Coffee Addiction

Millions of people are addicted to coffee. They may not know it's a habit that's harming them.

A study carried out by Dr. R.S Paffenberger of the University of California at Berkeley linked coffee drinking to ulcers. Of the 25,000 men studied, coffee drinkers had a 72 percent higher chance of developing ulcers than those who never drank coffee.

Caffeine is also habit-forming. The average cup of coffee contains 100 to 150 mg of caffeine; a cup of tea contains 60 to 75 mg.

In large amounts, caffeine is lethal to animals, and a fatal human dose would probably be 10 grams, roughly the amount found in 100 cups of coffee. It’s unlikely that anyone would drink that much at one time, but there have been many cases in which caffeine has been implicated in causing or contributing to serious diseases, including cancer of the lower urinary tract and the bladder.

Caffeinism results from drinking too much coffee or tea. The symptoms, according to Dr. John F. Greden of the University of Michigan Medical Center, are nervousness, irritability, occasional muscle twitching, insomnia, irregular heart beat, and increased secretion of urine.

If you think decaffeinated coffee is the answer, think again. In the United States, caffeine is removed from coffee beans before roasting by soaking them in methylene chloride, a solvent suspected of being carcinogenic. So even though you don’t get the caffeine, you may get something worse.

Hair Color. University of Wisconsin scientists were able to turn hair gray with large amounts of caffeine found in coffee and tea, and remove B vitamins, which are essentials in maintaining hair color.

So this is again another reason why you should regulate your drinking of coffee: if you want your hair black and luxuriant, better desist from tea and coffee!

Bleaching Skin. Most skin bleaching products contain mercury and can be absorbed by the skin that cause kidney and liver damage. These products are often used to lighten freckles and other dark skin patches caused by pregnancy and old age.

Lack of Sleep Can Affect Mental Abilities. In a series of studies on college students, Dr. Robert A. Hicks, Ph.D., found that sleeping less than 6 hours a night can reduce your ability to think creatively, lessen your ability to cope with stress, and erode your problem-solving talents.