Selects: The Duality of Caffeine
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We're going to take you back in time to January 14th, 2016, when we spoke at length about caffeine and the ups, literally, and the downs, literally. It's called the duality of caffeine. I hope you enjoy Over Your Cup of Coffee. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. ♪

Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Jerry's over there, totally throwing us off with some new Hocus Pocus. Yeah. 2016 head stuff. What? Yeah. Yeah. She's messing with it. So we, you guys don't know this because through the power of the magic of editing, we're

And publishing. And publishing. You think we've just never been gone from the office? Yeah. But we've been gone. I have no idea what episodes we released. I've been so out of it. Yeah, I took six weeks of paternity leave. Woo! And I did by proxy. And you did by proxy. Yeah. So we've been gone from the studio for a while, and just wanted to say it's glad to be back, buddy. Yeah, it is nice to be back, buddy. And, uh...

It's good to see you again. It's been a long time. What's happened in the meantime? I lost another tooth. Yeah. My stupid front. The tooth next to the one that came out broke off at a Falcons game. Oh, well, there you go. God was cursing you for being at the Falcons game. So I have another stupid flipper and another eight months of. Eight months early? Yeah, until I get the permanent implant. So again, I'll be out on tour with no tooth. You can't even see it. No.

Like you have to literally like pull your gums back or your lips back to your gums. Or if I laugh a lot, which I'm trying to just lead a more somber life. Well, I plan on making you laugh a lot on stage so people might see it then. What else? You got a dog. Yeah, we got a puppy named Momo. You want to talk about Momo? Momo is very sweet. She's a sweet little Shizu poodle mixture. How's that going? She's a little fluff ball. Very good. How's trained? Yes. Good. Right off the bat. We...

We crate trained her. And at first I was like, crates are mean. You shouldn't put a dog in a crate. And then I started to read up on it. They love it. And it's like, yes, it's like her den. It's her little room, like her bedroom. In fact, when we took away the crate from our youngest dog, Charlie, because we needed a breakfast nook,

she was kind of like, dude, you took my room away. Yeah, that was my room. Yeah. We plan to keep her crate around like as long as she wants it. Sure. But just she won't be penned in it against her will at certain times until she's housebroken, which I mean she's basically there. It's just we're like, what are you doing? You're about to pee, you know? Right, right. She doesn't actually have accidents in the house. We're just, you know, staying on top of it. That's great. What else happened?

We had holidays. Yes. Good Christmas and New Year's, I guess. Yeah. Yumi's birthday. Oh, yeah, of course. She had her birthday. Sure. And it was just a nice time off. Like, I had this big to-do list. Yeah. And none of it got done because it was raising a puppy replaced that. Yeah. How was your kid? Ruby's great, man. And I did the same thing. I had a big to-do list and found myself just kind of being like, oh, I could do this or I could just, like, play with my kid. Right. Or watch Making a Murderer.

Yeah, I did watch all that. Did you? Same here. Yeah. In like a day. We'll talk about that. Okay. We probably shouldn't talk about it. People want us to do a podcast on that. I know. Like a follow-up.

Maybe. It's not as bad as the request to do a podcast on the case that Serial covered. I'm like, I think Serial got that one covered. No, of course not. I could maybe do a follow-up on Making Overmortar. I think we should revisit Exonerations and the Innocence Project again because when we did that one, we had no idea what was going on. And now it's really like...

It's really coming through. True. So, yes, let's do that. Oh, I've been playing a lot of... I got a PS4. Oh, yeah? I've been playing Fallout 4. With the dog? And their dog companion? Well, you can have a dog companion, so of course I chose it. Okay. But it's really awful because the dog gets hurt a lot. Yeah.

And like struggles around whimpering and bleeding. Do you have to put it out of its misery ever? Well, no, you can heal the dog. But I went to message boards and everyone's like, don't heal your dog. Like, just trust me, it'll heal itself. Don't waste your medicine. Oh, okay. Yeah. I'm sure you waste your medicine every time, don't you? Well, yeah, it's tough to hear the fake dog whimper. Yeah. And it's like, I'll be okay. Yeah. Don't mind me. Dog meat. That's his name. Yeah.

So that was a big time off that we just covered. It was. And that's all that happened. Jerry, how about you? That was great, Jerry. I'm glad you had a nice time as well.

Jerry also had a nice break with her little baby Inez. She told us this through a series of blinks that we've worked out over the years. Nice job. All right. So sorry about the long intro, but I felt like we needed to catch everyone up even though you didn't know that you needed it. Right.

