Change Your Brain Every Day - Is Coffee Beneficial or Detrimental To Your Health?

Episode Date: July 26, 2017

In health circles, the topic of coffee can be controversial. Dr. Daniel Amen and Tana Amen discuss how coffee can be both beneficial and detrimental to your health. By understanding how it affects the brain and body, coffee drinkers can be better informed to make the correct choices in how and when they drink their coffee. 

Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. I'm Dr. Daniel Amen. And I'm Tana Amen. Here we teach you how to win the fight for your brain to defeat anxiety, depression, memory loss, ADHD, and addictions. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is brought to you by Amen Clinics, where we've transformed lives

for three decades using brain spec imaging to better target treatment and natural ways to heal the brain. For more information, visit amenclinics.com. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is also brought to you by BrainMD, where we produce the highest quality nutraceutical products to support the health of your brain and body. For more information, visit brainmdhealth.com. Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. So we're back with sleep deprivation, and we're going to talk about something that people don't want to hear, and it's caffeine. Okay, so people are just very attached to coffee,

and we're going to talk about what you can do if you're attached to your coffee. Um, it doesn't mean you necessarily have to break up with coffee altogether. There are things you can do, um, that will still give you that comfort without just completely robbing you of your sleep. Because the truth is caffeine can really be bad for your brain, disrupt your sleep, and affect your cognitive function. So let's talk about this. Why does caffeine rob you of sleep and how is it bad for your brain? Well, what caffeine does is it blocks adenosine.

Adenosine is a chemical your body naturally produces to help you with pain, but also to put you asleep when you're tired. So sleep is absolutely essential for your brain to clean and wash itself, as we've talked about. And when you don't get enough sleep, you feel foggy, tired in the morning. And many people use caffeine as a way to balance their brain and to feel more alert, more awake. And it works. I mean, you feel cognitively sharper. The problem is your caffeine is one of those drugs that's insidious and that the more you use it, the more your brain will require it in order for you to feel normal at all. So people have certain questions. Why? There are some people who say that caffeine doesn't affect them at all.

And there are other people who say that it affects them like a lot. They can't have any caffeine. So this actually is real and it has to do with acetylization in your liver. Okay. And what is acetylization? Yes. So it has to do with how fast your liver processes and detoxifies and gets the caffeine and clears your body of, you know, the chemicals, right? So what it does, so think of it like this. Some people, when they take medicine, if you ever hear people say, oh, I can't take medicine at all. Like it affects me so strongly.

And other people will say, oh my gosh, I could take enough to knock a horse out, right? It doesn't really affect me at all. Well, that sometimes has to do with how your liver is processing. People who can take a ton of it and it doesn't really affect them, it's because their liver's clearing very quickly. Other people, they don't clear quickly. It holds on to it. That has to do with acetylization. Well, caffeine's the same way. Some people, they can have one cup of coffee in the morning and they're buzzing all day. They're holding on to it.

It's not clearing quickly. Other people, they can drink. You go to Italy and they'll have two three cups of you know espresso after dinner and they go home and sleep and it's like bizarre and some of it is genetic and some of it is you and what maybe you know you've done to your liver over time it just depends but if you are someone who does not clear quickly your liver is slow to process then that caffeine is going to affect you much stronger than someone who's able to clear that really fast. I happen to be one of those people. I love that morning

comfort of a cup of coffee. Okay. So I have a very special trick I do because I don't clear quickly. So if I have a cup of coffee anytime past 12, I won't sleep. And I like to sleep. So what we do is we'll tell you at the end what we do to sort of get that comfort without the sleep deprivation. But that's why your body, some people can drink it and some people can't. Life's not fair, right?

No one told you it was going to be fair. But there are things you can do that are tricky that will still give you that morning comfort. Well, and one of the things to do, I i mean you can go to decaf unless you need the jolt and what i've always thought through the years people who need the caffeine in the morning it's probably because they didn't get enough sleep or they have add or they have add and it's one of the ways they treat their add and i know'm drawn to it. I'm drawn to that stimulant type feeling. And I never believed in ADD till I met you. And I actually have pretty mild ADD. I've done very, you know, I've always been able to sort of manage. So I'm not one of those people who's

highly distracted, maybe because I'm anxious too. But I am drawn to that stimulant feeling. I definitely am. So yeah. But you were smart enough never to use cocaine or meth. Oh God, feeling. I definitely am. So, yeah. But you were smart enough never to use cocaine or methamphetamines. Oh, God, no. I'm, no, absolutely not. I had an uncle who was a drug addict

and that was the biggest favor he ever did me was letting me be exposed to his lifestyle. So, terrified me. So, that is a sign of intelligent life. You see destruction

that comes from a behavior and you avoid the behavior. But exercise and caffeine were my medicine. You know, and I used to like have a Diet Coke. I'd get huge 32 ounce one from Jack in the Box at lunch. And caffeine never really affected me much. It doesn't really affect you. It would make me go to the bathroom a lot. I've noticed, yeah.

So I'd never drink something with any caffeine in it before I had to go on stage. Then I started reading the studies. When I started doing SPECT imaging in 1991, I read the studies that showed even 100 milligrams of caffeine, one cup of coffee would constrict blood flow to the brain. And anything that constricts blood flow to any organ prematurely ages the organ. And so I went, all right, let's kill the caffeine. And it's funny, the days I have caffeine versus the days I don't, my energy sags in the afternoon if I have caffeine in the morning, where if I don't have any caffeine, my energy is consistent throughout the day. So I actually tell people to kill it. Now, I also, I know the research is on both sides, that caffeine can

increase pain syndromes. It can decrease blood flow to your brain. It can mess with your sleep. In fact, we have a study in front of us that caffeine taken zero, three, even six hours before bed significantly disrupts sleep. But on the other side, people who drank a lot of caffeine tend to have a lower incidence of Parkinson's disease and diabetes. And Alzheimer's. And. So why is that? It's an interesting question. they do, or if the caffeine is somehow stimulating the islet cells in their pancreas or the substantia nigra and the basal ganglia that's involved with Parkinson's disease.

