Detoxing the Java Junkie :: Holistic Healing :: Detoxification and Cleansing

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Detoxing the Java Junkie
by author Tanya Coad

Steaming, rich, dark, alluring and hailing from a distant land! It’s the world’s most popular stimulant–coffee. This humble bean is the second most traded commodity in the world. Only petroleum is bigger.

To many, the very word “coffee” evokes nostalgia, familiar times, warm visits with friends, aromatic beans being scooped and ground, exotic export locales like Arabia, Africa, South and Central America. What’s not to love about coffee? Well, as it turns out, quite a lot.

Coffee has been incriminated in everything from insomnia to cancer. While many of these reports are subject to debate, the bottom line is coffee contains caffeine, which is a powerful drug. A drug taken by four out of five North Americans on any given day. The Journal of the American Medical Association actually identifies a disease called “caffeinism.” Reported symptoms are irritability, insomnia, weight and appetite loss, chills, feeling of flushing and occasional fever.

The case against caffeine is mounting to such a point that the advocacy group Centre for Science in Public Interest (CSPI) has filed a petition supported by 34 scientists and 10 health consumer organizations urging the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to require that the caffeine content of foods be printed on food and drug labels. The American Medical Association has also filed a separate petition.

Caffeine Plus the Extras

Caffeine is not the only harmful substance in coffee, however. The low-level pesticide residues found in non-organic beans are a concern because people drink so much coffee. Tannin, an essential oil found in coffee and tea, is a suspected carcinogen. It can cause gastrointestinal distress and constipation. In addition, the fats and oils in coffee, even decaffeinated coffee, are potent elevators of low density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, the “bad” type of cholesterol.

Another danger, according to naturopath Jonn Matsen in his book Eating Alive, is that the white filtres often used for making coffee may contain dioxin as a result of the paper bleaching process; this dioxin can migrate from the filtres into coffee. Dioxin causes cancer, cell mutations and many other harmful effects at extraordinarily low concentrations in the human body. “What’s more, coffee goes directly into the gut, without any of the protective effects of fibre, meaning that dioxin absorption is quite high,” writes Matsen.

Decaffeinated coffee is not the solution to the caffeine problem. Methylene chloride is the solvent of choice used to take the caffeine out of coffee. And while it’s safer than its predecessor, trichlorethylene, it’s also a known carcinogen.

More than the Shakes

Caffeine is an alkaloid, a compound known as a methylxanthine. This natural chemical is found in coffee, cocoa, tea and cola nuts. Caffeine acts immediately upon the central nervous system, inducing a sense of energized mental clarity. It also encourages the liver to release some of its stored sugar, giving the consumer a noticeable boost of vitality, but these benefits are outweighed by a variety of side effects.

While coffee can raise blood-sugar levels, giving us a temporary “lift,” the pancreas and liver must then work to try to decrease the sugar to a more stable level. When blood sugar drops, cravings develop for more sweets, coffee, alcohol, cigarettes or some other “comfort fix.”

High coffee consumption has been linked to both a variety of cancers and to cardiovascular disease. Earl Mindell, PhD reports that “people who drink five cups of coffee daily have a 50 percent greater chance of having heart attacks than non-coffee drinkers.”

Coffee causes anxiety, irritability, headaches and enzyme depletion. It’s diuretic nature increases calcium loss through the urine, making it particularly hard on the bones. Caffeine is also known to interfere with iron absorption, as well as robbing the body of potassium, vitamin C, B vitamins, inositol, zinc and other minerals.

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Tanya Coad is a health and nutrition researcher and vegetarian cook who has worked in the health food industry for many years.

Source: alive #221, March 2001

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