Since I’ve been 15.  Yup, while working at Arlee Cleaners, I was intimidated to switch from milk to drinking coffee.  Of course, that was in New York, where “regular coffee” came equipped with a pound of sugar and a quart of milk.  (OK, just two teaspoons of sugar and 25 ml of milk, in an 8 oz cup, but you get the idea.)

When I was in grad school, I began drinking more than a cup or two a day.  I had already switched to drinking my coffee straight up- mostly out of laziness. I had a percolator in my apartment and in my office.  Where I prepared endless pots of coffee (10 cups each). If I didn’t finish the pot at night I left it “warm” until morning.  Averaging 25 cups of coffee a day.

By the time I was 30, I was devouring between 40 and 60 cups of coffee a day.  (Just so you know, I also finished 6 to 8 liters of pop-Diet Coke as part of my daily routine.) A practice I continued for a few more years.  When I gave up coffee cold turkey for a woman, who detested its aroma on my breath.  Until I gave up that woman. Now, I drink coffee, but nowhere the volumes to which I had become accustomed.  (I no longer drink pop at all.).

First, you should recognize that Ritalin, the drug of choice for hyperactivity, is a derivative of caffeine.  So, perhaps I was self-medicating.  But, the other fact is that studies have shown that drinking 2 or 3 cups of coffee daily may help folks live longer (NCI study yielded a correlation they are 10% less likely to die when compared to those who don’t imbibe coffee), up to 25% reduction in risk of developing diabetes, as well as other correlations with reduced cancer risk (prostate cancer, oral cancer and breast cancer recurrence, among others).

More intriguing was experimental results that correlate coffee drinking with reduced dementia (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2012), which demonstrated that the caffeine precluded adenosine activity, which is exuded by cells under stress, thereby leading to inflammation, neural disruption and neurodegeneration.   Another study published that year (University of South Florida) which correlated low or zero caffeine levels in the blood with cognitive impairment; those who had the equivalent of three cups in their blood were not observed to develop Alzheimer’s within two or four years.

On the other hand, there are caffeine addicts- it is now considered to be a mental health disorder (that new American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, “DSM-5”), listing both caffeine intoxication and withdrawal. Don’t overreact, though, – this is considered to be a mental disorder only when it interferes with one’s normal daily routines.   Part of the issue is that some folks metabolize caffeine slowly (a half-life of 8 hours), with folks like me excreting or metabolizing it within 120 minutes.

Intoxication via caffeine is defined by restlessness, flushed face, nervousness, insomnia, muscle twitching, irregular heartbeat and rambling flow of thought and speech. There are 12 such characteristics; any combination of 5 or more merit the addiction diagnosis.  Typically, the subject needs to have more than 250 mg of caffeine (those who drink 2 or more cups of coffee), but more often one needs higher doses than that (heavy coffee drinkers manifest some 400 mg of caffeine within their blood).

Withdrawal symptoms typically result after 12 hours (typically a headache, but some manifest functional impairment)- but these symptoms peak about 1 day after ceasing to drink coffee- and are gone within a week of stopping.  Going cold turkey is better than tapering off, since there seems to be no reduction in withdrawal symptoms.

Well, not me! I’m off to my favorite spot- St. Elmo’s Coffee House.  Want to join me?  Or, have you already decided to go cold turkey?

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