And maybe it has something to do with caffeine. Because we did such a good job when we recorded those ones that were released over the break of predicting things we would be talking about at the time. True, yeah. Who could tell? Exactly. So I'm a little caffeinated right now, believe it or not. What a shock. I don't drink nearly as much coffee as I used to. Yeah. It's because I really realized, like,

It really does have a detrimental effect on my mood. Oh, really? Say in the car. Car is a really good example of me and caffeine. You're a little ramped up in the car anyway, so that probably didn't help. Right. Well, I'm working on that. But part of working on that is just not drinking as much coffee. Yeah. I think a good title for this could be mixed messages because in studying caffeine, and we did one on coffee. We dabbled in this a little bit.

but all the research is, you know, caffeine can be really good for you and help a lot of things, and caffeine can be kind of bad for you, and it's kind of both, or can be both. It sure seems like that, unless we have like a completely misunderstood model of addiction and the parasympathetic or sympathetic nervous system. Unless we don't know those things, then yeah, coffee is both for sure. The weird thing is, like everybody realizes that coffee

I'm sorry, caffeine. I think I'm probably going to do that a lot this episode. Yeah. Because they are virtually interchangeable. Sure. But it's not really. No. But caffeine, it has a lot of really bad effects on you. And a lot of people know that just from having experienced it. You're right. It's the beneficial effects that are so surprising. Yeah. But they do seem to, like you say. Agreed. So, Chuck, I drink... Today I've had...

Five cups of coffee and a Diet Mountain Dew. And it is 1.40 in the afternoon. Right. What time did you get up?

Seven. Seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty,

Yeah. Oh, okay. And I'm actually, I'm above average for the United States, and I could have guessed that. Yeah. But the average for the United States is actually on the worst end of the spectrum as far as, like, caffeine consumption goes. Yeah. The latest information I got is that the U.S. was 16th in the world in per capita consumption. Yeah, not even 10th or 9th.

Or anywhere above 10th. No. 16th. Yeah. If you want to know who leads the world right now, I think it's the Netherlands is what I found. I found Finland. Oh, really? Uh-huh. From 2013? Yeah.

That was the most recent I saw. Well, the most recent I saw said the Netherlands at 2.4 with Finland at 1.8. Really? That is not what I saw. Really? Yeah. Where were the Netherlands on your list? I don't remember. I just saw that Finland was number one at like 2.4. Oh, wow. And like 9.6 kilograms of coffee beans per person per year consumed. Well, I bet the top 10 is kind of interchangeable and fairly static though. Sure. As in...

the same-ish countries in different orders. Yeah, because, I mean, coffee consumption patterns, I guess they could change fairly rapidly, but they don't change in the blink of an eye. Well, think about how much Starbucks changed coffee consumption in this country. Did it ramp it up? Oh, yeah. Like, think about how many people now swing by Starbucks at, like, 3 p.m., whereas before they may not even have drank coffee. Yeah. Don't you mean Charbucks? Yeah. Yeah. I actually have no idea.

Skin in the game. I like Starbucks. Yeah, I don't really. Well, you know me. I don't drink caffeine that much. No, I know. You're very mellow. Yeah, I don't know. I'm starting to think I should drink more coffee, though. Why? Because of the health benefits. Oh, yeah. You know?

We'll see. We'll get into all that. But in the top 10, you have Netherlands, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Germany. Scandinavia loves their coffee, apparently. Yeah, it's very cold there. Slovakia, Serbia, Czech Republic, Poland, Norway. Yeah. Then eventually the U.S. Cold countries. Not bad. Although Brazil loves its coffee as well, I think. They're like number 10 or 11 or something like that. Good coffee. I didn't see. They weren't even in my top 16. We had different lists. Yeah.

Made by two different caffeinated weirdos. So the U.S., the FDA and the AMA right now, I think they raised it to 400 milligrams a day from 300. Just in the face of changing coffee consumption. Yeah, I think it's now up to 400 milligrams a day, as they said should be like the upper limit of what you should drink and what is cool to drink for your health. Yeah.

Right. Not by being cool. You could drink 100 cups a day and you'd be super cool. Right. That's why I drink coffee so much. Yeah, exactly. I want to be cool. So what is that? 400 milligrams a day. That's about two 8-ounce cups of coffee. 400 is? Yes. Like high... High octane? Right, coffee. But yeah, it's no more than maybe three. Well, and that's caffeine though. That's...

Not coffee. Right. So you might also be drinking sodas or eating chocolate. Sure. Or eating on a cocoa nib. That's packed with caffeine. Yeah. Yeah, it does show up in all sorts of surprising places, including, I looked this up, decaf coffee as well, we should say. Yeah. Yeah.

Still got some caffeine in there, right? Yeah. So like a cup of coffee, eight ounces of coffee can have anywhere from like 75 to 200-ish milligrams of caffeine in it. Okay. Decaf coffee still might have like 20 milligrams. Wow. And I mean, it doesn't sound like much, but if you're pounding decaf coffee because you love coffee, but you're trying to cut back on caffeine, stuff can add up. Interesting. Yeah. I knew there was some caffeine, but maybe that's not, is that negligible?

