nicotine. That's not to say vaping doesn't have it's own (yet unknown) negative consequences.

http://www.jneurosci.org/content/25/38/8593.full

> lip full of Skoal

Tobacco in all forms has a justifiable black eye. We know that Skoal causes cancer of the mouth, throat, and pancreas. Chewing tobacco is better than smoking it, but it's still risky. People using chewing tobacco would be better off vaping which would give them the nicotine without all the other gunk.

> Scientists think that up to 400 milligrams of caffeine–the equivalent of roughly four cups of coffee–is probably safe for most healthy adults.

Am I the only one who thinks this is a lot? I don't want to argue against this. When I was doing my bachelor's I pulled all nighters with one or two 500ml Monster energy drinks which is ~320mg max. Of course all nighters are not healthy but I was mostly worried about the caffeine intake.

I think it's a lot. It's scary to see how much caffeine people take.

But it's only one venti at Starbucks ;)

I imagine 400mg is for daily intake. I don't now how it applies for the intake in one sitting. I had to look it up and Starbucks' venti Brewed Coffee really contains 415mg [1]. Seriously, this product looks dangerous. How come it's not regulated similarly as energy drinks? Maybe it's protected by "caffe culture", but I seriously doubt that drinking half a liter caffe was ever part of any culture.

[1] http://www.caffeineinformer.com/the-complete-guide-to-starbu...

I suffer from occasional SVT episodes and gave up caffeine as a result (it causes them to trigger more frequently). I'm not sure how it would be in other industries, but as a software engineer, telling colleagues that I don't consume any caffeine at all is almost always met with looks of disbelief and horror. I never realized how dependent on it so many people around me are to get through their day until I gave it up.

I just found out a couple of weeks ago that a time-released caffeine formulation[1] works wonders for me. It gives me 8-10 solid of solid focus without all the jitter. This, plus my morning joe with coconut oil, that is. About 300mg total caffeine.

[1] http://www.metrx.com/products/timed-release-caffeine/

What's the purpose of coconut oil?

I'm assuming he's talking about "Bulletproof" coffee, since Coconut oil contains medium chain triglycerides. Some claim it increases "clarity and alertness" and apparently boosts metabolism, lots of Paleo dieters use it. Never tried it personally, so can't attest for the benefits.

It may sound odd, but Bulletproof coffee does not work for me at all; maybe the fatty acid profile of butter vs coconut oil are too different, but for me, coconut oil works and butter doesn't.

Note that I have a primary mitochondrial defect, so my nutritional experiments results are always "weird", for the lack of a better word.

It gives you energy very rapidly, as some of its fatty acids are sent directly from the digestive tract to the liver, that is, they do not require digestion. Much like fructose, but I have found that coconut oil gives me more energy than a fructose based breakfast.

I usually don't eat a full meal from 22PM to 14PM (16 hours) and 15ml (one tablespoon) of coconut oil plus some almonds at noon are enough for me.

Is it possible to approximate the amount of caffeine based on the beans weight I use for brewing? Before I take any further steps I'd like to know how close to the danger zone I am.

Pretty useless article. Nothing new

1. The modal made me consider instantly closing the site. If that article didn't REALLY interest me, I would have insta-closed it.

2. No offense, but this is pretty basic, high school biology class knowledge. Would be nice if we knew more than this in 2015.

Putting a modal over the entire iphone screen is a great way to get me to hate your site. Article was decent, but mostly contained a semi-technical overview of well known info.

Mobile web browsing is a true nightmare on iOS. It's pretty shocking that it's taking Apple nine OS releases to address what's clearly a defect in their platform.

maybe the fault you find with Apple is not without merit, but surely you can't be suggesting that a websites choice of UI could possibly come down to apple.

Taking away all control from the user in terms of how their device's browser is able to render websites is all on Apple. They could've fixed this a long time ago. I'm not a fan of Android at all, but I've been tempted to switch back purely because of the ability to run a spam filter in my browser.

It this on windows phone too. It's not the phone's fault.

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