Ten Important Reasons
to Avoid Caffeine

by Stephen Cherniske

Stephen A. Cherniske is a renowned health educator. With a bachelor's degree from the State University of New York at Albany and a master's degree in nutrition from Columbia Pacific University, Mr. Cherniske has over 30 years of clinical, research and teaching experience. His latest book, Caffeine Blues, is a must reading for all health seekers.

1. Caffeine Blues is not a bad-news book.
The bad news is what happens if you DON'T read it. Caffeine is an addictive drug that contributes to a long list of disease. The book provides the information you need to avoid those health problems. Such as anxiety, insomnia, panic attacks, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, eye and vision problems gastrointestinal disease, miscarriage, etc.

2. The Caffeine Cover-up.
This critical information is not provided by the caffeine industry. In fact, they're working overtime to make sure you DON'T learn about caffeine's proven deleterious effects.

3. Informed Choice.
I'm not saying that everyone should stop drinking coffee, tea and soft drinks. Rather I believe that people should make informed choices, and until this book was published, that was impossible to do. The book provides an easy quiz to enable the reader to determine, first of all, how much caffeine they are consuming in a day. Usually people are shocked. Next, the book provides a clear and easy way to evaluate how that quantity of caffeine may be harming you. And third, the book provides an easy and painless program for reducing or eliminating your intake of caffeine.

4. Caffeine DOES NOT give you energy.
This is the greatest myth that has been perpetuated by the caffeine industry. Scientifically, you cannot measure any increase in energy provided by caffeine. You can measure higher levels of stress, as evidenced by spikes in stress hormones, elevations in blood pressure and heart rate, but no one would claim that these are positive benefits.

5. There ARE ways to increase your body's production of energy.
This has been my special area of research for 20 years (including years on the faculty of the American College of Sports Medicine, and advisor to the U.S. Olympic Team). Caffeine Blues includes this breakthrough material so that readers can begin to experience greater levels of health, energy and vitality at any age and in any condition.

6. Caffeine DOES NOT improve learning or memory.
In fact the exact opposite is true. I have scientific studies showing that caffeine as normally consumed can reduce cerebral flow by as much as 30%. That means less oxygen to the brain and reduced memory and cognition.

7. Caffeine DOES NOT give you a lift.
Caffeine is referred to as a mood elevator but this is inaccurate. If you take a person who doesn't drink caffeine and give them some, it doesn't elevate their mood. It makes them uncomfortable and tense. In habitual users, caffeine appears to elevate mood, but research clearly illustrates that it's simply enabling them to avoid the depression and fatigue associated with withdrawal. It's a classic addiction scenario. If you deprive a smoker of their cigarettes, they feel miserable. You give them a cigarette, they feel much better. Does that mean cigarettes give you a lift, or are somehow good for you?

8. Women's Health.
Caffeine is far more damaging to women, and Caffeine Blues contains an entire chapter devoted to women's health issues. It Highlights the effects of caffeine on bone mass and fracture risk, heart disease, anxiety and panic attack, menopause, PMS, anemia, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, depression, fertility and conception disorders and complications of pregnancy and childbirth.

9. Children's Health.
Increasingly, children are becoming the primary target market for the caffeine industry. The strategy? Addict them at an early age in order to gain life-long customs. Caffeine Blues uncovers the darker side of this industry, as it markets products with ever-increasing amounts of caffeine in ever-increasing serving sizes. It explains how soft-drink companies ignored congress, health departments and medical associations and went directly for the promised land of market share: the schools. Today, in direct defiance of USDA guidelines, soft drink machines line the halls, cafeterias and walkways of schools from coast to coast. It is a matter of great urgency, and the health and welfare of an entire generation is at stake.

10. Ecology: pesticides, rain forest destruction and land use issues.
Coffee is the largest agricultural commodity in the world. More coffee is grown and traded than wheat rice, corn or livestock. More than fruit, vegetables or any staple of the diet, COFFEE is number one. In fact, it's the third leading commodity after petroleum and strategic metals. More than automobiles, steel, and technology. Add all of those together and it couldn't touch coffee. Why? Because coffee is addictive.

There's another problem. Coffee is also the most heavily sprayed of all agricultural commodities. It is grown in regions where there are very few restrictions, regulations or protections regarding pesticide use. The environmental impact is tremendous. Coffee doesn't grow in Kansas, it grows in and around the rain forest. In fact, rain forest has been destroyed to plant coffee farms.

The fact is that coffee is a terribly inefficient and incredibly labor-intensive crop. Coffee is the seed of a cherry from a tree. Coffee cherries ripen at different times, so they have to be picked by hand. It takes approximately 2,000 Arabica cherries to produce just one pound of roasted coffee. Since each cherry contains two beans, your one pound of coffee is derived from 4,000 coffee beans. The average coffee tree only produces one to two pounds of mastered coffee per year and takes four to five years to produce its first crop.

Do the math. The world demand is 6 billion kg per year. That's 13 billion pounds. If the average tree produces one to two pounds of roasted coffee per year, this 13 billion pounds of coffee requires at least 7 billion coffee trees. The average farmer gets about 100 trees per acre, which means that 70 million acres of the most fertile land on this planet is devoted entirely to growing a product with no nutritional value; one that actually has proven and significant anti-nutrient properties, that is addictive and that contributes to a long list of disease states.