20 itself, just if you drank one decaffeinated cup of coffee a day.

Yes. Okay. I think on the overall effects of your health, it would be negligible. But both ways, because again, the coffee giveth and the coffee taketh away. Yeah, sure does. It's a double-edged drug. Yeah, and it is a drug, and it's also in tea, which we'll get to as well. But yeah, it's a drug. It naturally occurs, like many drugs. But it is a stimulant called trimethylxanthine. Nice job. Chemical formula CH3.

C8H10N402. Not zero two. I think there's a 10 in there. What did I say? One zero? Yeah. Which I mean, you know, if you're on a CB or something, they get the point.

Oh, man. I used to love CB. This podcasting is as close to CB chatter as you can come. Quick segue here. I used to love talking on the CB because my dad had one in his Jeep. Oh, yeah? And remember when CB culture was huge in the 70s? Sure. My buddy John Pindell now is a trucker. You met John. Where? At our New York shows, tall Johnny Pindell. He's a trucker now. Okay. And I got to hang out and get in his truck.

And he does not use a CB. And he said that he might get one, but it's not like the standard thing anymore. What is now? Texting? No, just cell phones.

I mean, he said if you really want to be a part of that big trucker culture, you can do the CB still. Well, you can just be a lone wolf. He's a lone wolf. Gotcha. Right now, he is. He needs one of those jackets like Lenny and Squiggy used to wear. Yeah, it was fascinating, though. We need to do an episode on trucking because when I saw him, all I did was ask questions, basically. Yeah. It's fascinating. Does he have his own rig? No, he doesn't own it. That means truck. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Anyway, well, hey to Johnny. And he listens to the podcast now. Hey, Johnny. Yeah, you don't need a CB if you listen to stuff you should know. No, we are your CB. We'll keep you company. All right, so anyway, caffeine. He does drink a lot of caffeine. I think that's where I was going with that. Yeah, but that really had nothing to do with it. I brought up CBs because he said H10.

Why don't we take a break and get our C legs back, our P legs. We're a little rusty. And P is in podcast, not urine. I thought you meant urine. Oh, man. Oh, hey, I'll tell you something about this break. I learned that there's something called mixturition syncope.

And mixturition is, a lot of people think it means to pee. No. Urination is to pee. Mixturition is the urge to pee. Syncope is a fainting spell. So there's a condition out there called mixturition syncope where people faint after they pee. Wow. There's also one called defecation syncope where people faint after they poop.

They have no idea why. I think Elvis had the most severe case of that. All right. Well, don't let that happen to you during this break, and we will be back right after this. We'll be right back.

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Have we got it together? That was like half a second. Are we good? Yeah, I guess so. All right. We're going to give it another stab here. So, caffeine, I think that's what we were talking about. It's a drug, and in its pure form, Chuck, it is a bitter-tasting crystalline powder. That's right. It's actually very closely related, at least in its effects, to opioid antagonists like heroin, cocaine, caffeine. Yeah.

And I will talk a little more about the effects on the brain, but it does have these effects, and it uses the same mechanism as these drugs, and therefore it can cause addictions just like these drugs as well. Yeah, and like I said, it occurs naturally. It's in the coffee bean and in chocolate and tea, but it's also added artificially in things like soda.

And I looked up the sodas to get the most recent amount, and Pepsi One right now I think has the most caffeine. Man, do you remember Jolt and Vault? I used to drink a ton of Vault. I'm sure you did. Well, I would drink one right before the podcast, remember? Yeah. And I'd just be like talking 1,000 miles an hour. Yeah.

The good old days. I've settled down quite a bit. You have. I'm happier for it. Pepsi one at 57 milligrams. Tab is number two at 48. Diet Coke 46. You will work your way down to regular old Coca-Cola at 33 milligrams per 12 ounce can.

And the FDA regulates how much caffeine you can put in a soda. A soda. A soda. That's the key. That's right. If you're an energy drink like Red Bull or any of those other gross tasting things, I don't like them personally. But people love them. I just don't like the taste. But that's the workaround for the FDA because they're not considered sodas. They can put lots of caffeine and sugar to the tune of about 80 milligrams per

per um 8.3 ounces which you're like okay it's a red bull that's a lot of caffeine it does seem like a lot but some people love to take it even further and there's like those five hour energy shots oh yeah i have had those before those are two i have not tried it before i don't know why i think i was doing construction work and i was really tired and i was at the big box store and it was right there at checkout i was like let me try this thing yeah and it it ramped me up i felt like a

So in that little two-ounce shot, there's 200 milligrams of caffeine. No wonder. Like a high-end amount in a coffee in that little two-ounce shot. Okay. And I think those are the...

