The Human Benefits of Caffeine - BBC Science Focus ☕

'How the right amount of caffeine unlocks lifelong benefits for your body and mind,' BBC Science Focus, Jan. 7, 2024. Ed. - For many, caffeine is considered a guilty pleasure. [A lengthy article, have a shot if you like].

But there is growing evidence that our daily fix isn't necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it might actually be doing us some good.

As such, the general advice regarding caffeine consumption increasingly seems to be to cut back on it or cut it out altogether. But it’s not as if caffeine is entirely without merit. There’s no denying it’s a psychoactive substance. Or, to put it more bluntly, caffeine is a drug (the world’s most widely consumed drug, in fact – chances are, you’re under its influence right now).

But, like many drugs, in the right dose, it has benefits.

It was the clarity and energy that doses of caffeine provided (distributed via the tea and coffee houses of Europe) that helped usher in the Enlightenment and make the switch from farms to factories during the Industrial Revolution. But dosage is the key variable. And although coffee and tea have been providing us with a tasty pick-me-up for centuries, nowadays more of us are consuming caffeine in much higher concentrations due to the boom in energy drinks and tablets.

This has prompted a rise in research into caffeine, as scientists work to better understand its effects on us and the mechanisms by which it produces them. So what are we learning from all this research? For one thing, just how differently each of us processes and reacts to caffeine. - But perhaps more importantly, it’s providing evidence that as well as perking us up in the morning, a few cups of coffee or tea each day might also help us stave off illnesses, such as diabetes and certain forms of cancer.

So does caffeine really deserve its bad reputation? The dose makes the poison- Anyone who consumes caffeine every day knows the importance of dosage: how much to take and when to take it. Get the dose right, and caffeine can lift your mood and make you more alert; overdo it and you risk anxiety, tremors and disrupted sleep. Both the US Food and Drug Administration and the European Food Safety Authority say that a daily caffeine intake of 400mg (about 2 to 3 mugs of filter coffee, depending on the size of the mug) won’t cause problems for healthy adults.. About our experts...https://www.sciencefocus.com/the-human-body/benefits-of-caffeine