Bad news for decaf drinkers

If you read last week’s e-Alert about coffee (“David Beats Goliath Again” 5/15/03) and decided to switch to decafwell, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but you may still have that coffee monkey on your back.

A friend of mine passed along an article he found in an airline magazine about the effects of coffee. The article quotes a number of coffee experts who are divided on the pros and cons of the cup of joe. But one item in the article stood out from the discussion: the results of a study from Zurich, Switzerland, in which researchers found that decaffeinated coffee stimulates the same nerve activity that’s commonly associated with caffeine.

Although coffee contains hundreds of components (such as ketones, tannic acid, sulfur compounds, esters, etc.), caffeine gets the blame (or, if you prefer, the credit) for giving coffee its kick. And it should. Caffeine is a powerful and addictive compound. But the Zurich researchers theorize that coffee is much too complex to pin all of coffee’s effects on caffeine alone.

When I read this article it rang a bell and I remembered an e-Alert I sent you some time ago (“Is That Morning Cuppa Joe Really Worth It?” 12/12/01) about a dietary study of more than 31,000 women between the ages of 55 and 69. When the data was examined, a clear pattern emerged: women who drank four or more cups of decaffeinated coffee per day were more than twice as likely to have developed rheumatoid arthritis (RA).

The researchers believe that the decaffeination process may be to blame for the results. And although they didn’t examine this specifically, decaffeinated tea may create a risk for RA as well (unless it’s naturally caffeine-free, as most herbal blends are).

So switching to decaf to avoid the caffeine appears to be along the same lines of drinking diet soda to avoid too much sugar. You may get rid of one problem, but you’ll still be getting plenty of the same unwanted components.

To Your Good Health,

Jenny Thompson
Health Sciences Institute

Sources:
“Coffee Acutely Increases Sympathetic Nerve Activity and Blood Pressure Independently of Caffeine Content” Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association, 2002;106:2935, circ.ahajournals.org

“The Caffeine Fix” Alisa Smith, Southwest Airlines Spirit, May 2003

“Coffee, Tea and Caffeine Consumption and Risk of Rheumatoid Arthritis: Results from the Iowa Women’s Health Study,” presented at the 65th annual scientific meeting of the American College of Rheumatology, November 14, 2001