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Episode 7 - rethinking caffeine
15 Plays17 days ago
In this episode, LCW founder Russ Harris sits down with LCW consultant nutritionist Dan Price to explore the science and culture behind caffeine consumption. From its performance-enhancing benefits to the hidden downsides of overuse, we unpack how your daily brew affects sleep, energy, appetite, and long-term wellbeing. We also take a look at ‘coffee culture’ in the workplace and the subtle ways it shapes our habits. Whether you're a one-a-day drinker or a serial espresso addict, this one’s worth a listen.
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Transcript
Introduction to Caffeine's Daily Role
00:00:01
Russ Harris
Hello and welcome back to episode seven of the Straight Talking Wellness Podcast, No Nonsense Podcast that delivers actionable insights to help you thrive in life and in work. I'm Russ Harris and today we are diving into the topic that's part of so many of our daily lives, caffeine.
00:00:21
Russ Harris
to help me unpack this topic, to discuss caffeine, whether it's a friend or a foe, and to discover if we can harness some of its benefits while avoiding maybe some of its pitfalls.
Cultural and Health Impacts of Caffeine
00:00:32
Russ Harris
I'm drawn by Dan Price, qualified nutritionist and consultant at LCW.
00:00:38
Dan
Bye, everyone.
00:00:40
Russ Harris
I'm just going to kick off by providing a bit of context around why we're discussing caffeine in general, because I think it's probably one that could seem underwhelming. You know, why are we needing to talk about coffee consumption or caffeine in terms of wellness? You know, does it really matter? Is it having that much of an impact, really? And I think the reason we sort of actually addressing this is is predominantly because of the massive change culturally in terms of the way that people will consume caffeine in quantities that may be might actually be having deleterious effects on their health and wellbeing because it's become such a social crutch. You know, let's go for a coffee, have a coffee at a meeting, people are having coffee in the morning to give themselves energy, coffee in the afternoon to give themselves energy. And it's developed a reputation for being a sort of
00:01:25
Russ Harris
I suppose, a a drink of the workplace. It's obviously non-alcoholic, so it has that kind of benefit as well. If you don't want to be drinking during the day, much more acceptable to have a coffee. So it seems to be everywhere. yet, obviously in some circumstances, it's it's essentially a legalised drug.
00:01:43
Russ Harris
you know and and And it affects our system, it affects our minds. And there are obviously some positive health benefits which have well been you know document well documented. But also, you know there's some drawbacks as well. And we see you know people definitely misusing or overusing or becoming reliant on caffeine. So that's one of why we want to talk about it.
Caffeine Beyond Coffee
00:02:01
Russ Harris
I'm interested to perhaps separate caffeine from coffee. I think we sort of perhaps see them interchangeably a lot of the time, but obviously caffeine crops up in lots of other places as well, not just not just in the coffee that we're drinking. So ah Dan, what's your what's your sort of take on on caffeine from a you know sort of a broader point of view?
00:02:24
Dan
Yeah, I think it's it's a nice intro because you're right. It's something that's so prevalent in day-to-day life. know in In my world, there's two two kind of ways that I come across it. One is in sports performance, so it's in people taking it for an edge in their training, exercise stuff. And then the other one is more like you say, they're more lifestyle stuff where people encounter it in in the day-to-day.
00:02:44
Dan
the the kind of two perhaps slightly different areas in terms of sports performance. It's one of the most studied supplements and it's incredibly effective. It can be effective for anaerobic, anaerobic and in-road training, so that means whether it's like aerobic endurance capacity or strength efforts, lower perceived rate of exertion when it comes to training. So there's a reason why pre-workout supplements that are sold are dosing up high on the caffeine, because from a sports performance point of view, it certainly is an effective supplement.
Mental and Physical Performance Enhancements
00:03:14
Dan
When it comes to day-to-day life,
00:03:16
Dan
there are still you know a number of reasons why someone might want to have it in terms of it also improving for focus, mental clarity, memory as well, these kinds of things. So when you're thinking about using it in work, you're using it in an office environment, it's something that can also have benefits in that kind of mental performance arena as well. So there's definitely a lot of things in the in the pro column for it. we and we we We speak about this kind of thing a lot, but we both have a about coffee here and there ourselves at meetings and elsewhere. What I would say about caffeine generally and coffee consumption is certainly from in that day to day life stuff, you get a bit of a conflict of information about it. So often people will come in thinking that oh I have too much coffee, that's this is that's a bad thing, you know, I shouldn't be having caffeine. And then yet, as particularly now, there's more research coming out all the time that can show some of the health benefits of coffee in the diet.
