Caffeine’s Buzz Chases Away Women’s Depression, Study Finds
By Melissa Healy
Compared with uncaffeinated women, those who drank the equivalent of four or more cups of coffee a day are more likely to drink alcohol and smoke cigarettes and less likely to volunteer their time in church or community groups. But a new study finds that well-caffeinated women have a key health advantage over their more abstemious sisters: They’re less likely to become depressed.
In the back-and-forth world of research on caffeine’s effects, the latest study suggests that women who get several jolts of java a day may do more than get a quick boost: Their mental health may see sustained improvement even as the physical stresses of aging accumulate. Among a large population of women tracked for as long as 18 years each, the women who routinely consumed the highest levels of caffeine were 20 percent less likely than those who drank little to none to become depressed when they were nearing or in their 60s.
Coffee, which ounce-for-ounce delivers the strongest dose of caffeine, was most women’s pick-me-up of choice. And generally, the more caffeine a woman drank, the more likely she was to be in good mental health. The study was published Monday in the Archives of Internal Medicine.
“A small amount of coffee may keep you more active and more happy, and that may result in the long run in better brain health,” said Dr. Alberto Ascherio, the senior author of the study. Cautioning that his group’s findings are preliminary, Ascherio added that they should ease concerns among female coffee addicts as they enter midlife; the average age of the participants was 63 years in 1996, when researchers began tracking the incidence of depression among the women.
“There’s no reason, from what we know, for people to cut back on their coffee consumption, unless, of course, it makes them feel bad,” said Ascherio, professor of epidemiology and nutrition at Harvard University’s School of Public Health. Ascherio was the lead author of a 2003 study that linked high coffee consumption with lower rates of Parkinson’s disease in men, but not in women. That early study, however, did turn up one key warning for women: Among heavy coffee drinkers who had taken hormone replacement therapy, the likelihood of developing Parkinson’s disease rose.
To gauge the link between caffeine consumption and depression, the authors of the latest research drew upon the long-running Nurse’s Health Study. Some 53,739 women who participated in that larger study completed periodic surveys of their eating habits for 14 years. While women with a prior history of depression were included in the study, none of those participating showed significant depressive symptoms, or had a depression diagnosis in 1996, when the researchers began to measure depression rates.
In an effort to gauge caffeine’s long-term, rather than its immediate effect, researchers waited two years after a woman’s last dietary report to begin inquiries about her mental health. At that time also, they asked about health and lifestyle behavior, such as alcohol consumption, tobacco use, exercise, marital status and involvement in social or community groups. Then, at least twice over the next four-year period, they would ask her whether she had been diagnosed with depression or had begun taking antidepressant medication on a regular basis in either of the previous two years.
This article was published at NationofChange at: http://www.nationofchange.org/caffeines-buzz-chases-away-womens-depression-study-finds-1317229283. All rights are reserved.
Caffeine Causes Glucose Level Spikes in Type 2 Diabetes
By Brenda Skidmore
Brenda Skidmore has spent the five years actively researching natural health care alternatives. It is her sincere desire to empower others by sharing this important information. To improve your health today visit http://www.mywater4life.com
Did you know that nearly 18 million Americans have been diagnosed as having diabetes, and this figure continues to rise? Of those diagnosed, 95 percent have adult-onset (or Type 2) diabetes, and only about half of them are even aware that they have the disorder. Adult-onset diabetes used to be a rare occurrence, developing in an individual around the mid-forties. Now, however, it is becoming increasingly more common at younger ages, and even among children.
Although there have been some research studies that have shown how caffeine (from coffee consumption) can stabilize insulin levels in Type 2 diabetes, a recent study conducted at Duke University, headed by James D. Lane, PHD. shows quite the opposite effect. This small study focused only on 14 individuals who had Type 2 diabetes, which is a life-long disease marked by high levels of sugar in the blood. It occurs when the body does not respond correctly to insulin, a hormone released by the pancreas. The results revealed that when caffeine was ingested together with meals it caused their blood glucose levels to spike wildly, and insulin levels swung out of control.
What is interesting about this study is, that the effects of caffeine on blood sugar levels is not new, or breakthrough scientific news. This has been known for decades, and a commonly learned concept by most first year biochemistry medical school students.
When a Type 2 diabetic ingests caffeine from coffee, or any other caffeinated product, it almost always produces an elevation in their glucose levels, throughout the day, by about 8 percent. Researchers think that caffeine interferes with the glucose transporting process in moving glucose out of the bloodstream and into body cells and muscle tissue where it is burned for fuel.
Caffeine consumption also triggers the release of the hormone and brain neurotransmitter, adrenaline, which raises blood sugar levels. When caffeine is consumed in combination with refined sugars such as white sugar and artificial dairy creamers that many people put in their morning coffee, it will intensify the effects on blood sugar levels. Long-term use of the two can lead to hypoglycemia. Caffeine plus refined sugars, or sugar substitutes, can be a deadly combination for anyone with diabetes, no matter which type.
It would seem to go without saying that a diabetic would would be well-advised to avoid this combination for life, or plan to be fighting their daily control of their insulin levels. Consider this as well, daily and heavy caffeine consumption reduces insulin sensitivity-the effects of which can last up to 12 hours after last ingesting a source of caffeine.
Dehydration is a common effect of drinking too much caffeine. Although you may think you are getting plenty of water in these type of drinks, caffeine, however, works against your body in two ways, it dehydrates body cells, by increasing urination. And, dehydration inhibits insulin secretion in the pancreas.
According to Dr. F. Batmanghelidj, M.D., author of “Your Body’s Many Cries For Water”, when adequate water level amounts are denied to the pancreas, by you not drinking enough, the body will adapt by clinging to what water reserves it has left to act upon the most important function it must perform at the time. Digestion of a meal you just ate by breaking it down and neutralizing acid in the intestines comes before proper insulin secretion.
Dr. B explains,in chapter 10, page 125, “As it happens, when insulin secretion is inhibited, except for the brain, the metabolism of the body is severely disrupted. In a dehydrated state, the brain benefits from insulin inhibition. The brain cell itself is not dependent on insulin for its functions. The cells in most other parts of the body are totally dependent on the properties of insulin for their normal function. If we think about it, there is a natural logic to the ultimate production of insulin-independent diabetes in severe chronic dehydration. Why is it called insulin-independent diabetes? Because the Body can still manufacture insulin, although it takes the influence of some chemical agents to promote its secretion.”
“This phenomenon of insulin inhibition with dehydration shows that the primary function of the pancreatic gland is directed at the provision of water for food digestion. The insulin inhibition is an adaption process of the gland to the dehydration of the body.”
Although controlling Type 2 diabetes is, clearly, more complicated than just reducing, or eliminating, one’s caffeine intake, further reading and investigation of this chapter in this book will open some eyes, also, into the important role amino acids play in this disease as well. Diabetes seems, to me at least, to be a disease brought on by the over eating of processed food, the wrong type of fats, and drinking the wrong type of fluids. It’s more than just genetics. A, highly, controllable condition when one maintains the eating of a proper diet.
Source: Brenda Skidmore
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