Like, coffee has the most of any beverage. I think espresso ounce for ounce has the most. Well, I mean from the coffee bean at least or espresso bean. Oh, yeah. Not like an artificial drink is what I meant. Yeah. We got an espresso maker and it has some pronounced effects.

It's crazy how different it is from coffee. Yeah, I like an espresso every now and then. Sure. And I like my coffee every now and then. Yeah. But just every now and then. If you want the health benefits, though, and you're like, I don't drink that much coffee, you should just be injecting pure caffeine, Chuck. Can you do that? They do it to mice. Yeah, that's a good point. As we'll see later on.

True. I should probably, again, it's been several weeks since we've done this. I need to probably throw out a disclaimer there. That was a joke. Right. Don't inject caffeine into your bloodstream. If you can even get your hands on pure caffeine, do not inject it. You probably shouldn't inject anything, let alone the pure form of anything. Because even too much water can kill you. Always remember that, everybody.

Even too much water can kill you. And I did look into caffeine overdoses because I was curious, and it doesn't happen much because you'd have to drink so much of something that it makes it unlikely. But there have been overdoses blamed on caffeine pills. Like, okay, what's the milligram amount? What's the dosage amount that it got? Oh, I can't remember. This one kid died in Connecticut, like a 19-year-old that—

I think he had like a dozen or two dozen caffeine pills. Wow. And I think the deal with caffeine pills, it's concentrated and it hits you all at once. Yeah. So taking a lot of it is just like overdosing on any kind of stimulant, I think. Yeah. It's a stimulant. Yeah. It does some weird stuff to you.

Including killing you. And like you said, Chuggers, we already talked about coffee in the coffee episode, right? Yes. But some of it bears repeating. Like the lighter the roast, the higher the caffeine content typically because the roasting process actually bakes out a lot of the caffeine. I thought you were going to make up a clever rhyme. Like the lighter the roast, the darker the toast or something.

No, that doesn't make any sense. I know. The rhymes got to at least make sense or else it's just rhyming words. How about the lighter the roast, more caffeine than most? How about that? That's great. That actually makes sense. And so if you want to extract the most caffeine out of your diet, I actually came across a website called Bulletproof Exec.

You know that bulletproof coffee thing where you put like butter in your coffee? No. It's like a diet thing. I think it aids in pooping and... Butter in your coffee? Yeah, butter in your coffee. Sounds delicious. It's called bulletproof. It's actually not bad. Yeah. If you like that though, take it one step further and use coconut oil. Oh, okay. That's even better because it's got a little... It's like an Almond Joy creamer. Ooh, wow. But like an oily version of it. Yeah. Anyway, this bulletproof exec...

They had a post about maximizing your caffeine intake so you can suck it to your underlings throughout the day or whatever. Yeah, right. Most efficiently, right? And one of the things that they said is that grapefruit, you should eat more grapefruit because grapefruit contains something called narigan. Right.

Or Nerogen. And it actually slows the removal of caffeine from your brain. Okay. So you enjoy its effects longer. Nice. Yeah. So a morning breakfast in the 1950s of coffee and half a grapefruit. Yeah. That's all you needed. Yeah. And then your noon cocaine bump.

Right. Just to keep you going. Just from drinking Coca-Cola. Yeah, exactly. And if you also, if you want to maximize your caffeine intake from coffee, you should look at the beans you're drinking. So Arabica, which is I think the most prevalent coffee, it's 1.5% caffeine. But Robusta, 2.4%. That is Robusta. As far as I know, that's the highest caffeine content naturally of any coffee bean. So a light roast coffee.

Robusta, is going to basically... With your grapefruit? Yeah. It'll be like getting kicked in the chest by a mule. Wow. And doesn't that sound appealing? That's what every bulletproof exec wants. Wow. Shows you how to be a more efficient robber baron.

So let's get down to this, man. How does caffeine actually affect your brain? Because it does affect your brain. The whole point behind taking coffee and stuff like that is, as the guy who wrote this article, oh, the three guys who wrote this article, including you. Yeah, I did a little update on this. I forgot. Using caffeine, it's a form of self-medication. Of course.

That's why most people drink it, I think, to get that boost in the morning. Sure. Or in the middle of the afternoon. Yeah, and I'm sure people love the taste and stuff. It's not like they're holding their nose and forcing this drink down their throat. Well, that's what like five-hour energy is for. Those don't taste very good. Do they not? I've never tasted one. I've always wondered, but I've never wanted to experience this effect so badly that I tasted it. I mean, you know, it's like just that synthetic fruit taste. Does it taste like medicinal at all?

