Millions of people believe that coffee keeps them awake and fresh. Even if it is the day, night, or afternoon. People rely upon caffeine each day. Ironically, caffeine has many side effects on health too. But, when we study it we find something different. Let us read on to learn more about it.
What is caffeine?
Caffeine is a natural stimulant often found in tea coffee and cocoa plants. It is the world’s most widely consumed psychoactive drug. Unlike many other psychoactive substances, it is legal and unregulated in nearly all parts of the world. When we talk about its history and organization, it is found that coffee was discovered many years back by an Ethiopian Shepherd. When he provided his sheep caffeine he noticed some extra energy in them. Caffeinated soft drinks came in the market in the late 1800s, followed by energy drinks
Facts and figures
It is found out that 90% of the adult population in North America as well as 80% of the total world population consumes caffeine in one or the other form, each day.
Source: Pixabay
How does it work?
As soon as caffeine is consumed, it is absorbed into the blood traveling to the liver. It breaks down and affects various functions of numerous organs. The major effect of caffeine is on the Brain.
Caffeine blocks the effects of adenosine in our body which is responsible for making you feel tired every passing minute, hour, and second, making you drowsy enough to go to sleep. This is how caffeine helps you to stay awake and alert.
It also increases brain activity by increasing blood adrenaline levels. This further helps the body to come into two states of more alertness and focus. All regions together witness caffeine as a psychoactive drug.
Caffeine naturally is found in seeds or leaves of certain plants. After which they are harvested and processed to be converted into foods and beverages.
Examples of some caffeine-containing products are- expresso, coffee, yerba mate, energy drink, brewed tea, soft drinks, decaffeinated coffee, cocoa beverage, chocolate milk, and much more. When we talk about food and medicines, some of the prescriptions also contain caffeine in them.
Benefits from caffeine
- Improves mood and brain activities
Caffeine can have a huge impact on the functioning of the brain. Caffeine improves alertness short-term recall and reaction time. By consuming it, the human body has a low risk of depression. It makes the mood comparatively better. Drinking 3 to 5 cups of coffee every day reduces the risk of some brain diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s’ by 28-60%. Coffee also contains some beneficial bioactive compounds.
- Enhances exercise performance
Caffeine is beneficial because it helps to store glucose in muscles reducing them to exhaust soon. Studies report have found that those who drink coffee seems to be four to eight times less likely to develop Parkinson’s disease
- Lowers risk of certain types of cancer
Study reports found that cancer is one of the leading causes of death worldwide. Characterized by uncontrolled cell growth of your body. Caffeine here appears to be protective of two types of cancer: liver and colorectal cancer. It was found that those who drink 4-5 cups coffee per day had a 15% lower risk of liver and colorectal cancer
- Fights depression
Mental disorder is a serious cause of a significantly reduced quality of life. It is very common as 15% of people in the world have depression problems. It was found that those who drink 4 or more cups of coffee a day had a 25% lower chance of getting depressed. Caffeine appears to lower your risk of developing problems like depression and also lower the chances of suicide risk.
- Removes tiredness
Caffeine plays an important role in removing tiredness of people. From research, it was found that those who drink 4-5 cups of coffee a day have a lower chance of getting tired from their work. It acts as an energy supplier to the human body and keeps it charge long-lasting, it also removes sleep which helps to work more.
Source: pixabay
Negative impacts of Caffeine
- Blood pressure
Mostly caffeine leads to an increase in the blood pressure of people. This effect happens due to an increase in adrenaline or a temporary block on the hormones that naturally widen arteries. In most cases, it was found that there is a long term effect of blood pressure.
- Increases Cardiovascular problems.
Till now, it is unclear whether caffeine increases Cardiovascular problems or not. But according to a few studies, that recently came out tells us there is a probable risk. And, it was found in some cases that due to caffeine, cardiovascular problems arise, in including children.
- Adenosine effect.
Adenosine promotes sleep and gradually starts dowing nerve activity. It also causes blood vessels in the brain to dilate and increase oxygen intake during sleep. When awake, the adenosine level in the brain rises each hour, making the brain and body less alert. Higher consumption of caffeine may not be healthful.
- Side effects on the human body.
Caffeine has lots of side effects on the human body, for example, if we take caffeine with medication it causes side effects including fast heartbeat, high blood pressure, nervousness, and others. Some of the medications used for dealing in depression include phenelzine(Nardil), tranylcypromine(Parnate), and others.
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