Welcome to Gaia! :: View User's Journal | Gaia Journals

Appearently, coffee is not that good for you. There have been debates for ages on whether or not coffee increased risk of heart attacks. While more research is needed, it seems kind of likely that caffeine is the culprit, especially for those who drink one or more a day. In a study of 2014 of heart attack victims and a matching number of those who had not, about 55 percent of heart attack victims had a gene that causes slow caffeine metabolism, and 54 percent who had not had heart attacks had that same gene. 'They found that when people with slow caffeine metabolism drank four or more cups of coffee each day, they had a 64 percent increased risk of heart attack.' People with a higher caffeine metabolism seem to have a reduced risk of heart attack. 'The younger the person was who had the gene that caused slow coffee metabolism, the higher the risk of drinking increasing amounts of coffee.'

(Before I get sued for plagerism, I got all this from the American Heart Association)

Personally, I have never drank coffee in my life, so I find this interesting so I can shove into the faces of people who think I should. I don't even drink caffeinated drinks. So the likelihood of me getting a heart attack and deing because I've had too much caffine is slim. Before people start saying 'there's caffeine in chocolate!', that is urban legend. Sure, some brands may have caffeine, but caffeine does not occur naturally in chocolate. What you all are thinking of is THEOBROMINE. I found a nice website called All About Chocolate and it talks about Theobromine and the effects it has on the body compared to the effects of caffeine. In general, Theobromine appears much more enjoyable. Theobromine increases well-being and is a mild anti-depressant, while caffeine increases alertness and increases emotional distress. The two are related, but not the same, elsewise I'd have to restrain myself from chocolate, seeing how Theobromine seems to occur naturally in chocolate.

Calling Theobromine 'caffeine' is like calling apes 'humans'. They're closely related, but the differences are obvious. That and caffeine is physically addictive while Theobromine is not. Caffeine does have withdrawal symptoms. Those who claim chocolate is addictive are just mentally addicted to the taste. I never said I wasn't. wink

(I have credited both the sites I have quoted and taken stuff from so I had better not see lawyers coming after me for copyright infringement. I don't claim this information for my own!)