Dump the Junk: Reasons to Dump Caffeine

I recommend to all my patients that they limit caffeine intake and completely detox for at least 14 days twice per year. And I getta lotta push back. Why? Probably because mostly of my patients have some degree of adrenal dysregulation, and caffeine gets them going in the morning, and keeps them going during the day.

What's so bad about that? I took a page out of Dr. Daniel Amen's book, Change Your Brain, Change Your Body. He's the psychiatrist who is all over PBS with his cute black jeans and balding head.

Caffeine restricts blood flow to the brain. When you restrict blood flow to the brain, you get premature aging, lousy memory and brain fog.

Caffeine makes your sleep suck. Sleep, you know, is key to brain health, skin rejuvenation, repair work globally in the body, and weight management (particularly appetite control).

Caffeine dehydrates your brain and your bod. Your brain is 80% water and needs lots of water to keep hummin' along. Result? You're less likely to think quickly.

Caffeine inflames you. Amen quotes two studies which showed that 200mg caffeine (about 2 cups of coffee) raises homocysteine, a biomarker for inflammation and heart disease.


Caffeine linked to the muffin top. Come for the vanity and stay for the sanity. Caffeine raises cortisol, which makes you store fat at your mid-section for a rainy day.

So if you have not yet completely kicked caffeine, do it slowly over the next 7 days. Stay off for 14 days. Report back what happens with your sleep and executive functioning. Bet it'll change for the better. And if you think you may have adrenal fatigue, test your cortisol and DHEAS levels.

Coffee Hijacks Thyroid Levels

Do you take thyroid medication? Judging from my integrative medicine practice, I believe we have an epidemic of underfunctioning thyroid on our hands. Most national organizations of endocrinologists have issued guidelines that if you have symptoms of low thyroid function, a TSH (Thyroid Stimulating Hormone) < 2.5 makes the diagnosis, yet most conventional physicians use the older range of 0.5-5 as normal. Tighter range serves you better.

In other words, you may need a boost to your thyroid function, which I usually approach in a step-wise function. I start with certain nutrients (Vitamin D, iodine, copper, zinc, selenium), and if that isn't enough, herbal therapies. If that is insufficient, I'll augment with natural thryoid hormone, and usually prefer to start with glandular therapies such as Armour or Naturethroid.

If you are already on thyroid hormone, a new study from the journal Thyroid may affect your use of coffee in the morning (hopefully you've joined our Cleanse virtually and are either off or almost weaned off of the junk by now). According to the recent article, in folks who consume coffee at the time of taking their thyroid medication, we see a 25-57% drop in T4, one of the thyroid hormones, compared to non-coffee drinkers. This adverse effect persists for up to one hour.

I tell my patients to take their thyroid hormone first thing in the morning with a small sip of filtered water, and nothing else to eat or drink for 20 to 60 minutes after. Most of my patients are able to do 20 minutes during the week, and 60 on the weekend. But many of them have a wicked caffeine habit, and that small sip just might be of coffee. Based on this study, I will ask my patients to wait an hour if they are having coffee. Time to go back to the filtered water, and to wait 60 minutes before you cup of Joe, or better yet, before your cup of hot water with 1/4 lemon and cayenne.

Thanks to Mary Shomon for bringing the Thyroid article to my attention.

Caffeine Makes Perimenopause & Menopause Worse

Many of you know how much I love Cynthia Gorney's latest synthesis (from the New York Times Magazine last month) of where we are as we face perimenopausal chaos and need to decide whether to take estrogen.

She describes the predictable ebb and flow of estradiol, the main estrogen we make from our teens through mid-40s, and how that predictability comes crashing down into wild, jagged fluctuations in perimenopause. Estradiol has over 400 jobs in your body, so there's a good chance you'll notice by way of increased moodiness, hot flashes, disrupted sleep, low libido, fatigue, achey joints and the like.

Meanwhile, we're cleansing here at the Gottfried Center. We're off caffeine, sugar, alcohol, gluten and dairy. Just wanted to catch you up on some of that bad things that caffeine does to our perimenopausal bods: it lowers estradiol and testosterone. Testosterone is the main hormonal driver of libido and vitality. Caffeine also causes hot flashes and night sweats. Further, in perimenopause, caffeine dramatically increases cardiac reactivity -- meaning your pulse rises, your blood pressure jumps up, and your more jittery than before perimenopause.

Stay off the stuff!

D1 of Our Group Cleanse -- Join Us

D1 of Cleanse. Join us virtually?

first step: remove caffeine over the next 7 days. if you're quite addicted to coffee or black tea, take it slow. best to first switch to black tea if you're a coffee drinker, green tea if you're addicted to black & white tea if you're into green. My fave substitute: warm cup of filtered water with fresh Meyer lemon & a pinch of cayenne. That and skin brushing in the morning (get your skin brush at Whole Foods) gets you going so you don't need the caffeine.

Know that caffeine INCREASES cortisol, anxiety & sugar cravings. And thickens your waist. And makes you retain fluid.

Get off caffeine completely for 14 days.