Don’t blame me, I don’t ask the questions, I just answer them .

Recently over Twitter, I was asked in jest (I hope) by a ten-year old whether or not it was too early in his life to start drinking coffee.  At first, it just made me laugh.  Then, I realized that in answering the question there was a great opportunity to go back to basics on coffee consumption and caffeine.

I myself only started drinking coffee at around 16 years old, but what would happen if you started giving coffee to a ten-year old?  I’m no biologist, or really an “ologist” of any kind.  But we have enough common sense about caffeine and the rest of the information is out there.  Here’s what I learned.

Stunted Growth

This is a myth.  Drinking coffee at too young an age will not stunt that child’s growth as previously believed.  The effects of caffeine on the nervous system are the same for a child as they are for an adult, and will not interfere in the child’s physical development.

Hyperactivity

Caffeine is an ergogenic (that’s the biggest word I’ll use in this post, I promise).  That means it raises awareness and reduces the sensation of being tired.  For infrequent coffee drinkers, that could mean jitters or excitement, even giddiness.  In a ten-year old, that means hyperactivity.  Children are less likely than adults to try and control that newfound energy, leading to a loss of control.  Here, I think the real question is what has the ten-year old done in the past with similarly “artificial” energy from eating too much chocolate at once.  If he works it off by playing a sport, that’s a little more productive than if he marches around the house banging pots and pans together.

Withdrawal

Every artificially induced high has an inevitable low, and eventually the effects of the caffeine will wear off, leaving the ten-year old with a unique feeling: coming down.  Coming down isn’t just being exhausted, it’s being “artificially” exhausted.  In adults, symptoms include anxiety, confusion, irritability, and insomnia.  In a ten-year old with less experience in managing these kinds of feelings over his life, the symptoms will be more pronounced, albeit short-lived since caffeine is relatively mild in its effects, and a dependency hasn’t developed yet.

Dependency

Adults who drink coffee develop something called “tolerance adaptation“.  That means my system is so accustomed to drinking coffee that it produces chemicals and reactions on the basis of expecting it.  I can’t feel the effects of caffeine, only a lack of it (or to quote an old friend, “You don’t drink from the coffee pot, it drinks from you now.”).  If I had to endure withdrawal, my system would need to reorganize itself chemically and to stop expecting the regular doses of caffeine.  That process wouldn’t be quick, and would be horrible for the people around me.

The good news for the ten-year old is how much easier his system could shake off any short-term dependency versus the decades that my system has accepted it as much as any chemical that it produces naturally.  So can a ten-year old drink coffee?

In my mostly uneducated opinion, it should be considered a heavy-duty “chocolate” reward, something of similar effect (and similar in “coming down” when it wears off).  If a ten-year old liked the smell of coffee, he might also like an espresso-size serving of it.  Espresso is ironically not a bad choice, since it (contrary to popular belief) has less caffeine that regular coffee, but much flavor.  The ten-year old will not have enough of it to develop a dependency so the real task is managing him after the caffeine heightens his senses and gives him the perception of more energy.  Keep portions small and infrequent – it will keep the ten year old manageable.  Or, set a minimum age for his first coffee so he has something to look forward to.

I couldn't help myself - here is a picture I located from the same household in question, here drinking what appears to be a beer. Where are the parents?!

I hope you like the clip art.  Yes, I have become fascinated by the medicinal effects of caffeine.  Use of caffeine to increase alertness and decrease fatigue is definitely what made the brewed coffee drink originally popular.  The Sufi monks in Yemen used it to stay alert during their prayers and meditations, and the world of coffee grew from there.

Caffeine is recommended for migraine sufferers and with a close friend that suffers from them, I found this interesting enough to research further.  Here’s what I learned:

• Caffeine is a common ingredient in many headache medications.  They don’t necessarily treat headaches, but rather make pain relievers more effective.  This would explain why caffeine as an ingredient in medication can accelerate relief, but too many coffees will make a bad headache worse.  One coffee and one Advil should give you significant relief from a headache, the first ingredient helping the second.

• By adding caffeine as a supplement to medication, it reduces the chance of you becoming addicted or overdosing to the medication through overconsumption.  Since caffeine helps the drug do its work, you need less of the drug.

