♪ Bob and Brad ♪ ♪ The two most famous ♪ ♪ Physical therapists ♪ ♪ On the internet ♪ – Hi, I'm Brad Heineck,
Physical Therapist. – I'm Chris the Pharmacist. – And we're today to do a video on coffee! The good news, the bad news,
and how much is too much? All from recent research. And we're very happy to have
Chris the Pharmacist here to take how caffeine and coffee and how it works with our bodies and give us the most
updated recent research. You've done a lot of homework
on this, haven't you Chris? – Little bit, little bit. (chuckles) – Yeah, his little bit,
believe me it's complete. Bob is on a coffee break, today. Ah ha, just kidding. – That guy! (laughs) – Okay, Bob…
"Bob", sorry. Before we carry on, should we? – I think we should. – The giveaway!
– All right! – All right, we do have
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Instagram, and the TikTok. But those don't have the giveaway on it. So, with further ado, we should mention what the product is, for the giveaway. – All right. – A Far-Infrared Heat System. And this is a very nice system. The beauty of far-infrared is, unlike your typical hot
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goes 2.36 inches deep. Into the muscles, into the joints. And they are built well. Bob and I have been using
ours for about three, three and a half years now. We love 'em. So anyways, enough of that.
Let's get on with the topic at hand. – All right.
– All right, Chris. So, coffee, first of all it
is one of the most widely consumed drinks throughout
the whole world. – Yup. – It's right up there in the top five. – Oh, it's up there. Everybody drinks it. 80% of the planet, so you
got 7.8 billion, so… – Right. – Times that times 80%, so
that's a large number of people. About 60-65% of Americans drink
it on a regular basis, so. – If you haven't noticed,
Chris is a numbers person. He knows his stats.
(chuckles) Which is also nice. I have some coffee here.
I'm just kidding, it's empty. – I'm a nerd, so. – So the history of coffee, very briefly. Has it been around for
a couple hundred years? – It's been around for thousands of years. Basically there's a
fancy cute little story about a goat herder, his name was Kaldi. – Kaldi? – Kaldi, the goat herder. And the story goes that
he was watching his goats and basically these goats
were eating these berries and he observed that they
just wouldn't sleep at night. They were jumping around and all crazy.
– Sure. – So he figured out what they were eating, brought it home to his wife. His wife took some, and was like, "Oh my gosh, this stuff jacks me up." And so to the point of, they were like, "Gosh, we should probably tell somebody." So what do you do in Ethiopia in 850 AD? You take it to the monastery.
So they had a monk try it. And basically at first
they kinda scoffed at it. – Yeah. – And then they were like,
"Well, maybe it's not so bad. "It kept me awake during
my prayer session. "This is a good thing." So that's the story of how they essentially came up with coffee. – Sure. – But realistically, the
Persians, Ottoman Empire, Ethiopia, all those
areas seem to have had, all around the same time
been trading coffee.
Went to the 1500's, and
then it was more or less started to expand towards Europe, and… – So on and so forth. – 1600's brought to the
United States, and here ya go. We have… – We have Folgers and everything. – Everything, the whole nine yards! (chuckles) – Okay, so again, let's talk about… 'Cause we're gonna refer
to one cup of coffee. 'Cause we're gonna talk about
the good news, the bad news. Let's start with the good news. But when we refer to a cup of coffee, let's define what that is.
– Yeah. – According to most studies. – Yeah, coffee ranges all over the map. And that's one of the problems, is nobody knows what they're
getting in a cup of coffee. So to standardize it, we'll
assume that one cup of coffee, which we'll call it eight ounces, contains 100 milligrams of caffeine. – Okay, eight ounces, and
I'm not even sure if this is exactly eight? – That looks more like six, ya know, if we pour it out we could get
a volumetric measure, but…
– We'll hold on that. (laughs) – But I mean, yeah, so
the average cup of coffee, and again it's gonna vary, but we'll just assume 100 milligrams. – Of? 100 milligrams of? – Of caffeine.
– Caffeine. – In the coffee.