I don't think anybody knows. So it's interesting. So we always want to be fair. There is research on both sides. So we would say for optimal brain function, limit your caffeine. There is research on both sides and we want to understand why.

Yeah, but you know, there's also, I don't mean to fight with you because you know. No, no, and I don't. I always want to know the truth. You know how much I love you. And I want to know the truth.

And there was research for a long time on alcohol and that alcohol is basically good for you. I just spoke. I just recorded memory rescue and I did a practice at the Alzheimer's association and damn it, they had alcohol there again, you know, going the benefits and it's nonsense. Alcohol is directly related to seven

different kinds of cancer. It decreases your judgment. It increases the likelihood you're going to be overweight because when you have alcohol with dinner, you eat more. And I'm just not a fan. And forever, there was research coming out from great places saying alcohol decreases your risk of heart disease, helps your brain. And from the 130,000 scans I've seen,

the only thing I can say is bullshit. You know, when you look at people who are drinkers, and I'm not even talking alcoholics, I'm talking about people who just have to have those two or three glasses of wine or scotch every day. Their brains look like crap. I understand. You're comparing alcohol and caffeine,

so I just want to be clear. And I get it. I hear you. But we do have, there's some pretty big studies, and so we just want to at least put them out there. So limit your caffeine. That's the message.

Limit your caffeine. You know, as someone who studies, you know, I have 78 research publications. I know whenever somebody starts a study, they often start it with the conclusion in their head even before they do the study. So who was it? That's pretty normal, isn't it?

Somebody said 16 out of 17 statistics lie. And the last one's suspect too. So I think you just have to, and what we're telling you here on the Brain Warriors Way is our experience as a doctor and a nurse over a long period of time helping people, you just have to ask yourself, does this make my life better? Is it a habit? Because my brain has always done that and the brain hates change?

Oh, and I clearly admit I love my cup of coffee in the morning. So, but is it the cup of coffee that I love? And yeah, I mean, I'm drawn to stimulants. I admitted that. But or is it the comfort? Okay. I love getting up and having a cup of coffee with you. I love the process.

I love hanging out with you and Chloe and doing all of that. Okay, so finding a healthier way to do it is probably a good idea. Right, and you always want to be careful the words you use. I hear this with my patients all the time. I love my sugar. I love my coffee. I love my alcohol. And I'm like, you know, I don't think those are the right words that, but when we say that, then we believe it

and giving up something you, you love, you know, we've had lots of great testimonials. I broke up with coffee. I broke up with sugar. I broke up with sugar. I broke up with alcohol. And I feel so much better. You just want to ask yourself, and this is the tiny habit that we learned with Brain Warrior's Way that really helps you plant this in your life. Is this good for my brain or bad for it? it's controversial if there's a question about it um i think we come down on the side of get rid of it right so what we do instead let me just tell you what we decided to do is find a healthier way to do it we like getting up and having that warm cup of something in the morning and hanging out together right that's our morning time so i came up with a way to do it. And we have, I buy half-calf organic low-acid coffee, brew that, and we mix it with almond milk.

So it ends up being a quarter of the caffeine. And then in the afternoon, if I, you know, rather than having a cup of coffee, I have tea. So, because tea has been shown to have a tremendous amount of benefit especially green tea so we have green tea in the afternoon if we want something um so your almond milk um cappuccino tell them quickly how to make it because it's just phenomenal the ingredient the recipe is in the brain warriors wake yeah so i actually have like um i think there's five different coffee

recipes in the cookbook and you can use decaf if you want. That same company called Pure Roast makes decaf. By the way, we'll do another podcast on the benefits of the coffee and it can be decaf. The coffee itself has benefits, not the caffeine we're talking about. So Pure Roast makes decaf as well. It's low acid, and they also make a half-calf. So I brew the coffee, heat up the almond milk, and we do, in a blender, half coffee, half of the half-calf coffee, and half almond milk. Sugar-free almond milk.

Sugar-free. And then we add some pumpkin spice stevia, and you can add any flavor you want. We like pumpkin spice, and we add some pumpkin pie um spice to it blend it and then top it with a little cinnamon put it in a cup and top it with a little cinnamon and when you blend it in a blender it froths just like a cappuccino crazy yeah it gives you a froth just like a cappuccino and it's amazing and you get very little caffeine in there and there's's no suffering. Right. So. And I get to keep my morning comfort routine of hanging out with my family and sitting

and having that warm. Or you can just have green tea in the morning. Right. So either way. Right. And rituals are great. But as we've said repeatedly now, the brain hates change. So the more you put in healthy rituals i mean i love the fact

that chloe our 14 year old has rituals too and these are good for her as opposed to ice cream and pizza and macaroni and cheese she is putting rituals into her life that are amazing and she'll have a harder time breaking them. Right. And we like that. Right. You want to put good habits into your life and the longer you do them, the more they get set in the nerve cell patterns in your brain and it can just be so helpful.

So in my thought, the less caffeine, the better. Anything that constricts blood flow to your brain, I'm not a fan of because you want blood flow to your brain. Your brain uses 20% of the blood flow in your body, even though it's only 2% of your body's weight. Stay with us. Thank you for listening to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. We have a special gift for you. It's an opportunity to win an evaluation at the Amen Clinics. All you have to do is

subscribe to this podcast, leave a review and rate us on iTunes. To learn more about Amen Clinics and the work we do, go to amenclinics.com. You can also learn about our nutraceutical products at brainmdhealth.com. Thanks for listening.