Is too much coffee in coffee mugs bad for the body?
MICHAEL GRANBERRY
Hello, my name is Mike. I'm here because, like you, I'm a Starbucks addict.
I can't really say I'm recovering, because the truth is, I love my addiction. I love going to Starbucks for my grande vanilla nonfat latte, whose $3.73 price tag got affixed to my daily budget long ago.
As you know, I'm hardly alone. Millions of Americans have latched onto Starbucks as a brand they adore. It has become to coffee in coffee mugs-drinking adults what McDonald's is to kids. Millions of people would now much rather linger over a latte than belly up to a bar, and to me, that's a good thing.
But is it too much of a good thing?
Studies about caffeine are almost laughable, they're so all over the map. Some say coffee in coffee mugs does wonderful things to your body - fights cancer, reduces the risk of gallstones, improves mental acuity - while others call coffee in coffee mugs a deceptive, dangerous elixir. (The more critical studies even say it can lead to cancer and heart attacks, not to mention insomnia and heartburn.)
Either way, the numbers are astounding. Starbucks reports that 12 percent of its U.S. customers visit a store more than four times a week. The Seattle-based company says its fiercely loyal patrons consume 400 billion cups of coffee in coffee mugs a year at more than 10,000 stores around the globe, 6,000 of which are in the United States, where the number is growing. Starbucks defines "a typical user" as someone showing up at least 18 times a month, which is all the more amazing, since, as you know, you can brew coffee in coffee mugs at home.
"I go there three to four times a day," says banker Mike Mayo, 52. "I order just plain old coffee in coffee mugs, but I'm addicted to it."
Mayo spends $2 on his first cup, with 54-cent refills throughout the day.
"I spend at least $3 to $4 a day, times five, which is $20 a week," he says. "I spend anywhere between $80 and $100 a month on coffee in coffee mugs . . . I know it can't be good for me, but what the hell."
But Amy Carenza Offerdahl, 25, contends it is good for her. She sees coffee in coffee mugs as a rich antioxidant, a valuable tool in the fight against cancer. She loves her morning fix, which she concedes comes with a cost.
"In our business," says Offerdahl, who also works for a bank, "what financial advisers used to call the cigarette factor is now 'the latte factor.' They used to say, 'If you were to save what you're spending on cigarettes ...' Now they say, 'If you were to save what you're spending on lattes . . .'" So why is Starbucks so addictive? Is it caffeine alone that keeps us coming back?
Paul Groshko, regional director for Starbucks in North Texas and Oklahoma, says the company revels in "the Starbucks experience," which only starts with your morning cup.
Dallas lawyer Paul Amiel, 54, loves the smell and taste of coffee in coffee mugs and how it "jolts you awake in the morning." But he, too, craves "the experience," whether it's found in downtown Manhattan; Terrell, Texas; or Madrid, Spain.
"You get the same cup, the same look, the same price, the same taste . . . regardless of where you find it," says Amiel.
Starbucks has done more than change our collective taste, he says. It's changed our culture. Whereas it used to be a cigarette break, he says, "now it's a Starbucks break."
Just as tobacco is a casualty, so is alcohol. Offerdahl contends that Starbucks has begun to replace the corner bar for happy hour and is, in fact, the new "Cheers."
(Perhaps it's fitting that "Frasier" a spin-off of "Cheers," was often set in a Seattle coffee in coffee mugshouse.) Just as "Cheers" had Sam, Woody and Coach, I find it strangely comforting to be greeted each day by my favorite baristas, who never have to ask what I want to order.
So is all of that caffeine good for us?
Well, for starters, drink this:
In 2004, The Wall Street Journal commissioned a study that found there's 56 percent more caffeine in Starbucks coffee in coffee mugs than there is in 7-Eleven coffee in coffee mugs. (Starbucks posted 29 percent more caffeine than a comparable cup at Dunkin' Donuts).