– Okay. – 'Cause caffeine, in a lot of cases, is the stimulant that
causes a lot of the effects. But not always. I mean, maybe we have
to ask what's in coffee. And coffee's got a lot
of good stuff in there. It's gonna have some essential vitamins, a few of your B vitamins,
like B6, pantothenic acid/B5. And then it's also gonna have
a little magnesium, potassium. And of course the flavonoids,
chlorogenic acids. So there's a lot of fancy stuff in coffee that does a lot of good
things for our body. And as we get into some
of the health things that it helps, we'll
kind of break it down. – Okay, all right.
So the big thing everyone
is aware of, the caffeine. – Yup. – So caffeine has good effects,
and maybe some bad effects? – Good and bad. And that's kinda one of those things where you want to be aware of
it with your doctor, guys. It's one of those things where, if you have a heart condition,
an anxiety condition, probably not the best thing to be taking. – Sure. – Because it can actually,
because of what caffeine does, it's got kind of a adrenergic effect, it kinda jacks you up a little bit. – Sure. – So we do have to be
kind of careful with that, for our friends that
maybe shouldn't be on it. So always check with your doc. – I think we were talking before, typically the symptoms that
are bad are oftentimes, you'll know it. You're jumpy, you don't feel right. If you're that person,
just stay off of it. – Yeah.
– Or stay away from it. The other thing I was gonna say is, now I can't remember what
I was gonna say, Chris.
Here, carry on. – Well that's okay, the
interesting thing is there's probably a genetic predisposition to people that actually drink coffee. – That's where I was going. – It's metabolized by a
specific enzyme in our livers, so if you're playin' score
at home it's the C1A2, which will glaze everybody over. (chuckles) But anyways, that particular
pathway in our bodies, in our liver, when people drink coffee and aren't really bothered by it, and we all have those friends, "Well I can drink a cup of coffee "and I just go right to sleep." – Sure. – Ya know, I'm not that guy. People don't like me on caffeine. (laughs) So it's a bad thing. So there are other people that it metabolizes a lot longer. – Sure. – And so from that standpoint, they naturally tend to avoid it.
Because they recognize the symptoms of taking too much coffee
makes them jittery, makes them jumpy, raises the
heart rate, makes them anxious. So it's one of those things
where we want to try, ya know, they know how to avoid it. – Right, right. – So although there's actually
more and more accidental caffeine overdoses being seen in ER's. – From coffee? – Coffee, and/or more
likely energy drinks. So we'll sidebar that for another day. – Ah, right, right. – But if we're sticking
with coffee at hand, I mean, those are the negatives. – Let's get back to
some of the good things. 'Cause that's what I wanted to get in to, – Yup.
– I sidetracked things. We talked about fitness.
– Yes. – People who are marathon runners, people who are doing some aggressive… – Cyclers, swimmers, rowers. – Actually taking caffeine in what form? – Yeah, well usually just a cup of coffee. And basically, when coffee hits
your lips, into the system, you're gonna start to feel the effects within about 15 minutes, maximum response about 45 minutes to an hour, and then it lasts for about
4 or 5 hours in your system.
– We're talking about
that rush, that buzz, from the caffeine? How does that relate to making you faster? – Well it's kinda interesting. They've done a lot of studies
on endurance athletes. Cyclists, marathon runners particular, but they've also looked at swimmers, and we'll talk a little
bit about team sports. But marathoners and
cyclists in particular, caffeine when you take it before a race, tends to increase your… In fact, cyclists have been
putting out more power, so they test their muscles. – Right. – And you could probably speak to that a lot more effectively than I could. But they're putting out about
17% more power on caffeine. Some of the studies
show like 200mg before, 400mg before, 100mg before.
So all of the studies… – So that's like, one
to four cups of coffee? – One to four cups. And that's kinda that safety range that we'll kinda talk as we
get into the health benefits. It's that range if one to four, we're not gonna really exceed that. – Okay. – Because beyond that it
just gets to be too much. But to get the aerobic
output, and for a swimmer, a bicyclist, or a marathoner, you're definitely going
to improve your times. They've done studies with
guys that were trained, and they improved their mile times. – Yeah. – So they've improved their cycling times, they've improved their marathon times. – You know what I'm thinking, Chris? – Yeah? We should take before a race. – Well, that.
(laughter) But I'm thinking there's
gonna have to be potty breaks, because that's an issue. – Well yeah, it is. It is a mild diuretic. But for a lot of people,
it's kinda interesting, if you're a seasoned coffee drinker that effect tends to go away.
