The Reasons Why We Need To Decrease Taking Caffeine?

April 22, 2010 by Michael Sylvester  
Filed under pregnancy

When we see those two lines appearing that confirm we are definitely pregnant, there are many things that women give up immediately. One of the main ones, and sometimes the hardest, is caffeine. Our several cups in the morning are replaced with something like herbal tea.

This is one of the areas where the old definitely disagree with the young. Tell you older female relatives that you have given up caffeine and they will probably laugh. This is the point where you will get the story about how they consumed gallons of the stuff and their children were all fine. A low birth weight and pre term births have been linked to caffeine, so why take the risk?

Consume more that 300 mg a day and your baby could be at risk. Drink over the recommended amount during your first trimester and the risk of miscarriage is slightly raised.

As well as the above risks, there are many other reasons why you should cut down on, or cut out altogether, caffeine while pregnant. One of the main ones is that it provides no nutrition to your growing baby at all, and this is a time when good nutrition is value.

Good nutrition is more important than ever during pregnancy, and as caffeine has no nutritional values whatsoever, that is another good reason to give it the boot. There are many more reasons why caffeine should be eradicated from your diet during pregnancy.

Caffeine is also a well known stimulant, so can cause headaches, insomnia and also cause your heart rate to rise significantly. These all put stress on your growing fetus.

It also makes heartburn even worse, and this is bad enough in pregnancy anyway. Cutting out caffeine will make this easier to cope with.

There is a great misconception regarding decaf. Although the amount is greatly reduced, it does still contain caffeine. So by changing you can have an extra cup or two, but don’t drink it in the quantity that you used to or you will go way over your 300mg without even realizing it.

Aside from Coffee, this author also frequently blogs on Rancilio Silvia espresso machine and commercial coffee machines.

Does Oolong Tea Cause Headaches?

May 9, 2009 by Jared Rothe  
Filed under Caffeine and Pregnancy

Oolong tea is a mixture of both black and green teas and because of this some may wonder does Oolong tea cause headaches. The fact is that Oolong tea has been around for centuries and it has been believed that drinking this tea can relieve headaches! So what is the real reason for headaches? Let’s look at what makes up Oolong tea for a better understanding of why a person may experience headaches.

All teas go throught a fermentation process. Black tea goes through the process and through that black tea contains about 40mg of caffeine per cup. So this type of tea should be drank in limited quantities. It so happens that oolong tea is made up of some black tea. So if you drink a lot of oolong tea headaches can occur.

The other mixture of oolong tea is green tea. Green tea contains less caffeine per cut around 20mg. It contains many antioxidants that help to fight cancer and heart disease.

Doctors from all over the world have found that drinking tea in limited quantities when you have a headache actually relieves the headache. They recommend it in different amounts depending on your body size and build. The people of China have been using it for many years for this medicinal purpose.

People will become dependent on the caffeine from tea if they drink too much. Sometimes headaches occur when you go through withdrawals by not drinking enough tea or caffeine. On the opposite if you never drink beverages that contain caffeine you can also shock your body and headaches can happen.

Additionally, oolong tea can cause headaches from all the powerful antioxidants it contains. The antioxidants are drank to remove free radicals, waste, and toxins from the body. When you are going through this cleansing process your body can produce headaches while the toxins are being flushed out.

So does Oolong tea cause headaches? Not in the essence that it’s the tea that is causing the headache, it may be one of the underlying reasons mentioned above.

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Be Weary Mean Taurine

April 12, 2009 by Dr. Frederik Gupta  
Filed under Caffeine and Pregnancy

Seven billion cans of energy drinks are consumed every year. Most energy drinks contain highly questionable ingredients such as taurine, introduced by Redbull over 20 years ago. Red Bull added Taurine to its energy drink 20 years ago. No one ever asked why up til now.

Several studies indicate that taurine and caffeine together are a highly toxic mix (see Taurine and Caffeine). So taurine in energy drinks apparently is not only useless, several studies seem to indicate that it is actually damaging for your health, especially when it is synthetic (see Heart Problems with Synthetic Taurine).

