Caffeine: The Right Way

The word “coffee” comes from the ancient Arabic word qahweh which means “gives strength”. The computer data-base at the Colgan Institute contains over 600 citations on caffeine, stretching back two centuries. So the effects of caffeine, the main stimulant in coffee, have been known for thousand of years.

Properly used, caffeine is a bonanza. Dr Melvin Williams and his colleagues at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia have produced excellent reviews, showing that caffeine stimulates the our  central nervous system, increases the release of adrenalin, increases the use of body fat as fuel, and spares glycogen.

There are also two detrimental effects of caffeine that commonly being cited: it is a diuretic which will make us lose water in our body, and is a thermogenic which means that it raises our metabolic rate and our body’s temperature.  The athletes are frequently being warned that taking caffeine can make them dehydrated. But nearly all the studies showing these effects were done with inactive folk.

Recent research using athletes as subjects, found no diuresis or thermo genesis. Dr Baraket Falk and his colleagues at McMaster University, Ontario, gave endurance runners caffeine at 7.5mg/kg bodyweight (560 mg for a 75kg man). The dose had no effect on water loss, and did not raise temperature any higher without it, in men running a treadmill to exhaustion at 70-75% of VO2max. That's about as fast as you can go in long endurance exercise. So forget those two old bogeys of sedentary caffeine use. Caffeine on the run is a different animal.

The most common beneficial finding on caffeine use is an increase in burning of body fat as fuel. Compared with controls, up to 100% more body fat is used by subjects given with caffeine. If your body is using more fat for energy, then it is sparing your muscle glycogen, and therefore will extend your time to exhaustion in long endurance events. One proviso: if you load carbohydrates, so that your muscles are filled with glycogen above its normal levels, then your body is more primed to use glycogen, and caffeine fails to increase the burning of fat. Your body always takes the easiest of its many alternative routes. Supercharge one fuel source and it will use that first.

We also have to take the caffeine at the right time. Although many exercise studies have given caffeine one hour before exercise, studies that centers on measurement of our body’s free fatty acid metabolism, show that our body's fat-burn reaction to caffeine will only begin 3 hours after ingestion. 

As a final tip. If you drink coffee to get your caffeine, which is a better way to do it than taking pills, keep away from the inexpensive coffees prepared from the beans of Coffea Robusta. They make a sour brew, brown that is hell on the gut. Go and get Coffea Arabica, like Guatemalan Antigua, Kenyan AA or 100% Columbian.  

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