Kind of looked at that a little bit, because you're putting liquid in, but you're also putting liquid out. But the effect seems to negate itself. So dehydration, what was once
believed to be a big issue with coffee drinking,
– Sure. – Is not so much, because
coffee's mostly water. – Right. – It's just beans, filtered water. – Right. – And so that's how it
works, so it's pretty slick. So it's not as bad as we think, but if you're gonna use it before a race you want to save it for
race days in most cases, because caffeine that's in coffee, you develop a tolerance. So you will lose some
of the benefit from it if you're doing it every day to train.
– Sure. – So test it before you take a race. 'Cause some people, you go
out you could have a bad day if you miscalculate the
dose or what have you. Find what works best for you,
but then save it for race day. But it is going to help you
to improve your performance. That's almost guaranteed. – Another thing I understand
coffee can actually compliment, that caffeine can compliment
some pharmaceutical meds. Is that accurate? – Yup, yup. There are actually several
prescription medications that do get affected by coffee, so we have to be real careful with that. Your pharmacist certainly,
if you're a coffee drinker you should let 'em know up front. Because they can kind of
tailor make something. There's certain muscle
relaxant where all of a sudden, if you're having coffee with that, it actually competes with how the drug is actually metabolized,
raising the drug level and you're just putty. – So you want to avoid caffeine. – Avoid. – With muscle relaxers? – The one that I'm talking
about is tizanidine, so you would know if you're on it.
But you might actually be
real careful with that. – Sure. – There's certain antibiotics it actually goes the other direction. So the quinolones, things like Cipro. So it's used commonly for a lot of people. – So it's good to combine
that… no it's not? – Nope, these are things that are bad. – Oh, okay. – So basically, if you take Ciprofloxacin and you had a cup of coffee,
it can really amplify the caffeine effects of the coffee itself. – And these are antibiotics? – Antibiotics, for certain infections. So again, I think the biggest thing is to, when you're talking to your
doctor, you go in, you're sick, and you're not doin' well, and you think you're gonna get something, let him know if you're somebody that actually uses coffee or caffeine. Because certain drugs
can effect how it's used.
There's certain anti-depressants, certain medications used for arthritis, that we have to be careful with. – What about on the other side, are there some medications that are helped if you take coffee or caffeine? – Well, I think that just that there's disease states that are helped by having coffee.
– Okay. – Because there's the
good things in coffee, they have the flavonoids,
and they have the magnesium, the B vitamins, and so it's interesting.
There's a litany of
different health conditions that actually can be improved. And actually there's a
wide variety of studies, like almost half a million people study, much likely to analyze, shows coffee makes you live longer. So it's kinda interesting. – Ah! – So really, when we look at it for it for it's overall health benefits, I mean most people, when
you look at diet aids, the number one ingredient in
most diet aids is caffeine. – You're talking about diet pills? – Yes.
– Okay. – But people can lose weight on coffee. There's a thermogenic effect from caffeine that's in the coffee itself. – So thermogenic, you're gonna get hotter? – Nope, not quite, it helps
your body burn ore calories. – Oh, okay. – So it basically unlocks
your ability to break down fat cells, and actually
convert it to energy.
Which, conversely, when
we're talking about improving our physical performance, they think that it's carbohydrate sparing. So what happens is you
break down your fat cells for your energy first, and
then your carbohydrates later. So that's why marathoners and
cyclists seem to do better when they have caffeine,
which is kind of the opposite of what a lot of us were
taught a long time ago: We want to carbo-load before a race, because that's our quick energy reserves. Well it seems like caffeine
seems to spare that. And that's why those endurance runners and endurance athletes
tend to perform better when they have coffee before a race. Kinda interesting. But going back to kind of
the weight loss aspects. That one's a little iffy,
because what happens with a lot of us that drink coffee, is the tolerance does
develop after about 90 days.
So it's one of those
kind of a quick hitter. So when they're a quick hitter,
basically what happens is the effect kind of loses
itself after 90 days, and over the course of
a year all of sudden those weight loss gains
kind of gradually come back. It's not to say that you don't still get some of that thermogenic effect, but if you're not changing your diet and you're not exercising
the way you should, that weight loss balance
kind of goes away. – Now, before you mentioned
there's some disease processes that studies have shown it actually helps.