Because of these and other studies, taurine is banned in energy drinks in many European countries. Other contries are examining this issue very cafefully.

There is no doubt that energy drinks make us feel more mentally alert and help us perform. I drink some myself once in a while before a long drive or when working late at night. The same way I drink coffee or tea: as a stimulant when I need it.

The problem with most energy drinks is that, for marketing purposes, they include all kinds of other unnecessary and sometimes dangerous ingredients (artificial sweeteners, High Fructose, artificial vitamins). This increases the likelihood that at some time in the future, some health issues will develop. One could argue that many drugs currently being reviewed by the FDA also have potentially overwhelming side-effects. This is why the FDA reviews and rejects drugs where the negatives outweigh the postives. The FDA does not review energy drinks.

So is there another choice? Coffee on its own is not a bad alternative as it doesn’t come with all the artificial ingredients found in the Red Bulls and other products. Then there are some natural energy drinks which basically contain a stimulant (coffee, guarana or tea) plus a minimum of other ingredients. I recommend Guyaki Yerba Matte, GURU Energy Drink, and Sambason Energy. In the case of GURU and Sambason, they also have gone the extra step of making them with entirely organic ingredients.

I am sometimes amazed at how the truth sometimes comes out in the oddest manner. World leading bad boy music icon Kanye West just annouced his work on an organic and natural energy drink with GURU Energy Drinks. Imagine the irony, bad boy rapper sees the light and leads America back to a healthier lifestyle! Visionary indeed.

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Is Coffee Good Or Bad For You?

If you ever conduct a survey on the topic: “What wakes you up in the morning? What boosts your energy level and makes you feel fresh and activated?” …You will no doubt get this answer: Coffee or tea, both of which have a high level of caffeine, the coffee having a larger amount.

Caffeine is basically a drug which is gathered from tea leaves, kola nuts and coffee beans. It is widely used in medicines, chocolates, and even flavorings. Caffeine is highly addictive which enslaves its addict and increases his reliance on caffeine.

Caffeine addiction is one of the biggest problems in the world today, but people will never admit that they are facing this problem. Caffeine is widely popular because it helps to keep the body more alert, it increases the heart rate of the body, and it also increases the sugar level in the blood.

But caffeine’s negative symptoms are manifold. Regular use of caffeine causes the water level of the body to drop as caffeine is a diuretic causing frequent urination. It also reduces the span of deep sleep and the person becomes so addicted to caffeine that if its level per day is reduced the person will show negative behavior. Frustration, nausea, migraines, fatigue, lack of concentration and muscle pain are some of the symptoms of withdrawing from caffeine.

Caffeine should be avoided by pregnant women as it is known to have negative effects on the unborn child. Caffeine can enter the placenta and the fetus can be negatively affected by its strong effect and it can increase the risk of miscarriage. Caffeine is associated with lower birth weight of the infant and increased pain during labor. Pregnant women should cut out caffeine in their diet totally or confer with their doctor for more consultation.

A person will become more prone to panic attacks and nervousness if his intake of caffeine is three to four cups a day. Adrenaline level also shoots up due to caffeine which causes insomnia. This wakefulness is especially experienced by night shift workers as they cannot catch shut-eye even in the day. Dark circles under the eyes, edginess and jumpy nerves are a few more disadvantages of a high dosage of daily caffeine.

People also acquire cardiac problems and diabetes because of the rise in the heart rate, blood pressure and blood sugar level. Moreover those suffering from gastric problems and stomach acidity should guard themselves and take caution with caffeine as it also causes stomach aches and increases the bowel movements. Bowel disorders are a very common side effect of caffeine.

Caffeine can trigger yearnings for food and thus result in obesity and weight gain. The disadvantages of caffeine seem limitless standing opposite to its advantages. Though coffee can revitalize the body, its effect remains only for four to six hours. Later the body hungers for the instantaneous power. This can induce dependence of caffeine. A healthy life can only be achieved if a person discontinues relying on caffeine for instant vivacity. Reducing caffeine from the daily diet should be accepted as a challenge.

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