Yeah, it's just not good. Huh. In my opinion. Well, it's just two ounces. You get it over with real quick, right? Yeah, you just sock it down and you're done. And then punch a wall. So how does it work on the brain? It tricks your brain, actually, by mimicking something called adenosine. And it's kind of remarkable, actually.

Because what it does is it mimics adenosine and then does the opposite of what adenosine does, which is to try and help you sleep. It's pretty cool. Yeah. So you have a sleep-wake cycle, right? Yeah. Part of the sleep cycle is adenosine latching on to the adenosine receptors on your neurons. Makes you sleepy. Yeah, it does make you sleepy because it slows the –

of your neurons down. It's a big buzzkill, basically. It's a drag, adenosine is. Well, it's great. It is. Yeah, it is. It helps make you sleepy. And what caffeine does is it gets in there into the same receptor. It binds to the same receptor as adenosine. It's because your brain thinks it's adenosine. Yeah, it puts on its adenosine costume, basically. Pretty much. Which consists of like a sparkly one-piece jumpsuit. It's a onesie. And it...

It not only doesn't slow your neurons down, it apparently speeds them up. Yes. So your brain starts going haywire. That's part one of what caffeine does to your brain. It not only doesn't slow your brain down, it prevents the thing that does slow your brain down from slowing your brain down, and it actually speeds your brain up. Yeah. Sends it haywire. And not only that, but adenosine...

Usually, well, not usually, adenosine always causes your blood vessels to dilate and caffeine causes them to constrict, which sounds bad. But one of the pluses, and we'll get into the benefits, but one of them is constricting. It can maybe help you avoid headaches and migraines. And that's why caffeine is in things like anisin or myocarditis.

Old, reliable BC or goodies headache powders that I use contain caffeine. Yeah. That's my secret hangover helper. BC powder. BC or goodies. It just acts fast. Bloody Mary's. They work really well, too. Both together. A little? Yeah, I got you. No. Yeah, so caffeine is a vasoconstrictor, right? That's right. It constricts your blood vessels. And like you said, that can actually help your...

headaches because a lot of headaches, vascular headaches, I guess is what they're called, are when your blood vessels are too big and the change in pressure in your brain gives you this horrible headache.

Right. So while this is happening, your body thinks these neurons are firing. Your pituitary gland says, you must be in trouble because you're supposed to be going to sleep, buddy. Yeah. There's clearly a bear coming at you that I don't know about. Something's wrong. So let's send you some adrenaline. We've talked ad nauseum about fight or flight, and your body thinks that's what's going on when you drink coffee or caffeine. Right. So it says, here, you need this adrenaline because, like you said, you've got a bear coming your way. Right.

and all the hallmarks of fight or flight kick in. Which, man, this used to be like our... Go-to. Yeah. And now it's just such an accepted part of everything. That's right. Do we even need to say the things anymore? Yeah, go ahead. Okay, so your pupils dilate. Yeah. Your breathing becomes more rapid. You get more breaths. If you're eating something, you stop digesting it because your stomach doesn't matter at that point. That's right. Superfluous.

Your blood pressure rises. Your liver releases sugar in the bloodstream so you can get some extra energy. You're ready to go, basically. It's like time for some action. Yeah, and that's why you drink that cup of coffee. You might feel tense like you in the car. Yes. Or agitated. Right. It's because your body thinks you're about to be in a big fight.

With the car next to you. Yeah. Which ends up, it's this weird reverse cycle that ends up causing that fight. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? You'll also find if you drink a lot of coffee, like me, a big knot develops in between your shoulder blades just below your neck. Nice. It's just yet another result of your muscles tightening and you being ready for action thanks to the fight or flight syndrome. Yeah.

So your brain has been kept from getting drowsy. Yeah. It's been sent into basically like a Lucy-esque assembly line of chocolates. Yeah. The fight or flight syndrome has kicked in. That describes like a significant amount of the effects of coffee, but there's a big one that's missing still that we haven't touched on, and that is its pleasurable effects. It makes you feel good. Yeah, because it's a stimulant and it's a drug.

And just like all the other illicit illegal drugs, this one is just accepted. But it has the same effect. It's going to release dopamine. And that's the pleasure center activation center. Right. And it makes you want more of it. And so that dopamine is flowing and your body is like, man, this is great. Yeah. So it doesn't actually – it's like heroin and cocaine. It doesn't actually –

make you overproduce dopamine, but it keeps dopamine from being absorbed as quickly. So you get its effects longer and more than you would if you weren't under the influence of the drug. Just like heroin, just like cocaine, caffeine, again, it uses the exact same mechanism. It's just to a weaker degree, which is why, like, again, people aren't shooting caffeine. Right. Which is a bad idea. Yeah.

