Caffeine

My current non-fiction reading is 'This is your mind on plants' by Michael Pollan, in which the author writes about three alkaloids - opium, caffeine and mescaline - that are produced by plants and affect our body. This is the third book that I have read by Pollan (it's a shame his name isn't Pollen, for this would make an excellent pun), all of which basically are about the influence of plants on humans and how they have used us to ensure the survival of their species.

At the moment, I'm in the middle of the chapter about caffeine, and who should enter the discourse but Matthew Walker, whose book about sleep I finished last week. Here Pollan reiterates what Walker wrote about 'sleep pressure' and caffein, as follows.... 

Within the body there is a molecule called adenosine that is very familiar to me as in the form of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) in which the body stores energy derived from the tricyclic acid cycle, otherwise known as how the body derives energy from the metabolism of glucose. Adenosine builds up during the day and binds to receptors, causing us to feel sleepy. As one web site explains it, Because adenosine is continuously metabolized by the enzyme adenosine desaminase, the decline in adenosine production during sleep quickly causes a general decline in adenosine concentrations in the brain, eventually producing conditions more favourable to awakening.

Caffeine is an antagonist of adenosine, meaning that it binds more strongly to those receptors than does adenosine. In consequence, caffeine prevents us from feeling sleepy, or in other words, 'gives us more energy'. But the concentration of free adenosine within the body is still increasing during the day: when the caffeine is released from the receptors, the sudden influx of adenosine causes one to feel very tired ... so another cup of coffee is called for. This is how addiction and tolerance are built up. 

As Pollan writes, Here’s what’s uniquely insidious about caffeine: the drug is not only a leading cause of our sleep deprivation; it is also the principal tool we rely on to remedy the problem. Most of the caffeine consumed today is being used to compensate for the lousy sleep that caffeine causes. Which means that caffeine is helping to hide from our awareness the very problem that caffeine creates.

Another effect of caffeine is that it causes reinforcement. Pollan quotes Roland Griffiths, a Johns Hopkins drug researcher, who says "It’s like saying ‘I like the taste of Scotch.’ No! This is an acquired, conditioned taste preference. When you pair a taste with a reinforcer like alcohol or caffeine, you will confer a specific preference for that taste". So, combined with the addiction and tolerance, one can see how insidious are the effects of caffeine on the body.

I admit that books of this ilk are about the topics that I find most intriguing: basically, how our body works and how its function can be improved or impaired.

---

This day in history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
219	12/12/2009	Displaying tabs on the right of a TTabControl	Delphi, right-to-left
1364	12/12/2020	How could I have known? (new song)	Song writing, Home recording
1447	12/12/2021	Darwin and Covid-19	Covid-19