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Coffee, even
Coffee w/Sugar; is it possible
to do an article on what effect coffee and sweeteners have on the body, to
be fare with your readers?
The caffeine in
coffee disrupts the digestion through out the day and creates a false signal
to the brain and the Theo bromine in the coffee, which is almost as
addictive as caffeine, and chlorogenic acid, which has been liked to an
increased risk of heart attacks. Coffee provides a spike upward in
serotonin and then shortly thereafter plunges downward, which leaves us with
that feeling of wanting something, we just don’t know what that is. This
throws us into a downward spiral. We begin impulsive things like
smoking,
consuming alcohol
and over eating,
leading to the end result, depression.
The choices we
make in food while we are in this downward spiral will most likely be those
that deliver the sensations we remember from our stored pleasure memories
and those are likely to be, simple sugars and simple carbohydrates; you know
the donut with the coffee syndrome. This viscous cycle is never ending,
without immediate changes in lifestyle.
While all of
your neurotransmitters are important,
serotonin is the star
when it comes to your mood and controlling hunger. When your serotonin
levels are normal, you feel good, you handle stressful situations better,
you sleep and eat well, and you awake refreshed and energized and you handle
work environment better.
The use of
stimulants such as coffee and caffeine drinks, results in chronic
low-serotonin levels that inhibit short-term memory. If use is continued,
more permanent memory loss, deeper depression and further anxiety can occur.
These chronic low-serotonin levels can also lead to hormone imbalance
creating a host of illnesses manifesting as well as putting on fat, which is
an indicator serotonin imbalance and you suffer all the symptoms of
depression.
Serotonin is
synthesized in the brain and the digestive tract. This is why, what you eat,
when you eat it and in what combinations you eat it in, influence how well
you digest and utilize the nutrients, which is crucial to how you feel. If
you eat foods that are high on the satiety index for example, you feel good
longer. Typically these are the foods high in fiber.
Sugar, even
sugar substitutes are very damaging to the body. Sugar is sugar. Sucrose is
sucrose. Not exactly! New insights into how various sugars behave in the
body has revealed otherwise. While it is true that the sucrose in an orange
is chemically the same as the sucrose in the much-maligned table sugar, the
fact that the sucrose in the orange is packaged along with other nutrients
makes it behave biochemically friendlier in the body. When you eat sucrose
as naturally part of fruits or vegetables, you get not only vitamins and
minerals in the package, but you get fiber and other complex carbohydrates
that steady the absorption of the sugar. Yet, take the sugar away from the
rest of the fruit and vegetable and refine it into a powder, and it's this
processing that downgrades sucrose from the healthy to the junk food
category. So, it's the company the sugar keeps with other foods that affects
its absorption from the intestines and its consequential behavior in the
body.
To understand
why these sugars merit the label "junk sugars," let's take a ride with these
sugars from the mouth to the bloodstream to see how they affect the body.
Junk sugars are called simple carbohydrates because they are short,
uncomplicated molecules. Because simple sugars are already so small, they
require little or no breaking down in the intestines. The sucrose molecule
is quickly broken down into glucose and fructose, and all that glucose is
actively pumped through the intestinal cells quickly into the bloodstream. A
sprinkle of sugar that hits the intestines enters the bloodstream almost
immediately, and the roller coaster ride begins.
After the
refined sugars rush into the bloodstream, blood sugar levels rise,
pressuring the pancreas to release insulin, the hormone needed to escort
these sugars into the body's cells. Lots of insulin helps the sugar get used
up rapidly, but then the blood sugar level plunges. The body hits a sugar
low, also known as hypoglycemia. Now, just as insulin was released when the
blood sugar was too high, other hormones such as cortisol are released when
the blood sugar is too low. These stress hormones want to restore the blood
sugar to normal levels, so they squeeze stored sugar from the liver, sending
the blood sugar back up.
These
adjustments work better in some people than in others and better in some
circumstances than others. Sugar-sensitive individuals experience the ups
and downs of blood sugar levels as a roller-coaster ride, and their moods
and behavior go up and down with their blood sugar.
Certain sugars
belong in the same category as the fake fats. They not only provide no
essential nutrients to the body (your body could live better without them),
they actually may do harm.
Many soft
drinks like coffee with sugar are a double-whammy of sugar and caffeine, a
combination, which sends most bodies (and minds) on an uncomfortable
biochemical roller coaster ride. Since caffeine is a diuretic, sodas and
coffee containing caffeine not only don't quench thirst; they can leave you
feeling thirstier. A 12-ounce can of cola contains about ten teaspoons of
sugar, in addition to artificial flavors and caffeine. That's what's going
into your body, and here's the bad news about it. Sugar mixed with water
(such as in all types of sodas and coffee with sugar) provides more calories
and put on more body fat than the same amount of table sugar taken dry by
the spoonful because the quick rise in blood sugar, due to it being
dissolved in liquid causes an insulin burst, which makes the liver respond
by turning the excess sugar into fats.
Caffeine
exaggerates the roller coaster effect of sugars in the bloodstream by
triggering the release of hormones that release stored sugar in the liver.
That can of cola or coffee with sugar will produce a sugar high, but a sugar
low is sure to follow.
The junk sugars
in soft drinks and coffee also take good things out of the body. High doses
of sugar and artificial sweeteners increase the urinary excretion of
calcium, leading to weaker bones, or osteoporosis, and to deposits calcium
in the kidneys (i.e., kidney stones).
Coffee’s
unhealthy ingredients:
Regular coffee's other unhealthy ingredients including
Theo bromine, which is almost as addictive as caffeine, and chlorogenic
acid, which has been liked to an increased risk of heart attacks.
The caffeine in coffee
is in the morning especially, is bad, not to mention the Theo Bromine in it,
which is almost as addictive and chlorogenic acid, which has been studied
and suspect to increase risk of heart attacks.