This, we should point out, varies from person to person, the effects of caffeine on the body because it metabolizes differently in everyone. So some people might be like, I don't get jittery at all, or I can go right to sleep after coffee. Yeah. Other people. I'd like to see those people on an espresso shot of Robusta. Yeah. Yeah, I'll bet they wouldn't be singing the same song. Other folks, I used to wait tables, and I would have people come in at like lunch and say like, no, no, no, I can't.

Like their friend would get a cup of coffee after. He'd be like, no, no, no, I'll be up all night. I'd be like, are you serious? What? Did you say that too? No, I would just always... It was wrong with you. Yeah, I always think it was a little...

But like I said, it may keep them up all night. Yeah. It's their own jam. Those people know their bodies. So don't, just go with the decaf in that case. So we, there are plenty of negative effects like keeping you up all night as well as positive effects with caffeine. And we're going to talk about those right after this. ♪

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Come on in, grab a cold one, get fitted by a pro, and shop the latest dials. Visit Decovas.com. That's T-E-C-O-V-A-S dot com. And don't go gently, y'all. Alright, so you've got the 1-2-3 punch. Your body is enjoying the caffeine. It's blocking that adenosine. You're going to feel alert and awake. It's got that adrenaline going. And it's rewarding you with the dopamine.

So it's going to make you want to drink coffee. But I mentioned the vicious cycle. It is a bit because after coffee comes the inevitable crash, like any stimulant drug, and you want more of it to get back up again. So you're going to have that fatigue and maybe even slightly depressed feeling.

And then you have a little bit more of that caffeine and it's going to get you going again. And that's sort of the cycle that you find yourself in, which will eventually, even though you might not think it is, it's going to affect your sleep patterns. Yeah. That cycle kind of continues on into the next day, right? Yeah. So,

Coffee has a half-life of six hours. Caffeine. Caffeine, yes. I told you. I predicted this, Chuck. That's all right. Caffeine has a half-life of six hours where if you drink a cup of coffee that has 200 milligrams of caffeine at noon, at 6 p.m., you will still have 100 milligrams of caffeine in your system. That's right. So it's like at 6, you drank a Red Bull and a quarter.

Right then, right? Not exactly what you want. And then at midnight, you would have 50 milligrams left, which is like more than a Coke. That's like a Mountain Dew's worth of caffeine in you. Again, not really what you want. So as the authors of this article, including you, point out, you may fall asleep.

But that caffeine stimulation is probably going to keep you from getting deep sleep. Yeah. And deep sleep is what you really genuinely need. Yeah. And I think after researching this, reading that sentence, I went...

Because I think like I'm basically like that. That is how I live my life is I don't sleep deeply. Even though I sleep deeply, I don't think I get actual deep sleep. You know what I mean? Right. So then you wake up craving the caffeine again. Exactly. And that's where that cycle goes on and on where it's really tough to quit it. Yeah. Yeah. Very interesting. If you are pregnant, there are some studies that suggest –

And we should say there have been a lot of caffeine studies. Yeah, this article says like 19,000 since the 60s. I'm sure there's... 70s? It's 20,000 by now. Easily. And they are somewhat conflicting. So we always are going to say like this study suggests because there aren't hard and fast rules. Right. But if you're pregnant, some studies suggest that 300 milligrams or more per day could lead to low birth weight in your little baby. Kids...

I read one article, like five experts talk about caffeine in children, and they all said that's not great for kids. No. Kids drink coffee these days. Do they? Yes, but in the form of like those like coffee drinks that are super sweet and creamy and everything. Oh, man. But they drink, like walk around a mall. You'll see like eight-year-olds with like a coffee drink just walking around like it's nothing. I went to the mall the other day for the first time in probably five years. Yeah, how was it? It was awful. Was it?

And I hated every minute of it. And I'm not going back. The mall's another place that... It's another thing that puts that, like, knot in my back. Just too many people in one place. Yeah. It's no good. And with the baby stroller, it's just like... I wanted to put a...

in my ear. Which mall? I went to Perimeter. Okay. I mean, we got new pillows, so I was like, I had to go to the mall to get pillows. Yeah. Because you've got to put your head on it, even through the plastic case. Oh, yeah. No, I know. I've been pillow shopping a lot of times. You know what I mean? New pillows are great, though. Oh, yeah. If you get a good one. Yeah. I've been on a bad run lately with pillows where I've gotten at least two pillows

I've got one. Wasn't very happy with it. Got a second one to replace it. It's better, but still not quite happy with it. Do you just use one pillow? Uh-huh. Really? One soft pillow. Wow. Yeah. Anything else, I'm like, oh, my neck. I've got to have one under my head.

