Jon Christian Ryter -- Is caffeine the new miracle drug?

IS CAFFEINE THE NEW MIRACLE DRUG?

By Jon Christian Ryter
March 16, 2011
NewsWithViews.com

If you want to increase the odds of not having a stroke or missing that severe nervous tension headache that increasingly plagues you because of the stress at work, or trying to figure out how to make your paycheck stretch from one payday to the next, drink coffee. Not decaf. High octane, fully caffeinated coffee.

For years the medical community has known the curative affect of caffeine, but because the social progressive do-gooders in our society today have decided that caffeine is bad for you, they have lobbied against caffeine. They also lobbied in favor of vegetable shortening against—ugh—lard; and against butter in favor of the high cholesterol, heart attack-causing margarine. And, of course, favoring vegan diets that exclude red meat when the medical evidence shows that food cooked in good old-fashioned lard is better for you than vegetable shortening. And, fresh churned butter is healthier than margarine. Or that calorie-rich cane sugar or high fructose corn syrup is far better for you than aspartame sweeteners since aspartic acid is a neuexicter (that ultimately cause problems with the human central nervous system). Why would health officials or the Food & Drug Administration [FDA] actively promote synthetic food substances over natural food substances? Two reasons. First, the social progressives live in a "Chicken Little Society" in which the sky is going to fall and if society is not prepared for the day it happens, bad things will happen. So, they allow bad things to happen as they prepare for bad things to happen. Second, and most important, they do it because it is profitable to do it. Very, very profitable. When the princes of industry create new products, they need to upset the market place to quickly gain market share and displace the current industry leader. The best way is to have the government declare the old product leader to be, if not dangerous, then at least not healthy.

For example, in 1901 a German chemist named Wilhelm Normann discovered the process of hydrogenating vegetable fats by chemically creating a solidifying agent that later became known as trans fats (which we know today as something that clogs up our arteries). Normann patented his process in 1903. Chemist Edwin Kayser acquired Normann's patent to make bar soap. Proctor & Gamble hired Kayser, who use Normann's patent to solidify vegetable oil into a solid and, in the process, created Crisco™ Shortening in 1911. Crisco™ was first sold through J.M. Smucker, the jam maker (which was owned by Proctor & Gamble). Using the financial muscle Proctor & Gamble possesses, their lobbyists convinced the growing federal bureaucracy in the 1930s and 1940s that protein-rich animal-based lard was not as healthy as vegetable-based shortening.

When the New Deal Congress enacted the Federal Food, Drug & Cosmetic Act in 1938, Franklin D. Roosevelt's bureaucracy began promoting "safe foods" when in fact they were promoting the products manufactured by political donors and campaign activists not only for Roosevelt but members of the New Deal Congress. As Proctor & Gamble's marketing department added food coloring and "butter flavoring" to Crisco™ and created margarine, the dairy industry, which still had more political clout, had legislation created which required margarine to be sold in its "shortening" state—white. Margarine was sold in a sealed plastic bag. Contained in the bag was a yellow food coloring bubble. The consumer had to break the bubble and squeeze the bag until the food coloring was evenly mixed throughout the packet, and the white, flavored shortening became yellow "vegetable butter." If you are old enough, you remember squeezing the margarine bag.

As the agri-industry lobbied Congress and the FDA, suddenly we were told that butter was not good for us. Margarine was. Not true. Both have the same amount of calories. Butter is slightly higher in saturated fats at 8 grams compared to 5 grams. But, according to a 1994 Harvard Medical Study, eating margarine increases the likelihood of heart disease in women by 53% over eating the same amount of butter. Margarine is very high in trans fatty acids, and triples the risk for coronary heart disease. The trans fats in margarine decrease HDL cholesterol (the good cholesterol) and increases LDL (bad cholesterol).

Beginning in 2005, the US Dept. of Agriculture began to warn consumers of the dangers of trans fats, and the FDA now requires food manufacturers to list trans fat content on their nutrition facts labels. Yet, the American Medical Association persisted in telling people that switching from butter to margarine can greatly reduce blood cholesterol levels when the reality is, while the overall cholesterol count may lower, what actually lowers is the good cholesterol. The bad cholesterol usually remains static, or increases, creating a larger gap between the good and bad cholesterol that increases the risk of heart attack or stroke.