The Energy Cycle and Dependency
00:04:11
Dan
So It's an area that there are a lot of questions about and that's why I think it is good to maybe get some clarity over what's a good amount and what maybe are some signs of someone maybe relying a bit too much on caffeine at the expense of other aspects of their diet.
00:04:26
Russ Harris
Yeah, and I think, I mean, relying on it too much means that you know you you might be having coffee in the morning, but then you get this, because of what you mentioned there, that increase in kind of mental clarity and that boost in in your energy levels and your focus, you know the the the substances that create that are obviously temporary, that have ah have a half life, they're going to get used up and then and then your level of focus and clarity will drop again. you know for So it's a temporary effect. And then obviously you get this,
00:05:00
Russ Harris
whether it's a genuinely a lower level of concentration than it was prior to the coffee, or whether you just perceive the drop from the elevated level back to normal as a drop in energy levels, there's then this kind of fixed requirement where I need my, I want that level back again. And that's where you get that kind of dependency type stuff, whereas in the afternoon, I have now no energy to do anything.
00:05:24
Russ Harris
And I'm reliant now on having a coffee to feel energized. And I think that comes in hand in hand with, you know, so we look more generally at what's your sleep look like? You know, what are your stress levels? Because those are other things that will produce these kind of energy spikes and drops.
00:05:41
Russ Harris
And I think more people than is possibly, you know, probably recognized, although we feel it, we feel the effects of it, but there's probably more people than is recognized so who are in this perpetual state of flux between being you know full of adrenaline and full of ah ah enthusiasm to go and get stuff done and do workouts and hit goals and you know hit deadlines for work and then these energy slumps and we're trying to search for whether it's a glass of wine or whether it's a coffee or whether it's some sort of stimulation to get us back again and and I think you know social media you know we sit and we scroll passively on social media to try and get some dopamine back in our system and I think it's particularly prevalent in
00:06:27
Russ Harris
highly pressurized jobs with lots of stress and and city living as well so you see it quite a lot and it feels it's got all the hallmarks of dependency that you would probably you know so look at in terms of other drugs as well.
Diet, Lifestyle, and Caffeine
00:06:42
Dan
Yeah, so I think what i what I'd add is that that feeling there of the kind of up and then the down and the, I don't have any energy without it. I think that is a potential danger of a reliance on caffeine is that what's happening happening is it's masking what is probably the truth of the reality, which is that if you weren't supplementing that caffeine, your energy levels may be quite poor due to the other aspects of the diet. So for example, you touched on a few there, things like sleep and managing stress, but also just eating a diet which is not devoid of nutrient quality for something that's actually ah ah your fruits and vegetables, fiber, and also, you know, a control to an extent of of blood sugar. So if you're having lots of fast release carbohydrates, and then there's a kind of a crash later in the day, and you're
00:07:25
Dan
insulin spikes all over the place, then your energy levels are going to be less balanced and controlled throughout the day that if you were eating more slow release carbohydrates, meals that are a little bit more balanced in their macronutrient split as well. So those kinds of things should almost be the foundations. If you're already eating in a way in which you've got good energy levels because you're well rested, you're eating a high quality diet and you're balancing on the blood sugar throughout the day, then Adding some caffeine and chemo throughout the day might be a really nice way of boosting some mental performance or some physical performance. But the problem is if you don't have that underlying energy boosting ah backdrop of nutrition, then you're just trying to constantly plug the gap with caffeine throughout the day to get you a similar feeling. And therefore it's not so much that the caffeine is bad, it's that there's an underlying sort of environment that would be better addressed rather than just masked.
