Danger of Coffee
Since I have gotten pregnant, coffee was the hardest thing for me to give up. It was difficult, but I have since replaced it with tea. It helps me to remain strong when I remind myself of the facts surrounding caffeine and coffee.
When caffeine is abused, it is damaging to your metabolism and can give you hormone inbalances. The reason is because caffeine is a stimulant to the central nervous system. This stimulation makes your endocrine system think that you are being threatened in some way. With that third or fourth cup of coffee at your desk each day, you kick your body into fight or flight mode while you're just checking e-mail. Your adrenals begin to pump out epinephrine and norepinephrine. These two stress hormones set into motion a cascade of fat building hormonal actions. Also, your blood vessels constrict, making you feel like your blood sugar is dipping even further. Ever notice how you crave someth
ing sweet somewhere between the first and second cup of coffee? That's your body is reacting to a feeling of blood sugar shortage. The acids in coffee are also harmful to your body.
The acids in one cup of coffee will elevate your cortisol for up to fourteen hours. Now, if you sip caffeinated drinks all day, you switch on your stress reactor again and again. This causes your short term energy to burn out, and forces you to grab another cup. This becomes a cycle of hormone and cortisol release and effectively turns you into a coffee addict. Caffeine can also affect your adrenals.
Caffeine abuse overstimulates and eventually wears down your adrenals; it also inflicts the long-term effects of real stress on your body; Oxygen flow to your brain slows, your immune system is suppressed, the excess cortisol actually increases your appetite and encourages fat to collect onto your mid-line. To make matters worse, when it's time to restore your body with rest, the caffeine you drank during the daytime can prevent you from getting the adequate sleep you need at night - and lack of sleep also creates insulin resistance.
The phosphoric acid in colas and coffee interferes with calcium absorption. In addition to being brutal on your bones, this calcium deficiency, and the caffeine itself, can make the symptoms of PMS much worse, including increased breast tenderness, nervousness, and irritability.