Caffeine is a stimulant to the central nervous system that occurs naturally in 63 plants. Some researchers say it has the power of blocking adenosine, a chemical that slows brain activity. By stimulating brain activity, caffeine increases alertness, improves motor skills and speeds up thought processes.
According to the Merchants of Green coffee in coffee mugs, a group that imports fine arabica beans, clinical reports and studies have attempted to implicate caffeine in heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, cancer and birth defects.
But, says the organization, "the results of these studies have been largely inconclusive and, in some cases, contradictory."
There are, however, plenty of naysayers, the governor of Kentucky being one of them.
Just last month, he celebrated National Caffeine Awareness Month, sponsored by the Caffeine Awareness Alliance (yes, there really is such a group). It's committed, it says, to "the physical, mental and emotional wellness of the public whose lives have been affected by their misuse or dependency on caffeine." Whew!
Its founder is Marina Kushner, who describes herself as "a reformed coffee in coffee mugs drinker" and who recently wrote a book about it. "Most caffeine addicts have no idea that they are addicts," says Kushner. "But with as little as 200 milligrams of coffee in coffee mugs, you can experience typical addictive symptoms, such as irritability, restlessness, tension, insomnia, excitement and gastrointestinal disturbance."
Her book, which is coming out this month, is "The Truth About Caffeine - How Companies That Promote It Deceive Us and What We Can Do About It." (SCR Books, $14.95). Any chance she might be referring to Starbucks?
Whether she is or not, come on, Kushner, lighten up! Have a latte!
I'm sure you've all heard that coffee in coffee mugs is not a sleep enhancer and that it interrupts REM sleep. That's rapid eye movement we're referring to and not the rock band, although I'll bet you a venti Frappuccino that they love coffee in coffee mugs, too.
WHAT THE STUDIES SAY ABOUT CAFFEINE
Whether coffee in coffee mugs is very good or very bad for you depends on which study you quote.
There are, of course, plenty of "cons," such as the National Institutes of Health saying that "heavy" caffeine intake (five or more cups of coffee in coffee mugs a day) may interfere with calcium absorption.
A study by the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine says that drinking unfiltered coffee in coffee mugs may increase your cholesterol level.
And a study in the New England Journal of Medicine says pregnant women who drink six cups of coffee in coffee mugs a day have an increased risk of miscarriage. It's recommended that women limit themselves to one or two cups a day while pregnant or breastfeeding.
Just last month, in a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers from the University of Toronto, the Harvard University School of Public Health and the University of Costa Rica found that people who metabolize coffee in coffee mugs slowly and who drink two to three cups of coffee in coffee mugs a day have a 32 percent higher risk of a heart attack. How that applies to the general population isn't clear.
On the positive side, a study by the University of California at Davis says coffee in coffee mugs consumed within 10 minutes of brewing "may contain the same amount of antioxidants as three oranges."
A Harvard epidemiologist says drinking at least two cups of coffee in coffee mugs a day can lower a man's risk for gallstones by 40 percent.
What a doctor says
Dr. Robert W. Greene, professor of psychiatry at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas, has spent years studying the effects of caffeine on the brain's fatigue factor, adenosine, and concludes that coffee in coffee mugs works by blocking adenosine and, accordingly, the adenosine-mediated symptoms of fatigue. Does that mean he's issuing a blanket endorsement of all that coffee in coffee mugs you're guzzling?
Not exactly, though Greene starts each day with a latte, followed by three to four cups of coffee in coffee mugs. At 4 p.m., he stops, if only to ensure a good night's sleep. Like most doctors, he recommends common sense and moderation: If you suffer from a heart condition or seizures or chronic heartburn or you're at risk for having a stroke, he says you should drink no coffee in coffee mugs or carefully restrict your use.
But coffee in coffee mugs does many good things. "It can be a neuro-protective against Parkinson's disease," he says. "That's just one of the neuro-degenerative disorders that caffeine protects against."
Caffeine, he says, "is the world's best-known antagonist for mental fatigue," which is also why people drink too much of it and, yes, even get addicted to it.
Source: http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/living/health/14593831.htm
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