00:08:20
Russ Harris
Yeah, I totally agree. And I think also I'll in terms of the because because the effects of caffeine is so well, so well covered, so well spoken about, and people are aware of it, I think I think there's also a bit of a rhetoric around or, you know, caffeine will will spike your mood and boost your energy levels. And it reminds me a little bit when I was younger, and you first sort of going out and drinking alcohol, and you sort of pretend to be drunk, because that's what alcohol should do and it's like all your mates are a bit drunk and you all get a bit silly and it's like but you're not really actually drunk because you haven't had enough and I think sometimes with caffeine it's like oh I've got to have my coffee it's it's more of a sort of sometimes it becomes habitual it's more of like a rhetoric rather than it is actually you feel the effects because if you're having coffee all the time
00:09:06
Russ Harris
you can get accustomed to that caffeine boost and actually it doesn't have as much of an impact as it would as if you'd never had coffee before and you have one for the first time it might hit you like a like a like a train so I think there's an element of sort of you know I've got to have my coffee but it's actually not doing anything anymore you know I'm just I have this so regularly now that I don't notice the difference between coffee and no coffee and And also the sort of, I suppose the other thing is that what you're taking in with your caffeine, because obviously you can go to a coffee shop and you can get a small black shot of coffee, but you can also go and get a frappalappo mappuccino with whipped cream on the top and and syrup sugar syrup in.
Caffeine Content and Consumption Awareness
00:09:52
Russ Harris
So now you've got, as you were talking about there, the sugar intake. Now you've got this this highly calorific, highly sugary,
00:09:59
Russ Harris
drink, which has also got caffeine in it. And if the caffeine is the thing that you're going for, because that's the thing that's giving you the the energy, but now you're also getting these calories as well, sort of, it can have ah ah an exacerbating effect on some of the, you know, I suppose that's the knock on effect on some of the well being stuff, weight management, you know, quality nutrition, and that sort of stuff.
00:10:20
Dan
Yeah, absolutely. and I think that that probably dovetails a little bit into some of the energy drinks and things like that as well, where it's like it's not so much that the Catholic, because, you know, some of the Catholic content in the energy drinks, it's surprisingly not particularly higher than going and getting a ah coffee from from Starbucks. Yeah, so many of these things are comparable.
00:10:39
Dan
but it's more than some of the dangers are energy drinks is the amount of sugar that's in a lot of them as well, but also the fact they're marketed at kids, which is a slightly different and different story when it comes to kind of safer caffeine intakes. So there's there's definitely that side of it. I think as you were chatting there us about this point of people's almost tolerance to it and kind of getting used to these levels, that does kind of raise a bit of a key point, which is that So much of this is very individual about how people are going to react to caffeine and what benefits versus side effects those that someone's going to have with it because actually
00:11:16
Dan
Uh, and at times, you know, I've had quite a lot of caffeine at different times throughout my life, but because that, that's kind of, okay, what the safe limit is, but then you think, okay, well, are you going to have two of those? What time of the day are you having them? When's the second one happening? Is it in the second half of the day? Is it, is it, you know, then five hour half life of caffeine? So even, you know, 10 hours later, there's still going to be that in your, in your bloodstream when you're, when you're trying to go to sleep. So there's.
00:11:43
Dan
There's what is deemed as the safe, tolerable limit, but then there's also, I would say, things to look for in yourself as to whether you're noticing some negative effects of it. And I think the biggest one for that would be sleep. So if a lot of people track their data now on different apps and things like that that are going to measure sleep quality, but if you even just intuitively or you know practically basically are noticing your sleep quality suffering and you are continuing these amount of caffeine, particularly in the second half of the day, I think that's something to to cause more concern or more questions than whether um I getting that safe limit or not.
00:12:21
Russ Harris
Yeah. And so, yeah, let's, I suppose it's worth talking about when caffeine is, is useful. And I suppose that does lead us on to talk more about the performance use of caffeine, you know, having, how should you be having coffee before your workout? If you're going to go and exercise and what effect does that have? And if you're, yeah, what's the cutoff point or a sensible cutoff point to stop having caffeine if you want to avoid it affecting your sleep. Those are the kinds of questions that often get asked around, you know, coffee intake.
