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A DRUG IN YOUR MUG

In the sixties, they would have called it Picasso on a bad acid trip. Fortunately there were no human beings involved, but a scientist in a white coat took a bunch of spiders into the laboratory, asked Igor to document the whole thing on a video camera, and then taped the spiders — after having been fed a controlled substance — as they spun their webs. And the spiders, who normally produced beautiful, symmetrical works of art worthy of the genus Arachnid, instead
spun out confusing, contorted, aberrant webs with no pattern at all. They were junk. Now, what illicit drug did Dr. Mervyn G. Hardinge inject into these guinea-pig spiders? Were they floating on PCP or Ecstasy? Were they high on California Gold marijuana? Nothing so glamorous as that — and I’m sure Loma Linda University’s School of Public Health wouldn’t have wanted anything that notorious even on their campus. No, all the mad scientist gave the spiders was . . . caffeine. That’s it. An equivalent dose to a 155-pound man drinking two cups of coffee.

We’re resuming a very interesting radio series with this title: A FREE EXTRA DECADE OF LIFE. A wonderful new book came out recently from our friends at Word Publishing, entitled Live 10 Healthy Years Longer, and it spells out for us, in pretty plain English, how a test group of more than 27,000 people have proved that you can reorder your life in something called the “Live-Longer Lifestyle” . . . and add eight, ten, even 13 extra years to your life expectancy.

That’s all well and good, but what does it have to do with the drug-induced works of art by these stoked-up spiders? Well, here’s a little Monday factoid for us to consider: A whopping 74% of the men and women in that Live-Longer Lifestyle program were maintaining a caffeine-free diet. They just don’t use it — period. The healthiest people living on your block are very likely not drinking coffee, tea, or Coca-Cola Classic.

We sometimes don’t take very seriously the bad things that happen to the white rats and the spiders in the laboratory, so let me tell you a human side to the spider web story. Here’s how authors Jan Kuzma and Cecil Murphey describe what happened:

“Researchers tested a group of typists who had used no caffeine for at least two weeks. Their typing was accurate, and they correctly estimated their speed. In the second part of the test, each participant drank two cups of coffee. The typists’ accuracy decreased considerably. However, in their self-evaluations, they thought they were doing much better in speed and accuracy than when they had not used caffeine. The apparent improvement they felt in performance after imbibing caffeine was illusory.”

Well, setting spiders to the side for the moment, let’s ask this question: what does caffeine really do to us? Many of us have been to conventions, I’m sure, where all the blunky-eyed people attending that 8:30 a.m. workshop in the Hilton Hotel Salon B simply wouldn’t think of starting the session without a jolt of coffee to keep them awake. Within 30 minutes of having that morning cup, the caffeine reaches its peak level in our blood, and we’re in business.

The bad thing is this. True, you do get an energy spike from a cup of coffee. However, it’s “borrowed” energy. It’s not real. You pay for the “up” now with a bigger “down” a little later on. Yes, you can then have a second cup and go up the escalator again, but you just keep piling up a debt that has to be paid off. Caffeine energy simply is not real.

“When you ingest caffeine,” write Jan and Cecil, “it doubles the level of adrenaline in your bloodstream. That’s why it shocks your system. The adrenaline causes your liver to rapidly dump glucose (blood sugar) into your system.” Then they add this warning: “Caffeine activates your body’s self-preservation faculties. The energy you get is the kind intended to protect you from danger in emergencies. This stresses your whole body, especially your nervous system. Adrenaline produces a high level of tension that you can normally relieve only by physical action. If you don’t take physical action, this tension can last for hours and produce headache, nervousness, sleepnessness, and other unpleasant symptoms of stress.”

How many of us can say: “Been there, done that” to at least part of that description?
But here is the longer downside, the full health list . . . and again, this is verbatim from the new book: Live 10 Healthy Years Longer. Caffeine: elevates blood sugar — that’s what gives you the feeling of an energy surge. It can aggravate hypoglycemia. It boosts your blood pressure. It stimulates the central nervous system, which can override and block out your body’s natural need for rest. It can give you an irregular heartbeat. Caffeine increases urinary calcium and magnesium losses — two contributing factors to decreased bone health. Caffeine constricts blood vessels. It increases stomach acid secretion — which can start you on the road toward an ulcer. It can cause tremors, irritability, and nervousness. It disrupts sleep patterns and causes insomnia. It increases anxiety and depression. And one more, for at least half of you listening out there: it can heighten symptoms of PMS.

