Shocking Effects Caffeine Has on Your Brain

The world is heavily dependent on a powerful psychoactive substance, which happens to be the most widely consumed drug worldwide. On average, people consume over 300 milligrams of this substance each day. However, its effects on the brain and body can be quite astonishing and might come as a shock to you. I am referring to caffeine, but how exactly does caffeine work? What are the most detrimental effects it can have on your mind and body? Could it even be fatal?

Let's start with how caffeine operates and how it manages to perk you up in the morning. Throughout the day, your body continuously releases a chemical called adenosine into your bloodstream. Adenosine can be seen as a form of sleep pressure—the more adenosine accumulates in your system, the higher your sleep pressure becomes, leading to an increased desire to sleep.

After approximately 12 hours of being awake, the levels of adenosine in your body will have risen to a point where you feel an overwhelming need to sleep. If you manage to stay awake for another 12 hours or longer, the adenosine levels become so substantial that you'll struggle to stay awake and may experience brief moments of blissful unconsciousness.

The only way to reduce adenosine levels and eliminate its buildup from your body is through sleep. During sleep, your body systematically breaks down adenosine particles in your blood and flushes them out.

Here's where caffeine comes into play. Caffeine directly interacts with adenosine by competing for the same neural receptors in your brain. Adenosine attaches to these receptors and induces feelings of sleepiness. However, caffeine molecules can also attach to these receptors, effectively taking the place of adenosine and preventing it from activating the receptors. It's like standing on the wrong side of an elevator in a tube station, causing a buildup of frustrated businessmen behind you. The only difference is that caffeine won't result in your head being smashed with a briefcase—most of the time.

By occupying the neural receptors, caffeine tricks your brain into feeling awake and alert, at least temporarily. The problem is that while caffeine remains in your receptors for several hours, blocking adenosine like an unwelcome squatter, adenosine continues to be released in large quantities into your bloodstream. It accumulates without being able to affect your brain because it can't latch onto the receptors occupied by caffeine.

Caffeine has a half-life of approximately six hours, which means that after around six hours of ingestion, your body starts breaking down the caffeine, freeing up the receptors in your brain. When this happens, the stored adenosine suddenly floods the newly unblocked receptors, overwhelming your brain with drowsiness like a torrential wave. This sudden crash follows the fleeting feeling of wakefulness, and your energy levels plummet into a deep hole of lethargy. This phenomenon is commonly referred to as a caffeine crash.

Now, what if, before the caffeine crash arrives like an unwanted train of disappointment, you were to consume more coffee or other caffeinated beverages to replenish and prolong the caffeine levels in your system? Just like before, the new caffeine would rush to occupy the receptors, continuing to block adenosine and extending your artificial state of wakefulness and alertness.

But what if you were to repeatedly consume more caffeine to stay awake indefinitely? Here's where the problem arises. Eventually, the adenosine buildup becomes so overpowering that no amount of caffeine can prevent it from activating every receptor in your brain. Just like a breached levee, sleepiness floods your brain.

However, your excessive intake of caffeine may have triggered a dependency cycle, where your body constantly craves more caffeine to stave off unpleasant withdrawal symptoms. If this dependency cycle continues, congratulations, you have become addicted to caffeine. The day after your caffeine binge, you'll wake up from your abrupt sleep episode with a headache, low energy, dizziness, and generally feeling irritable. You'll still feel very tired because, although you slept, it wasn't truly restful.

In conclusion, caffeine is a powerful drug that can block adenosine receptors in your brain, temporarily making you feel awake and alert. However, it doesn't eliminate adenosine, which continues to accumulate in your system. Once the effects of caffeine wear off, the flood of accumulated adenosine overwhelms your brain, resulting in a crash and extreme drowsiness. Repeated and excessive caffeine consumption can lead to addiction and a vicious cycle of dependence. It's essential to be mindful of your caffeine intake and prioritize healthy sleep habits for overall well-being

Allow me to clarify. We are all familiar with the fact that consuming caffeine too close to bedtime can prevent us from falling asleep. In fact, a study discovered that even drinking a large coffee in the afternoon can result in losing an hour of sleep that night. However, if caffeine is still present in your system when you eventually do fall asleep, the quality of your sleep will be greatly affected. In essence, if you consume enough caffeine before bed, it's almost as if you haven't slept at all.

If you ingest caffeine less than six hours before going to bed, it will still be circulating in your system during sleep. This diminishes the amount of deep sleep you receive, which is the crucial sleep stage responsible for muscle repair, immune function enhancement, and replenishing your energy levels for the following day. Essentially, it compromises all the vital aspects of sleep. So, that cup of coffee you had the previous evening can make you feel groggy the next morning long after you've woken up and long after you consumed the coffee.

Now, let's dive into what caffeine is actually doing to your body and whether it can be lethal. Within 15 minutes of consuming a double shot of cappuccino or a flat white containing approximately 130 milligrams of caffeine, your heart rate will rapidly increase, and you may experience heightened stress because caffeine stimulates the production of adrenaline. This can lead to feelings of anxiety, jitters, insomnia, headaches, and, in some cases, hallucinations, particularly in individuals who are particularly sensitive to caffeine.