I got to have one behind my head between my head and the headboard. And then one tied to your face? No, and then a clutch, you know, to hold on to. Okay. Like to wrap up with. Wow. It's the best. Yeah? Yeah. That's three pillows. Yeah. You sleep with three pillows? Emily, yeah, six total. Jerry, tell us in blinks how many pillows you sleep with.

Three? Three as well. I think you're under-pillowed. I guess so. I sleep with one-third the pillows you do. Here's a pillow tip, though. If you're buying, just wait for a Macy's one-day sale. Oh, yeah. Because pillows are expensive, good ones. Yes, they are. And 50% off. But worth it. Yeah, very much. Get your hands on a good pillow. Yeah, and Macy's does it twice a year, I think. Maybe Memorial Day and Labor Day are their pillow sale days. Oh, they had one going on after New Year's.

I am wrong. There you have it. All right, so we were talking about sleep and the shopping mall where kids were drinking coffee. It all comes together. It does. But all five of the experts said your kids shouldn't really be having too much or any caffeine. Right. And they didn't say like,

Because of like the health effects, like on the, basically it was just like, just like sugar. You don't want your kids, you know, heart rate increased a lot and their blood pressure increased. And it's just not going to do yourself any favors as a parent to have a caffeinated child. But I genuinely believe that you can go through experiences like that as a younger kid and

It will make you a keyed-up adult, a higher-strung adult. Oh, you think? I do. I have come to believe that. That experiences in childhood very prominently shape who you are as an adult. Very much so, I've come to believe that. Yeah, I guess if you're 13 and drink a lot of coffee and you get anxious, you'd probably be an anxious adult. I believe that. Probably keep drinking coffee. Probably to stave off the anxiety. When did you start drinking coffee? Or did you always drink a lot of soda, too?

No, I guess it was as more of a grown-up for both. Oh, really? Yeah, I drank a lot of Kool-Aid as a kid and the straight-up tons of sugar in the Kool-Aid. And I drank some, we called it pop, like Faygo and Pepsi and stuff up in Toledo. Sure.

But I mean, I think it was like as an older person, 20s, 30s, that I started drinking like coffee and Ernest and Cokes. That's how it should be, I think. Sure. I definitely didn't drink coffee as a kid. No. That was gross. Yeah.

I did too. The taste of it was just really foul, I thought, but I really learned to love the taste of coffee. Yeah. And I enjoy a nice hot cup of coffee on a camping trip or a cold day. Sure. I just never took up the regular habit. And not for any reason other than I just, I don't know, just never grabbed me that way. Never took it up? Yeah. It wasn't like a stand though, you know? Right. Like I'm not going to start drinking caffeine. Yeah. You know? And everybody who drinks coffee can rot. No. No.

Because my brother-in-law and my mother-in-law drink more coffee than any humans alive. More than me? They're both wonderful. Yeah, they're like, let's brew a pot of coffee, not a cup of coffee. Yeah? And let's just drink it until it's gone, then brew another pot. Uh-huh. You know? Yeah, I know. But they get a lot done. They're very accomplished people. They sleep several inches above the bed. One of them's a general in the Marine Corps. That shows you where he is. Yeah. Actually, that's my mother-in-law. Yeah.

All right, how about some health benefits? Right. There are a lot, believe it or not. They've done a lot of studies, and they found everything from helping out to not develop Parkinson's disease to dropping your risk of various cancers, cirrhosis. How about this? Two cups a day supposedly will cause an 80% drop in the odds of developing cirrhosis. That's amazing. Yeah.

I drink a little bit, so maybe I should drink coffee. I wonder if that has to do with stimulating the fight or flight syndrome where your liver releases more sugar.

to give you more energy or something like that. Maybe. But what's weird then is so that would be more sugar in the bloodstream, right? Yeah. Too much sugar in the bloodstream can lead to diabetes, right? Right. Well, coffee actually is shown to reduce your risk of diabetes. Yeah. There was this Harvard study that involved 126,000 people over 18 years. They followed their coffee intake. That is a good study. It's a great study unless they fudged the results.

But saying they didn't, what they found was that people who drink one to three cups of coffee a day are 9% less likely to contract diabetes. Right? Yeah. You think it ends there? No. It does not. So people who drank six or more cups of coffee per day

If you were a man, your chances of contracting diabetes were reduced by 54%. That's substantial. And for women who drank six or more cups a day, their chances of contracting diabetes were 30% of developing diabetes, 30% reduction. I got another one. Four cups a day, 50% less chance of mouth and throat cancer.

And I don't know if it was this Harvard study or another one said it could reduce suicide risk in adults even. Huh. Kind of makes sense, I guess, in one way. Which way? I don't know. I was thinking...

