Caffeine in Coffee
The caffeine in coffee that wakes you up in the morning also makes you more responsive to stress. Caffeine raises levels of the stress hormone epinephrine and also makes us more responsive to the epinephrine circulating in the blood stream. As a result, your heart beats faster, your blood pressure increases, blood sugar rises – and you feel an initial jolt of energy. However, this jolt puts your body into fight or flight mode. According to research, drinking 1 cup of coffee in the morning can keep you in fight or flight mode until well into the evening. This shows that four cups of coffee raises the hormones epinephrine by 32 percent all day long. Also, people who drink coffee report feeling more stressed throughout the day. Any outside stress, such as a frenzied day at work, will bump your epinephrine level even higher.
In short, caffeine makes you particularly sensitive to stress. Your morning coffee may determine whether you suffer an anxiety attack as a deadline approaches or whether you can successfully talk your self through the moment and stay on task.
This all spells trouble for blood sugar control. We’ve known for some years that caffeine can make cells resistant to insulin even in people who don’t have diabetes. For example, in one study, researchers monitored the blood pressure, heart rate, and blood sugar for 2 hours after seven men took either a placebo or a caffeine pill. Caffeine increased insulin levels by 42 percent and decreased insulin sensitivity by 25 percent. Though blood sugar was roughly the same in all group, none of the study subjects had diabetes.
Caffeine in Coffee