• Many believe the onset of headaches is related to blood vessels, and caffeine narrows blood vessels.  Some caffeine then will thin the blood and provide headache relief.  Too much caffeine will bring its own side effects, one of which could be to induce a headache through the inevitable caffeine withdrawal you’ll experience once it’s out of your system.

I recently ran a race for the first time.  It’s one thing to be at a point in my life where I need all the help I can get, including whatever bars, shakes, or magic beans will give me extra energy.  But, it’s different with coffee where it’s not just a pick-me-up, I’m sure my bloodstream depends on it.

The conclusions on the health benefits of coffee are that there are not yet any conclusions.  In fact, I’d read from one source that once your bloodstream becomes dependent on the caffeine after years of routine drinking it, that you will no longer feel its effects, only the effects of a lack of it.  As an aside, I challenged this theory at a recent coffee tasting where I drank so much coffee and definitely felt the effects again.

I hit Twitter to see if anybody could help me and got some good research back.  Here’s the jist of it.

• Athletes have been using caffeine as a stimulant for physical activity for many centuries.

• Caffeine affects nerve, muscle, and blood cells in how pain is perceived, limiting muscle pain while working out.  The University of Georgia found in 2003 that caffeine reduced muscle pain during exercise and pain following the workout.

• Other research found that coffee released huge endorphins (“feel-good hormones”) into the system during heavy workouts like a race.  BTW, this was the point in the research where I was convinced.  Yes, I had a single large-serving cup of coffee about two hours before the race started.

• Now, my favorite finding because I wasn’t expecting it.  You’d think a system addicted to caffeine would need more of it to get its beneficial effects.  The International Journal of Sport Nutrition found different last April.  Caffeine-”naive” subjects and caffeine-habitual subjects reported the same reduction in muscle pain after consuming a caffeine pill before a heavy workout.  The caffeine pill was meant as the equivalent to 2-3 regular cups of coffee.

Want to learn more?  Check out this article from ABC News.

In a new book The You Code, body language experts Judi James and James Moore take a look at what your coffee drinking habits say about you, your self-esteem, your stress level in life, and even your sex life. I’ll withhold my comments until you get to the bottom.

The espresso drinker – They call the espresso “the unfiltered cigarette of the coffee drinking world”. Espresso drinkers are moody, hard-bitten and hard working, into leadership and fast goals. They don’t suffer fools, are hard living and prone to “night-time shenanigans, followed by a rather louche attempt at day time repair”.

The black coffee drinker – This drinker practices minimalism and takes a no-frills, direct approach to life. Quiet and moody but prone to brief bursts of extroversion. “A difficult but potentially rewarding friend, colleague or partner,” James and Moore conclude.

The latte drinker – Typically metrosexuals or cuddly-toy collectors, latte drinkers are pleasers obsessed with being liked.

The cappuccino drinker – Extroverted, optimistic.   Like their drink, they are all froth and bubble, bored by detail and liking material objects. “Freud would have a field day here,” write James and Moore. “Cappuccino froth gives the tongue the mother of all workouts and is all to do with the physicality of the experience rather than the basic consumption of the beverage.” The cappuccino drinker enjoys sex but is easily bored by an unimaginative partner.

The non-coffee drinker – Frightened of coffee equals frightened of life, say James and Moore. If the taste of coffee puts you off you really are a child, they say, and it’s time to join the world of grown ups. But there’s hope. “Twenty one days is all it will take to break your cycle of disgust and then you’ll be back in the real world.”

This information came to me second-hand so I confess right off the bat that I haven’t read the book and don’t know any more about its contents than what I’ve posted here.  But c’mon!  How can this be serious?  I’m a black coffee drinker, but that’s only a recent change to lose weight and start picking out coffee flavor accents easier.  So, the circumstances of what made me a black coffee drinker from the former cream-and-sugar type don’t jive with what the authors write about me today.

Oh well, maybe it’s meant to be funny but when you box people up by characteristic based on something as simple as their coffee drinking habits, I think you make alot of wrong and sometimes dangerous generalizations.