00:12:52
Dan
Yeah definitely and I think as well again even with a sports recommendation I still think there's ah ah a subject development like so for example between 40 and 60 minutes uh prior to training normally when you say to have your your caffeine supplement to get maximum effect on it. Now that's happening in the first half of the day grey but if like myself when I was younger I used to train quite late at night to finish work, drive to the gym and train I'd be taking some pre-workout that was probably pushing the limits of, say, caffeine intake, then trying to go to bed after it. So that, I think, net would probably have been a negative thing to have been doing for my recovery and muscle building and all that kind of stuff. Probably flipping to sleep versus the the benefit. And sure, there is a benefit to having caffeine before you work out, but I think it is worth considering that on that on that side of things. so but But my overall point there really is about
00:13:47
Dan
the individual, how how you're feeling with it. and And just to add on to a little bit of what I was saying earlier there about those, those safe limits. I mean, that that is for most classes, a healthy, a healthy adult, but there are certain populations where you wouldn't consider that limit as safe, particularly for pregnancy, breastfeeding. when for For those populations, it's more like 200 milligrams a day, which is about half that target. Now there is some research that maybe pushes that around 300 milligrams is still being saved.
00:14:14
Dan
Again, ah ah for my clients, I would always be erring towards more conservative figures when it's something as important as that. So that's an example of ah ah of where a lower intake may be better. And then also something I deal with quite a lot is clients with symptoms of menopause.
00:14:31
Dan
caffeine can exacerbate that. As can alcohol, these are two kind of lifestyle related factors that can exacerbate things like kind of hot blushes and that restlessness at night and the sleepless nights. These are both things that can affect it. So again, regardless of what may be the safe, horrible limits, would say I would say you're noticing, you're having these symptoms and there is a decent amount of caffeine, it might be an area to address.
Caffeine's Health Implications and Balance
00:14:55
Russ Harris
Yeah, I think I'd add to add add to that as well because that's interesting. I think it's interesting because it does help give people a bit of guidance on you know maybe time particular times to to back off if if they're noticing that intake is particularly high. I think also if you if you're quite if you're going through a phase of of life where you're feeling quite anxious a lot of the time and and there is a lot of stress in your life, you've got to consider the effect of that is that you're you know, your resting heart rate will be elevated anyway. one of the effects of taking caffeine is that further elevates your resting heart rate, which is part of its benefit cardiovascularly for when you start exercising. And but if your resting level of stress is is relatively high, and your heart rate is going to be up, and then you're having caffeine regularly to help
00:15:44
Russ Harris
with your energy and to help with your stress, you're actually, while it might feel in the short term, like you've had your caffeine fix and that allows you to go and do the work that you need to do or whatever keeps you keeps you awake and keeps you alert through meetings or whatever it is you're trying to trying to use the coffee for. Of course, in the long run, your body is keeping the score. So not only is it going to be, you know, having having a higher resting heart rate is bad for arterial health, is bad for blood capillary health, it's, you know, it has an impact on cholesterol and plaque buildup, which all are linked to cardiovascular issues later in life, for cardiovascular diseases. So
00:16:25
Russ Harris
you're You're raising your risk of that. And of course, it can this sort of stuff can go on for years without you really challenging it or thinking about it. But if you're on a bit of a kind of well-being drive or you're thinking about trying to improve your health, it's a good it's it's ah ah it's a good area to look at if you've been so used to taking it all the time. Because you may not even really consider that your amount of stress is particularly high. But you're if you're constantly at that level, you're the one that is at most at risk.
00:16:52
Russ Harris
you know If occasionally people go through periods of stress and they and they occasionally take in too much caffeine, you know the body's resilient to that. It will bounce back. But if you're regularly chronic, just using caffeine to prop yourself up, you know and there's a bit of alcohol intake in there as well, we can normalize it. You can totally normalize it, but the body is keeping the score.
00:17:13
Dan
Yeah, absolutely. And again, all I'm reminded of when you're when you're saying this is, this overall picture of health and performance and quality of life is, it's so rarely about the one thing. So in this instance, it's not really about the caffeine as such, it's about what is the caffeine going on top of. And if it's going on top of a poor quality lifestyle, or in, because your example there, it's about the risk of heart disease and these these kind of things.
