Caffeine awareness

Consciously Enjoying Coffee

Drinking coffee combines socializing and moments of enjoyment. Many love coffee for its great smell and taste. However, there are people who don’t tolerate coffee and are sensitive to caffeine. Often, this means sacrificing the coffee experience or limiting personal coffee cravings. A solution can be switching to decaffeinated coffee at the right time. By consciously considering your lifestyle and personal caffeine consumption, you live more mindfully and healthily.

Who is sensitive to caffeine?

With the help of epigenetics, a branch of biology, we can now better understand how diet and environmental factors affect our bodies. While the blueprint of our genetic makeup has been decoded, the reasons behind why some genes are active and others are not are still not fully understood. What is clear is that genes not only control but are also controlled. We can influence gene activation through our eating behavior and lifestyle, as researchers have shown.

Various genes affect our caffeine metabolism. Scientists are working to understand why some people are sensitive to caffeine after just one cup of coffee, while others can drink multiple cups without any physical reaction. Genes that influence caffeine metabolism categorize people into fast and slow caffeine metabolizers. This means that people metabolize caffeine at different speeds, making the caffeine effect highly individual. If you understand your genetic makeup, you can better understand your body's reaction to caffeine. So, be mindful of your coffee consumption and switch to decaffeinated coffee at the right moment.

How does caffeine work in the body?

When you drink a cup of coffee, you typically feel the stimulating effects of caffeine within 45 minutes. This stimulating effect lasts for about 2.5 to 5 hours. Two main mechanisms in our body determine if and when you feel a caffeine effect and how long it lasts. Both mechanisms depend on your personal genetic code and determine whether you are a fast or slow caffeine metabolizer.

Mechanism 1 in the brain:

In the brain, caffeine exerts its effect by blocking adenosine receptors, occupying the spot where the signal that makes you feel sleepy usually arrives.

Mechanism 2 in the liver:

Caffeine is broken down in the liver, which ends its effect.

How intensely your body reacts to caffeine is influenced by your genes and is hereditary. In the brain, certain gene variants influence how well caffeine can bind to the adenosine receptor. How well or poorly caffeine binds to receptors plays a role in how quickly you can feel caffeine’s effects.

There are also genes that influence caffeine breakdown in the liver. Researchers have found that the more active these genes are, the more coffee you are likely to drink. In other words, people who break down caffeine quickly tend to drink more coffee. If these genes are less active, caffeine breakdown slows down, and its effect lasts longer. People with less active genes tend to drink less coffee.

Listening to your body and paying attention to its signals gives you a good sense of how much caffeine is right for you. If you’ve consumed too much caffeine, your body will respond promptly. Symptoms like shaking, sweating, insomnia, nervousness, digestive issues, or heart palpitations can occur. For some, “too much” may be just one cup, while others might experience symptoms after two cups.

Where is caffeine found?

Caffeine is a naturally occurring chemical compound in plants. It is found in coffee and cocoa beans, tea leaves, guarana berries, and kola nuts, serving as a natural defense for the plant against predators like caterpillars. Today, caffeine is added to various products like baked goods, ice cream, candies, and cola drinks. It’s also present in energy drinks, alongside ingredients like taurine and glucuronolactone (D-glucuronic acid γ-lactone). In dietary supplements, caffeine is marketed for weight loss or to enhance physical performance, and it can also be found in medications or cosmetics such as shampoos and creams.

How much caffeine is too much?

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has evaluated caffeine and considers a daily intake of 400 mg (about 4–5 cups of regular coffee) safe for healthy adults. However, the EFSA makes exceptions for children, adolescents, and pregnant or breastfeeding women, as these groups metabolize caffeine more slowly, which can enhance the caffeine effect and lead to undesirable or dangerous side effects.

What influences your coffee consumption?

Not only genes influence caffeine tolerance; your lifestyle also plays a role in how well you tolerate caffeine. If you drink coffee regularly, your body develops a tolerance to caffeine, and its effect weakens. Someone who typically doesn’t drink coffee will feel the stimulating effect much more strongly. The habituation effect occurs because the brain responds to the repeated displacement of adenosine at the receptors by increasing the density of adenosine receptors. This means the body builds more caffeine receptors into cells.

Other factors that influence caffeine metabolism include age, pregnancy, obesity, smoking, diet, medication use, or illness.

Build your caffeine awareness

Various lifestyle factors accelerate or slow down caffeine metabolism, affecting your physical well-being after coffee consumption. Everyone has a personal caffeine limit. If the amount of caffeine you consume exceeds your personal limit or you push it with your diet or lifestyle, symptoms like discomfort, shaking, and headaches can occur. This is a caffeine overdose. To avoid this, you should know your limit and switch to decaf at the right time. In special life situations, decaf can help counteract the negative effects of caffeine.

Female hormones influence caffeine breakdown. During pregnancy and breastfeeding, caffeine breakdown slows down. The use of birth control pills also extends caffeine's effect in the body.

Partygoers should know that alcohol prolongs the caffeine effect.

Your diet also affects how caffeine is broken down in your body. For example, drinking a lot of grapefruit juice or eating beans, such as carrots, celery, parsley, cumin, fennel, etc., can extend caffeine’s effect.

If you have trouble sleeping, it’s a good idea to switch to decaffeinated coffee so you can still enjoy your coffee moments.

When is the right time to switch to decaffeinated coffee?

If you start noticing signs of a caffeine overdose, like increased sweating or discomfort after coffee consumption, it’s already too late. Therefore, it’s important to know your well-tolerated caffeine dose and switch to decaf before you exceed it. What can you do?

• Be mindful of your body and consciously notice the effects of caffeine after consuming caffeinated foods and drinks.
• You can use a caffeine consumption app to track and manage your intake.
• You can take a genetic test to find out how quickly your body breaks down caffeine.

Image sources: Image with hammock: jared-rice-IgE49g4qbCk-unsplash
Image with coffee and leaves: jen-p-FoG8lotg7AA-unsplash
Picture with coffee in red cup: valeriia-miller-LyF4p6c5OOc-unsplash
Picture with two coffees: tabitha turner-unsplash
Picture with espresso: giulia-bertelli-CxGtrXKyFQc-unsplash