This battle has raged between those who want to control our lives because the princes of industry and barons of business need to control us in order to make their job easier by assuring that the products they manufacture for our consumption will be consumed. Those who pay, play. Oh, by the way, remember this about margarine—it's one molecule away from being plastic.

Anyway, back to coffee. Whew...after that, I need cup. Ah, yes...got that coffee. My own blend of two Columbians and one French roast. Now, where were we? Oh, yes. Coffee. And, of course, the milk or cream that goes in it. (No, I drink it black, but I needed to talk about milk for a minute.) Today we are told we need to drink decaf coffee. It's better for us. We are also told we should drink 1% to 2% milk. It's better for us. Right? No. Ask yourself a question. Pasteurized whole milk is 3.25% milkfat (farm bought whole milk is generally 4.0% to 4.5% milkfat). When you buy 1% to 2% milk, what happens to the milkfat that is extracted? It becomes whipping cream or butter. In other words, it becomes the most expensive milk product "products." An increased demand for butter and heavy cream means reducing the amount of milkfat in the milk we drink. The less milk fat in the glass of milk we drink, the more that glass of milk tastes like milky water. Thus, the need to "sell" the public on the health merits of low fat milk. Otherwise there is no "win-win" for the dairy companies who end up trading a "milk dollar" for a "cream dollar" or a "butter dollar"—or both. You get to keep both dollars if your marketing people and lobbyists convince the consumers that 1% or 2% milk is better for you than whole milk.

So, once again, why is caffeine-free coffee better for us? It isn't. Caffeine is an element that goes into many of the food products and pharmaceutical products we use today. And, you have to get the caffeine from somewhere, or you have to synthesize it in the laboratory. The full octane cola soft drinks you consume contain as much caffeine as a cup of full octane coffee but probably not as much caffeine that is found in a cup of black tea. (Tea actually contains more caffeine than coffee.) Caffeine, a bitter white crystalline alkaloid, was first isolated in coffee in 1820. Caffeine is found not only in coffee beans and tea leaves, but in hola nuts, in guarana berries, yaupon holly and in yerba mate. Even if they don't drink coffee, 90% of all adults consume some form of caffeine daily.

Which was one of the reasons that Swedish researcher Susanna Larsson of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm spent 10 years following 34,670 women, ages 49-83 with annual questionaires. In 2008, after finding evidence that women who drank more than one cup of coffee per day had a 22% to 25% less risk of suffering from a stroke, Larrson conducted a similar, short term study, on men, who drank coffee or tea, with similar results.

Larsson's findings join a growing body of research in which coffee and/or caffeine appears to contain a variety of hidden health perks from a reduced risk of prostate and/or colon cancer in men to reduced risks of heart attacks and strokes in both men and women. Coffee, one of the most popular drinks in the world is rich in antioxidants that improve heart health. In addition, studies have also shown that caffeine helps prevent cognitive decline and can boost vision health as well as prevent heart attacks and strokes.

The Swedish study parallels the findings in a 2009 study conducted in the United States. In that study, women who drank four or more cups of coffee daily were found to have a 20% less risk of stroke compared to women who drank one or less cups of coffee per day.

Subscribe to the NewsWithViews Daily News Alerts!

Claudette Brooks, a spokeswoman for the American Stroke Society told USA Today that "...we used to be worried that caffeine raises high blood pressure and causes increased heart rate, but it appears to be less risky than we thought. We're not sure what it is in coffee that is giving women this strong protection, though." I'm not a doctor or a medical practitioner of any sort, so I don't know how much caffeine protects people from eye disease, memory loss, heart attacks, strokes, or cancer. But I do know that as long as it isn't politically correct to say caffeine is an antioxidant that is good you, the politically correct won't do it. And, to show they don't believe it, they will drink tea instead of coffee. For whatever it's worth...once again, you have my two cents worth. So, until next time, enjoy your morning coffee. You never know, it might save your life.