Thursday, August 15, 2002


stop the presses & the secrets of metabolism. . .

alert: just received an incredible review of a california coffee, supreme bean. someone i respect intensely has just told me this is the best coffee he's ever, ever had. call or email for the catalog. try this one pronto; i intend to.

i've always wondered about the different effects coffee has on different people. obviously, everyone has a unique metabolism.

however, i've pondered whether those who can drink 6 or even 10 cups of coffee a day with nary a twitch or toss in their sleep were born that way, or developed a tolerance. like many people, i've personally experienced that when i was in college, i could drink pots and pots of coffee with little effect, whereas when i turned 30, that 4th cup would keep me up a little later. meanwhile, mr. right has had great trouble with even small amounts of caffeine for most of his life.

now i'm down to 1 or 2 cups a day, and i demand a higher-quality, more rewarding cup. i'm drinking less coffee not because it bothers me, as much as health studies suggest that women shouldn't drink more than 3 cups a day anyway. i also tend to drink it in the morning, because i find that if i have any an hour or so before yoga, my balance poses aren't quite as nice.

so i was pleased today to read that science has discovered the reason coffee effects us all differently: it all depends on how the caffeine binds with a brain chemical, a protein called darpp-32. the combination of darpp-32 and caffeine inhibits another brain substance, kinase a. what surprised me about the article however was the speculation that the amount and effect of these chemicals seemed to vary by genetics: mice bred to lack the darpp-32 were totally immune to coffee!

clearly other mechanisms must also be involved; this would explain why so many of us have the experience of our caffeine tolerance decreasing as we age. . .

posted by fortune | 6:17 PM | top | link to this | email this: | | | 0 comments