00:17:42
Dan
When they put together these the guidelines of the 400 milligrams a day, the the idea behind that is that in healthy adults, this has not been deemed to elevate any risk of these kinds of things. But you know the term in healthy adults is such a sort of broad, a broad kind of thing that you'd see a lot in research because it's like, well, there isn't the bandwidth to study every sort of demographic of a person and give someone who's at risk of heart disease a load of caffeine and sort of see what happens. This is a hard thing to do in controlled environments and research. So this is where you have to use a little bit of your own intuition with it, which is thinking, if I already have a lot of risk factors in this in this arena of heart disease or issues with the kind of elevated heart rate and these kind of things, is it something that I want to be pushing to it to its limits in terms of the these kind of
00:18:32
Dan
targets. So yes, that's why the the main point would be if you have a lifestyle already which is conducive with health, so again, nutrient quality, sleep, relatively low stress and exercising, then I think what we what we've got here is that there shouldn't be too much concern about having caffeine within so safe limits.
Wellness Pillars and Caffeine
00:18:54
Dan
And if you don't currently have that set up, my advice would actually be to try and get that set up as soon as possible, which is a diet that hits the kind of general pillars of wellness, which would be sleep, nutrition and exercise. It's not that the caffeine is the thing, it just might be the kind of the the mask or in or maybe the straw that breaks the camel back in the example you're giving there specifically. So it might be useful to So maybe give some, cause I know I've made an example there with the kind of Monster Energy drink, but probably something that people are a bit more familiar with would be with coffees. even within coffees, it can vary lot depending on what it is. So I've got a few, few numbers here, but instant coffee is something that I drink. Not many other people I think actually like that, but that's actually quite low on the, on the caffeine scale. So that's 57 milligrams for a typical cup, cup of instant coffee. And again, we're working to the upper limit of 400 there. So that's relatively low on that.
00:19:48
Dan
Similarly with things like Coke and Diet Coke. Diet Coke is slightly more than Coke, but 46 milligrams versus Coke at 34, so they're both quite low. But they actually get up up the ladder a little bit. An espresso shop, just from a coffee shop, is going to be 77 milligrams. And then by the time you're having a kind of Starbucks medium roast, it's 155. So that's the one that's up there, similar to your kind of monster.
00:20:15
Dan
remit. And that I think is more for our listeners, is the sort of thing that you might imagine if someone's having two and a half of those a day, you're getting up to that, to that limit, that kind of area. Whereas if someone's having a single shot, they may well be able to have five, five or so of those and still be within it. So it is one of those things where depending on your habits, it might seem like that target is quite high, but if you're someone who's maybe hopping to Starbucks four times a day,
00:20:43
Dan
for for a reasonable size of coffee, you may already actually be slightly above that limit.
00:20:50
Russ Harris
It does help to put some context on it, doesn't it, in terms of what people are actually going out and buying? Because it does help, I think, in terms of, am I am i close to that level based on what I'm buying? Should I back off a little bit?
Moderation and Individual Differences
00:21:06
Russ Harris
Maybe also being able to spot, if there are particularly, whether it's a daily pattern or whether it's a weekly pattern, if you're actually leaning on it a bit,
00:21:16
Russ Harris
it's It's possibly, yeah, like we've said already, it's possibly one where you just want to look at. are you getting enough sleep? And is the is the quality of your diet good enough to be stabilizing your energy levels across the course of the ah course of the day that you then feel like you probably don't need that that coffee hit?
00:21:39
Russ Harris
switching over to kind of decaffeinated versions of those those drinks.
00:21:42
Dan
Mm.
00:21:43
Russ Harris
you know And just and so that you can still have the social aspect of I went for coffee and and whatever, but you don't. you don't maybe Because sometimes it's it's incurring the sort of caffeine high, even if that's not what you were going for. you know's so that You just go for coffee with someone and then you're like, I feel like jittery after the after the meeting. And I actually didn't need that at all. It wasn't wasn't in even a you know an energy enhancer that I was looking for. It was simply just a drink to have while we're having a meeting.
00:22:11
Russ Harris
So I think i think probably probably that would be the the sensible advice to people really. Because if you look at coffee, aside from caffeine, you know you've got natural ingredients there with lots of health benefits and lots of vitamins and minerals in that are good for your body.
00:22:29
Dan
yeah
00:22:29
Russ Harris
and So so you you look at it through that lens, it's it's like a it's a naturally occurring health drink.