By the way, here’s yet another negative . . . but it’s one that can be easily fixed. “Heavy caffeine consumption,” according to these studies, “elevates your serum cholesterol and increases your risk of heart disease.” But in a good-news sidebar, Jan and Cecil immediately respond by telling us that any average caffeine user who gives up the habit can score an almost guaranteed 10% drop in their cholesterol level.

We’ve been mentioning all through this health series the test group involved in what was called AHS — an Adventist Health Study – which documented the habits of more than 27,000 men and women in the Seventh-day Adventist Church, which tends to follow a very healthy lifestyle, including little or no caffeine. In a related study, running a full 20 years, involving just under 24,000 participants, Loma Linda University provided a definite link — not white rats or spiders this time — between coffee consumption and three kinds of cancer: colon, bladder, and bowel. And even just two cups a day put people in the danger zone for increased fatalities. Ouch. Again . . . a preventable ouch.

By the way, here’s a caffeine connection for you moms and dads to consider, because while our fifth-graders may not be drinking a gallon of Folgers every day, they’re getting more than their share of caffeine by way of soda. And what researchers call “caffeinism syndrome,” indistinguishable from anxiety neurosis, happens when a person overloads. Especially children, if they get a big dose, can demonstrate hyperactive behavior. Jan and Cecil tell a story about a Christian boarding school where they had a pretty stiff policy: “no caffeine-containing soda on bus trips.” An incoming principal, new to the school, came out of the starting gate trying to enforce that no-caffeine rule on the first bus trip. Well, the students did their usual complaining and moaning, with all the typical remarks about concentration camps and Neanderthal principals and poor persecuted us, etc., but they ended up having an orderly, quiet trip to wherever they were going.

On the way home, though, the kids were dog-tired, and for some reason, the principal decided to be a nice guy and relax the caffeine rule. Okay. Next time they stopped, the kids all piled out and guzzled up on Coke, Pepsi, Dr. Pepper, and Mountain Dew. Guess what happened? They went crazy. Bedlam broke out on the bus, and that caffeinism syndrome — in the form of hyperactivity — took over the whole rest of the trip. Without realizing it, the kids just got louder and louder and louder, and nobody could control them.

Now, friend, let me say this. We don’t come on the radio to tell you what to do. Coffee is undeniably a part of the American experience, and we all know what they say about something being as American as apple pie, Chevrolet, and an ice-cold Coke. I know that. I know what a deeply ingrained habit caffeine can be. At the same time, it’s simply an undisputed fact that the people in this Live-Longer Lifestyle, those who are adding eight, ten, or even 13 years to their life . . . they’re not putting caffeine into their system. Or they’re at least cutting way, way, way back. And the more you cut back, the more fully you partake of the benefits of this incredible lifestyle of wellness. It’s just simply a case of “A” always leading to “B.” The link is there for all to see.

Cecil and Jan point out, correctly, that if you decide to go cold turkey on a caffeine habit, you can pretty well expect a bad week ahead. The worst symptoms — headaches, fatigue, apathy, anxiety — generally peak after about 36 hours, but it can be a rough seven days. You can ease the transition with a lot of water and fruit juice.

Well, friend, let’s close with this, because there’s a God in heaven who wants you to have those extra years. And perhaps it sounds trite to suggest that a good Bible verse can make up for what you’ve been getting from that good-to-the-last-drop cup of Maxwell House. But here’s Philippians 4:13, as rendered by the great Message paraphrase . . . and remember that all 27,000 people in that Live-Longer Lifestyle study group were born-again Christians who got their daily strength from these words:

“Whatever I have, wherever I am, I can make it through anything in the One who makes me what I am.” In the King James: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”