Can we talk about a couple
of known ones of those? – Absolutely, yeah. So diabetes type II, so
that's the one that's non-insulin dependent,
although some people can use insulin with type II diabetes. – Is that one you get with
age, or you're born with? – That's the one that we get with age. – Okay. – So that's the one
that we kind of develop if we kind of let things slide. We're not eating as well as we should, we're not exercising as well as we should.
– Sure. – So it's one of those
things where it shows pretty eloquently that
it can reduce the risk by about 7% if you're a
regular coffee drinker. And again, what's "regular"? One to four cups a day. Know yourself, because
too much can be too much. And too little is not enough. So we have to be careful with that. But you never want to go over four cups, 'cause that's that 400mg
threshold of caffeine, and that's where it can get pretty jumpy for people's hearts or anxiety levels. – Sure, sure, you bet. – But yeah, it does seem to
help you to process sugars more efficiently, it helps
with insulin resistance. So it does seem to do a very
good thing for diabetics, for the most part. So talk to the doc, but if
you're gonna be using coffee, but it's certainly
something that could have a preventative effect on type II diabetes.
– And so the big thing is,
again I want to emphasize, if you are on meds, or you're
gonna become put on meds, make sure you talk to your… If you say, "Oh, I
forgot to tell my doctor "I drink three cups of caffeine a day, "is that gonna affect…?" When you go to the pharmacist,
make sure you mention it, because that's part of
the pharmacist's job, is to double check and make sure that there isn't something missed. – Yeah, because thing of it is, there's lots of stuff that
could get by the goalie, so to speak, if we're not told.
If you don't tell us, we don't know. – Right. – Same with your doctor,
or your nurse practitioner. Anybody that sees you. Want to share, sharing is good. – Sure.
(chuckles) The other thing is, what about things like Alzheimer's or Parkinson's? – Yeah, well yeah,
Alzheimer's or Parkinson's are two of the biggest
neurological problems that people face. And actually studies
show, it's interesting, there's coffee and decaffeinated coffee. So in Alzheimer's, which
is the one where we kind of get forgetful and we kind of lose things. It's a very sad, debilitating
neurological disease. Drinking coffee, interestingly,
seems to have a strongly preventative effect with Alzheimer's.
So that one to four cups of coffee range can lower the effects quite a bit. – And this is from studies? – Studies over hundreds
of thousands of people, retroactively. So the proof's there, it does show it. So it seems to unlock certain
nerve pathways in the brain. And seemed, with some of
the neuro transmitters that involves… – So it's a prevention thing, or once you have it, it lessens? – I think it's more preventative. So I mean, I would say you
probably would want to be starting to drink coffee
at an earlier age. When we're 70 and also
we start cranking down the cup of Joe to try and
reverse our Alzheimer's, it's probably not going to work. – Sure. – But it seems like, these
are people that have been lifelong studies, and they've
done studies from 30 to 50. And that's kind of where that sweet spot for a lot of these studies
have been picked out, which is why they tend
to look for diabetes, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, liver disease. So these are all things that
coffee is very beneficial for.
– Okay. – But jumping back to
Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Parkinson's, interestingly
enough, you heard me say decaf and regular caffeinated coffee. In Alzheimer's, decaffeinated
coffee will still actually help you. So the flavonoids and other
things that are in there seem to work with the brain chemistry to help to work wit those
pathways that are associated with memory. Whereas in Parkinson's, which
is kind of a motor disorder, where we can get those shakes, where muscles don't quite
work the way we want 'em to, it's contingent upon the
caffeine to help with that. So people that drink
coffee, they will notice to a lesser degree that their
symptoms will be alleviated when they have Parkinson's.