00:22:35
Russ Harris
It's just that Of course, like a lot of things in the in the West, once we get into that kind of consumer type space with it, it gets hyper-marketed and it gets pushed out and we maybe overuse it.
00:22:47
Russ Harris
But but yeah, in its natural format, it's ah ah it's a very healthy thing to be to be having.
00:22:51
Dan
Yeah. And I think in terms of like practical takeaways, I think having one or two coffees in the first half of the day I think for the majority of people is something that could be beneficial or or at worst kind of neutral, it you know, in their overall picture. There might be some individual variation in that and how you feel having having had it, but I think where the real, you know, you know some of the factors you mentioned, Russell, those things are big frappuccinos.
00:23:23
Dan
that That actually is probably more of ah ah an impact in terms of like diet quality and and weight maintenance and things than than the caffeine element of it. So there are there are those angles on it as well for the for the full spectrum. But I think yeah i think one one one or two coffees in the first half of the day is it's not something people wish should be picking themselves on about doing. And actually, as you say, there's a lot of benefits that can come with that as well.
00:23:45
Dan
you know, nutrition is nuanced in a sense, you know, that we could have a whole lot of cost about kind of red meat and and and the different health scares about that in a minute. But be that as it may, and that is a nuanced area as well, there's also certainly a lot of health benefits to the micronutrients that are in red meat. So it is possible that a a substance can have things that are beneficial for health, but also some some aspects of it that may also be problematic for help in certain quantities as well. So it's not always the case that the food is just giving you something unquestionably this direction and nothing that could be actually in certain quantities is that going to be a problem. So unfortunately it doesn' doesn't always pan out quite as easy as that. I think coffee probably does still belong somewhere in the in that middle ground where it is somewhat of an individual's journey. I've got plenty of clients who have moved away from having caffeine and now they're on decaf all the time.
00:24:39
Dan
and they say they feel great for it. in In my mind, I think a lot of that will be to do with the fact that they've also sorted out the other parameters of their nutrition and their energy levels generally better. They probably are getting the benefit of maybe sleeping better if they were having quite a lot of caffeine before that. Because again, I think maybe, and perhaps broad brush strokes, but often I think someone who's made that decision may have been someone who was having quite a lot of coffees throughout the day. So then let's change that to have all decaps.
00:25:05
Dan
And then that's going to be a big difference if that was five copies that have now become five, five decaps over over time. So yeah, I think it's a real individual journey with it, but equally ah ah the the message of this podcast shouldn't be asked to tell people to, you know, if possible, not drink coffee. I don't think that's the message at all. I think it's just be be receptive to the, what's underlying your diet to begin with and how the natural energy levels actually are without the caffeine on top of it.
00:25:32
Dan
and then use it as appropriate in your lifestyle and and for performance as well.
00:25:39
Russ Harris
Yeah, it does feel like we get pushed into either vilifying foods, groups or types of exercise or anything really online. You have to pick a camp. You have to be one way or the other instead of being able to support that. Yeah, that dual notion that there's there's some good some good stuff in it and and some stuff you have to watch out for. Yeah, I fully support that. I don't know how that sort of thing goes down on social media. You get more eyeballs on if you go, no, caffeine is bad for you, and it's going to kill you. And it makes people panic. It makes people go, oh my god, it's going to give me cancer, and it's going to kill me, and it's going to do all this kind of scare mongering stuff just to get eyeballs on. The reality is very different.
00:26:19
Dan
Yeah.
00:26:19
Russ Harris
and you When you understand the physiological processes under like underlying sort of our body's reaction to a particular substance and you understand the nuance in that and the inaccuracy in some of the measurements and everything that goes into researching it and then research a bias on the way through, you know, is am I going to get a bit more of a, you know, eyeballs on my paper if I make it, you know, sound a little bit more exciting, you know, and and the reality sits somewhere in the middle, which is probably much better for practical advice, I think. that's I'm fully supporting that middle ground.
00:26:50
Dan
Yes, completely agree.
00:26:50
Russ Harris
I like it.
00:26:53
Russ Harris
All right. Good stuff. Thank you very much, Dan. It was very informative. Enjoyed it.
00:26:58
Dan
No problem mate.
00:26:59
Russ Harris
Until next time.
00:27:01
Dan
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