The caffeine buzz: Feels great, but is it good for your health?

So you love to wake up with a strong cup of coffee or an energy drink to get that temporary "buzz" at the start the day? You’re certainly not alone, but have you considered how the caffeine in coffee (and other foods and beverages) might affect your health?

Caffeine: A stimulant drug

Caffeine – the ingredient in coffee, energy drinks and some foods that increases our alertness and gives us a "buzz" – is the most commonly taken drug in the world.

It has been consumed for thousands of years and remains popular around the world and in Australia – whether consumed in a trendy café or daggy pyjamas, most Australians enjoy caffeinated foods and beverages.

Having a cup of coffee, a bar of chocolate or some other caffeine-containing food is so common that few people would class it as "taking drugs". But caffeine affects the mind and the mood, and for that reason is classified as a psychoactive drug. However, like alcohol and medications, caffeine is legal, so some people may not pay much attention to how caffeine affects their health.

How much caffeine to consume?

Consuming caffeine in moderation does not appear to have negative health effects – it would not be legal and widely available if it did! Caffeine even has some beneficial effects when consumed in moderation. However, we’ve all heard that one can have "too much of a good thing". That rule also applies to caffeine. When consumed in large quantities, caffeine can be addictive and negatively affect your health.

So how much is too much caffeine? In Australia, NSW Health recommends that adults consume no more than 600 mg of caffeine (equivalent to 5–6 cups of coffee) each day. However, children and women who are pregnant or breastfeeding should consume less. It’s also interesting to note that health authorities in Canada say 400 mg max and the United States say no more than 250 mg of caffeine per day – much less than Australian authorities.

What foods and drinks have caffeine?

When considering how much caffeine you consume, it’s important to consider a range of goodies. Most people associate caffeine with a strong cup of coffee, but the drug is also found in a wide range of commonly consumed foods and beverages. Tea contains caffeine (although in smaller quantities than coffee), as do energy drinks, chocolate and other cocoa-containing goodies. So when working out how much caffeine you consume, be sure to include chocolates and soft drinks, not only the coffee and energy drinks most commonly associated with the caffeine "buzz".

Caffeine feels good, but what about my health?

The "buzz" we get from caffeine can feel good and it might be easy to associate the good feeling of a coffee buzz with good health more generally. Indeed, there are some beneficial health effects of caffeine. Most obviously it helps tired people stay awake and alert (and who doesn’t have a cup of coffee once in a while to help them stay awake or wake up the morning after a late night?).

Lesser known is that consuming caffeine has also been linked in scientific studies to a lower chance of developing type 2 diabetes mellitus, Parkinson’s disease and stroke. Caffeine is also used to treat migraine headaches (however, if you have migraines, make sure you speak to a doctor who can prescribe caffeine-containing medications – treating yourself with cups of tea or coffee is unlikely to be effective).

The dark side of caffeine consumption

While caffeine consumption reduces the risk of some health conditions, there is also a dark side to caffeine consumption. When consumed in excess, this drug does pose health risks. The risks are greatest during pregnancy and breastfeeding, but caffeine can negatively affect everyone’s health.

Ever felt sick straight after a coffee?

In the short term, excessive caffeine consumption may cause headaches, vomiting and changes to the heartbeat and food digestion. It can also have a negative affect on sleep, which is great when you want to stay awake, but not so great when you wake up feeling tired and grumpy the next day.

Bones

In the long-term, caffeine can affect the health of your bones, particularly if you don’t consume enough calcium or other vitamins and minerals important for bone health. Caffeine is a diuretic, which means it makes you need to wee more often and causes you to expel more water from your body than you otherwise would. When an individual wees more, they also expel calcium, iron and other micronutrients from the body more quickly. This means the body has less time to absorb them and use them to build healthy bones.

It also affects the mind

Caffeine consumption can also affect an individual’s emotional health. You might start to feel anxious after consuming too much caffeine, and if you already have an anxiety disorder, it may become worse if you consume too much caffeine. Caffeine also affects sleeping patterns in the long term. It doesn’t only make it harder for an individual to get to sleep; caffeine also affects the quality of sleep and those who consume excessive amounts may have difficulty achieving a deep sleep.

Myths about caffeine

The dark side of caffeine is actually much brighter than once thought. For many years, caffeine was thought to increase the risk of cardiovascular conditions, heartburn, infertility and fibrocystic breast disease. But scientific studies have since been undertaken and these have not produced evidence to support these beliefs. Currently, health professionals believe that there is not sufficient evidence to link caffeine consumption to a greater risk of cardiovascular disease or other conditions mentioned above.

What are you going to do about your caffeine consumption?

In Australia, adults consume an average of two cups of coffee per day (240 mg caffeine), so for most people, the verdict on caffeine is good news. Drinking caffeine in these quantities is unlikely to be affecting your health.

However, for people who consume more caffeine than this, and especially for those who consume more than 600 mg of caffeine per day (5–6 cups of coffee) caffeine may be damaging your health. It’s important to start cutting back.

Going cold turkey is probably not the best solution – caffeine is an addictive drug, and completely eliminating it from the diet can cause withdrawal symptoms. Gradually replacing caffeinated beverages with non-caffeinated beverages is usually a better option. You don’t have to stop consuming coffee altogether, just bear in mind that there is such a thing as too much of a good thing.

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