– Sure. – But usually at that
point, it's too far gone. Parkinson's probably starts 30 years before you figure out you have it. – I see, sure. – So again, as a preventative measure, you'd want to be drinking
coffee well before the problem starts. And without genetic testing, you really wouldn't know that. – I just do want to emphasize those people with personalities kinda like mine, well if one or four
cups of coffee is good, maybe eight cups a day is even better! – Yeah, there's a lot of us who subscribe if some is good, more is better. And that's, again, the exact opposite. I mean the upper limits of
coffee, or coffee intoxication, which is really caffeine intoxication, can be quite dangerous. It can put you in the hospital, ER visits. – Sure. – You'll see that more with energy drinks, and usually kids, but it
still can happen with adults. So you do have to be mindful of that. – And that's because the energy drinks have a more concentrated…
? – Much more concentrated across the board. So I mean, the fatal dose
of caffeine is 10 grams. So that'd be like drinking
a hundred cups of coffee. – Sure. – You on your best day
could never do that. I mean… (chuckles) The other side effects, and that's the interesting
thing with coffee drinking, it's generally self-limiting. So at some point, you're
like, "Ooh I've had too much." You just naturally tend to stop. 'Cause you don't like, it's
uncomfortable for your heart. And that's one of the
first things you notice, is your heart starts
(claps rapidly) really pounding.
– Yeah.
– And you get a little jumpy. Somebody comes through the door, you're willing to jump. (laughs) Be afraid, or something to that effect. So usually we're gonna back off. – Okay. So let's say, 'cause I
notice that with myself, I can have one, two cups and
then it doesn't taste so good anymore, and it's like, "Why
am I even drinking this?" Then I'm done for the day. But how long does that
caffeine stay in your system? – Yeah, it's kind of interesting. I mean, the law of averages, unless you're on certain medications, it's gonna be about four
and a half, five hours. And then it starts to peter off. – Yeah. – So for a lot of people,
insomnia is kind of big thing.
I mean, we got a sleep deprived nation, so there's no two ways about it. So probably cut off the
coffee around two or three in the afternoon, if
you're trying to be in bed at a reasonable time. – Sure. – That'll certainly help,
so it kind of peters off and runs out of gas. – Yup. Well, I know like my
mother, she's been drinking coffee all of her life, and she's 84 now. She can drink a cup of
coffee at 10 o'clock at night and go to bed, "It
doesn't bother me a bit." – Nope! – Again, that's because
she's been drinking it for so long. – Yup, there's definitely a tolerance. She may just have the genetic structure that says that hey, I can handle this. Or maybe she's just used to it 'cause she's been drinking
it for 50, 60 years. – Sure, so I'm hoping that
that's not a bad thing, for her. – No, no, it shouldn't be. And if anything, it might
actually, ya know you said 84, that's some serious longevity,
so it may be adding to it.
– 84 and a half, now.
– 84 and a half. – She's doing well.
– There ya go. – All she takes is a little
high blood pressure medication. She's a incredible woman. – Yes she is, nope, I know June. I do think, and a lot of the other show, that actually helps you to live longer. So I mean I think it's
pretty safe to say that, unless your doctor directly tells you no, or if you're on certain
medications that could create a problem with caffeine, I think it's okay to drink a
cup or two of coffee a day. So I think it's pretty reasonable.
Couple withstanding medical
conditions, of course, would have us avoid it. – Right, right. Well, boy, if there
isn't too much bad news, and it is bad you should
know it by your symptoms. – You just naturally kinda quit. You're just like, "'Eh, it's not for me." – What people, they have a-fib? – A-fib, that's actually a no-no. That's gonna be one of the ones that we do have to be careful with. That's one of the cardiac conditions. – So atrial fibrillation,
we're talking about. – Atrial dib, tachycardia, I
mean these are things that… – All heart problems. – A lot of the heart problems, I would tell you to probably avoid it. Although it's interesting,
some people that have mildly elevated blood
pressure, or hypertension, studies used to say, "Oh we gotta avoid coffee at all costs." We're actually finding
that it only raises, if you're a tolerant coffee drinker, it only raises your
blood pressure by about two to three points, which
is really insignificant.
– So that's different, the blood pressure versus heart rate? – Blood pressure versus
yeah, so if you're talking like a-fib, that's an absolute hard pass. You are not going to do that, we're gonna put the breaks on that one. – Right, right. All right, I tell you what,
I gotta get a cup of coffee, we're gonna have to cut this off. (laughs) – There ya go! All right, drink up, everyone! – All right, thank you very much, and hope you learn something. And well whatever, just get some coffee. – All right, sounds good..