But can you die from drinking enough coffee? Well, I'm sorry to disappoint any thrill-seekers out there, but not really. It would take about 10 grams of caffeine to kill a healthy adult male with no pre-existing conditions. However, the lethal dosage of caffeine varies depending on the individual. The highest known survived caffeine overdose occurred when a 39-year-old woman attempted suicide by ingesting an astonishing 100 grams of caffeine pills. Nevertheless, caffeine is significantly diluted within coffee beans and liquid coffee. To reach a fatal caffeine overdose, you would need to consume roughly 158 shots of espresso. The problem is that even when continuously drinking espressos, the human stomach cannot accommodate that much liquid. Eventually, you would have to slow down or stop altogether, giving your liver sufficient time to break down some of the caffeine in your system and save your life. While technically possible to die from a caffeine overdose solely from drinking coffee, it would be extremely difficult, and some individuals would not be able to achieve it—especially if you're the type who gets bloated after half a pint. However, individuals with serious pre-existing heart conditions would need to consume significantly less coffee to reach a fatal outcome. They could experience cardiac arrest or slip into a coma after just a few cappuccinos.

Nevertheless, caffeine can and does cause fatalities, particularly when it comes in other forms, specifically energy drinks and pills. Tragically, cases like the one involving 16-year-old David Alan Cripe, who consumed a latte, an energy drink, and a Mountain Dew in a short period of time, resulting in a heart arrhythmia and his sudden death at school, are rare but linked to energy drink consumption or the use of caffeine pills. In 2014, in the United States, 1,700 deaths were attributed to energy drink consumption. A single energy drink can contain more than twice the caffeine content of a cup of coffee. Making matters worse, a study found that most major energy drink brands have significantly higher caffeine content than what is indicated on the label. Furthermore, powdered caffeine or caffeine pills are even more perilous. Just one teaspoon of powdered caffeine is equivalent to 26 cups of coffee.

In summary, while consuming caffeine close to bedtime can disrupt sleep, caffeine alone is unlikely to be lethal, even in substantial quantities. However, energy drinks, caffeine pills, and powdered caffeine pose a greater risk and have been associated with fatalities. It is crucial to exercise caution when consuming these high-concentration forms of caffeine and to be aware of their potential dangers.

Let me clarify something for you, especially if you're someone who orders decaf coffee because you worry about the effects of too much caffeine. Unfortunately, I have some bad news: decaf coffee doesn't truly exist. Despite various industrial methods of decaffeination, none of them can remove 100% of the caffeine from coffee beans. A cup of decaf still contains anywhere from two to fourteen milligrams of caffeine. So, if you do drink decaf, either you're extremely cautious or you have an extreme sensitivity to caffeine that even the smallest amount can trigger hallucinations like your hands turning into lobster claws, which sounds rather distressing. However, there's another side to the caffeine story.

What if you're the opposite of caffeine-sensitive? What if caffeine seems to have little to no effect on you, no matter how much you consume? Well, it's possible that you possess a unique variant of a gene called CYP1A2. Our human DNA contains genes that determine various aspects of our traits, preferences, and even reactions to substances like caffeine. The CYP1A2 gene specifically influences how your body responds to caffeine. There are two versions of this gene: fast and slow metabolizers. Fast metabolizers have a more efficient enzyme for breaking down caffeine, allowing them to metabolize it four times faster than slow metabolizers. As a result, fast metabolizers can consume four cups of coffee and feel similar effects to a slow metabolizer who has had just one cup.

However, the gene variant you have also dictates whether drinking coffee is beneficial or detrimental to your health. A study involving 2,000 adults who had previously experienced a heart attack revealed a surprising conclusion. Drinking four or more cups of coffee per day increased the risk of a heart attack by 36% but only for individuals with the slow variant of the CYP1A2 gene. Interestingly, those with the fast variant faced no increased risk of heart disease, even with four or more cups per day.

But should you be genuinely concerned about your caffeine consumption? Well, the jury is still out on this matter, but most studies suggest that the quantity of caffeine consumed is the determining factor. Consuming more than four cups of coffee per day has been linked to potential health issues and a possible carcinogenic effect. However, if you stick to less than four cups per day, there is substantial evidence indicating that coffee can reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes. It's worth noting that decaf coffee drinkers only experience around 60% of the risk reduction observed in full-caffeine consumers, suggesting that caffeine specifically plays a significant role in the health benefits of coffee.

Furthermore, coffee has been associated with lower rates of depression, Alzheimer's disease, heart disease, and certain types of cancer. Interestingly, abstaining from coffee may unintentionally harm your health. By refraining from drinking coffee or other caffeine-containing beverages throughout the day, you may become less hydrated. The common misconception that coffee dehydrates you is just that—a misconception. While coffee does have a diuretic effect, causing increased urine production, it is still composed mostly of water. The small amount of water lost through the diuretic effect is easily compensated by the liquid in the coffee itself, resulting in a net gain of water in your body. This is especially true if you drink a glass of water with your espresso, as is common in Europe. In fact, a regular-sized cup of coffee can be almost as hydrating as water, and adding milk to it makes it even more hydrating since milk is surprisingly hydrating.

Ultimately, any potential negative effects of caffeine are outweighed by the negative consequences of not drinking enough water daily. When some people choose to give up coffee or tea, they often fail to replace them with other regular drinks, resulting in overall lower water consumption. Insufficient water intake can have harmful effects on your health. So, my advice is to drink up, but ensure that when you do drink coffee, it's of excellent quality because life is too short for bad coffee.