I don't know. I take that back. Well, maybe you run from self-harm even. Maybe. Like you flee or fight. Or maybe it could battle your depressive systems by picking you up or something. I don't know. Yeah. That's a much better explanation than mine. Mine was stupid. There's evidence that it prevents cavities actually. Oh, really? Yeah, which is kind of surprising because...

So that is if you're doing a study on coffee, that's if you don't put anything in your coffee. Put cream and sugar in, yeah, you're going to get your cavities on, right? You kind of do both, right, just depending on your mood? I typically go toward black. Right, but every now and then you'll throw a little vanilla creamer in there. Every once in a while, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, if I want a treat. Oh, yeah? A special treat? Right. But caffeine can hurt your teeth in that it causes teeth clenching, too. Well, which is one reason I'm losing teeth is I grind my teeth at night. Yeah. So maybe I shouldn't drink more coffee. It could be, yeah. But like you said, it giveth and it taketh away. Do I want teeth or do I want my liver to hang in there? And no diabetes. Right. Yeah.

Good point. Alzheimer's, the Bird Alzheimer's Institute in Tampa did some experimenting on lab mice, injecting them with caffeine, like you said earlier. And not only did it protect them against developing Alzheimer's, but it helped reduce symptoms if they already had it. They haven't tried it on humans yet, but...

As it goes with mice, many times it goes with humans. - Yeah, hopefully. - Yeah. - We could all be injecting caffeine at some point. That to me is also counterintuitive too because Alzheimer's disease is potentially a buildup of plaques in your brain that's the result of not getting enough deep sleep.

Because when you sleep, your glial channels expand and your brain is bathed in cerebrospinal fluid. That makes sense. It cleans out those plaques, right? But it only happens when you're sleeping very deeply. Interesting. But if you're not getting very deep sleep with coffee or caffeine, then I would think there'd be a higher risk of Alzheimer's. It's befuddling. It is. And I've also found conflicting studies on memory.

uh, Johns Hopkins says that it's a memory enhancer, but I've seen other, uh, studies that say it's the memory dehancer. Yeah. So again, it's like, it's tough to kind of get down to the brass tacks, you know, when you have conflicting studies. Um, if you exercise, coffee is your best friend. Caffeine is. Yeah. I've heard of like Olympic athletes that

We'll shoot espresso right before a race. Not only does it give you a jolt of energy and everything, but apparently it has ergogenic properties, which means that it delays fatigue, right? Yeah. And it helps your muscles use glycogen, their energy stores, more efficiently too. So it can help you run better. Interesting. Yeah. As far as cognitive abilities, the one study I found from Johns Hopkins Medical School said

said that while you think it is increasing your cognitive abilities, what it's really doing is just taking you back to normal for a short period. That is chilling. Yeah, and then when it wears off, you're actually below. Man. Yeah. I don't know. I hate to think that. I don't want to quit coffee, though. That sucks. No, you've...

Quit smoking. Yeah. You lost weight. Yeah. Keep your coffee. That's another thing, though, I did during this break is put some of that back on. Well, drink coffee and go exercise. All right. If you want to know more about caffeine, you can type that word into the search bar at HowStuffWorks. And don't forget, in this case, the E goes before the I. Since I said search bar, it's time for listener mail. Hello.

This is from Maddie in Virginia. Hey guys, I'm a 22-year-old college student in Virginia. I want to start out by saying thank you for the wonderful podcast. Oh, I like this email. This is a good one. You've seen this one?

Man.

a very curious person and love learning and acquiring knowledge. This is where you guys come in. Though I had trouble going to class, I still had that thirst to learn. So whenever I was in a bad place mentally, I would throw in my earbuds, play Stuff You Should Know podcast and zone out.

During these bad days, the times when I would listen to you guys were some of the only instances where I would smile or laugh. I really want to thank you for putting in all the hard work and making a great show. I know that you guys help people not only gain valuable knowledge, but you also improve lives and put smiles on many faces. I don't think you'll read this on the air. Psych!

And I don't even know if you all will even receive this email. Yeah. Double psych. But if you do, and it's right on the podcast, I just want everyone listening to know, if you're going through a tough time and are struggling, things will get better. There are always people who care about you and who will help you. Nice. That warms our cockles. Yep. My friend. And hang in there.

What a wonderful message. Those sound like trite things to say, you know, like... Yeah, unless you're going through some... Time heals wounds and it's darkest before the dawn, but they're trite and true for a reason. Because they are... What? Trite and true? I think you just... Tried and true. Yeah, but I think you just improved the phrase. Did I? Yeah. But they're not trite. They're true things. Hang in there, people. Yeah.

That's my message. If you want to get in touch with us, you can send us an email to stuffpodcasts at howstuffworks.com. And as always, join us at our home on the web, the luxurious stuffyoushouldknow.com. Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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