Against Caffeine

[Sir-Sister-of-Suck]

Here's a much more exhaustive list, from the Caffeine Blues:

Does this "Stephen Cherniske" (author of the book) happen to conduct his own studies?

Just doing a quick google search, I was able to find that he is a so-called 'nutritional biochemist' yet has no actual accredited degree, and he and his organization has been subject to investigation for making unsubstantiated and skewed claims selling his own formula.

http://www.mlmwatch.org/06FTC/Oasis/oasisftc1.html

He seems very, very shady to say the very least.

[PauloL]

They are starting to lift the curtain.

Oleum semper quod omni superenatat liquori.

[Sir-Sister-of-Suck]

It's convenient that one of the main contentions that 'Dr' Stephen Cherniske had in his findings about caffeine being associated with a deficiency of a steriod hormone known as DHEA, just so happens to be the main ingredient in the supplement he sells for the purpose of 'replenishing' it.

Some key info for the author of OPs sourced book "Caffeine Blues"

(Stephen) Cherniske represents himself as a "renowned health educator" and nutrition consultant. A recent magazine article states that he has a background in biochemistry and is a trained nutritionist and a member of the National Academy of Research Biochemists (NARB) [6]. However, two of his credentials are as questionable as the claims challenged by the FTC. His"master's degree in nutrition" was obtained in 1982 from Columbia Pacific University, a nonaccredited correspondence school whose California operation was shut down by court order in 2001 [7]. NARB's membership certificate describes it as "An academy devoted to preserving and dispensing valuable, established and reasonable biochemical research certified that . . . . is an elected member dedicated to untiring research for the truth in behalf of those served in the field of health." However, the only requirement when I picked up a membership in 1992 was payment of a $72 fee

And some key information about the school this man went to, from the link in the quote above. Though I suggest reading the whole thing, because it's all very interesting.

In December 1999, the Marin County Superior Court ordered Columbia Pacific University (CPU), of Novato, California, to cease operations within the State [1,2]. On February 21, 2001, the judge denied further appeals and entered a final judgment ordering CPU to:

-Pay a civil penalty of $10,000 to the Bureau for Private Postsecondary and Vocational Education for violating Sections 17200 et seq. and Sections 17500 et seq. of the California Business and Professions Code

-Permanently stop operating or offering any educational programs in California.

-Notify all students enrolled from June 25, 1997 to December 1, 2000 of the injunction and of their right to a refund.

-Provide refunds to all students within 30 days of their request.

-Provide a status report to the Court by June 30, 2001.

Health-Related "Degree" Holders

Well-run correspondence schools, whether accredited or not, can provide courses that are legitimately educational and useful for some types of jobs. However, they lack the depth of full-time college or graduate school programs and cannot prepare anyone to provide competent clinical services to patients. Competence cannot be achieved without a long period of supervised experience in seeing patients. In fact, in a recent e-mail to me, CPU (Columbia Pacific University) co-founder Lester Carr stated:

CPU (Columbia Pacific University) did not prepare any students for the clinical practice of nutrition. CPU in its entire history never offered internships or clinical practicums associated with a masters or doctoral degree program of any kind which is the established requirement to justify professionally the "clinical practice of nutrition."

So I was more right to say he is shoddy than I had originally thought - he is an outright scam artist to say the worst. Not only that, but this perfectly demonstrates what I mentioned earlier about being skeptical of those within the supplement industry. I would hope his sources were not your main driving force to create this thread.

[Gloominary]

If we ever actually did ban caffeine, even for those under 18, the damage it would do to our economy would undoubtedly give prohibition a run for its money. The thing is caffeine isn't just in coffee, it's an ingredient in countless products like chocolate, teas, drugs, sodas, even cosmetics. This suddenly changes the game for multiple multi-billion industries, and all those manufacturers would now have to be regulated in this very specific regard. We'd have to revise our vending machines, restaurants, and all the products that are already produced.

It's good if it damages the economy, the economy needs to stop, and then recede several decades if not centuries.
The economy needs to be returned firstly to the earth, and secondly to the people.
There's no such thing as permanent, sustainable growth.

The War on Drugs is a massive failure. To capitalize on that in this way would essentially be setting billions, maybe even trillions of tax dollars on fire. If you don't want kids to use it because you believe it's bad for them, the answer isn't to send them to jail for it. If you really feel like the evidence is on your side, it's education. That approach has worked with cigarettes in the past few decades.

Despite everything I've been saying, I don't think coffee or drugs in general are all bad, when used recreationally occasionally, sparingly or medically when there's little-no alternative.
I would leave it up to provinces, states or communities, municipalities to decide whether an outright ban was necessary, feasible and desired, or education + increased taxes and regulations, rather than involving the federal government.
I'm actually not a fan of the federal government, I much prefer to do things locally.

[Gloominary]

Often the migraines and other afflictions coffee temporarily alleviates are caused by caffeine withdrawal. Drugs are usually quick fixes to problems that could be better treated by improving health, fitness, perspective and so on.

If you can't go one day without it without feeling dreadful, than how good for you could it really be?

You can't go a day without getting any carbohydrates, protein, or essential nutrients either. I guess we should all obstinate from that as well?

Now this is just plain stupid/sophistry.
Apples and oranges: coffee withdrawals are caused by the body being poisoned (which is what coffee is: poison that your body desperately tries to eliminate...though it can occasionally have some beneficial properties in a roundabout way, like setting your pants on fire or being kicked in the face could wake you up in the morning), harmed, and the body coming to rely on the jolt it gets from coffee (a jolt it could easily produce on its own when it naturally needs to, instead of being it artificially, and arguably disproportionately induced), where as hunger is caused by the body continually needing the help, the nutrients and calories in food in order to survive and thrive, nutrients and calories the body couldn't otherwise produce without consuming itself to death.

[Sir-Sister-of-Suck]

Often the migraines and other afflictions coffee temporarily alleviates are caused by caffeine withdrawal. Drugs are usually quick fixes to problems that could be better treated by improving health, fitness, perspective and so on.

If you can't go one day without it without feeling dreadful, than how good for you could it really be?

You can't go a day without getting any carbohydrates, protein, or essential nutrients either. I guess we should all obstinate from that as well?

Now this is just plain stupid/sophistry.
Apples and oranges

No it's not, it's an exact counter-example to what you're trying to imply. I'm showing how "If you can't go one day without it without feeling dreadful, than how good for you could it really be?" is a question that needs more context to actually be answered.

[Sir-Sister-of-Suck]

It's good if it damages the economy, the economy needs to stop, and then recede several decades if not centuries.
The economy needs to be returned firstly to the earth, and secondly to the people.
There's no such thing as permanent, sustainable growth.

I don't think you have the slightest grasp of politics; No, prohibitions damage to the economy was most certainly not good for the people, or even the earth for that matter. A bad economy does not 'return things to the people', it raises unemployment - hence poverty and hunger, lowers a nations budget, and can even crash the global stock market, so the shit seeps into the cracks of other countries. I feel this is almost too stupid for me to reply to.

Even the biggest anarchists would agree that a bad economy, is in fact bad for the people. Because what they want would only work if no economy existed. And even the anarchists wouldn't want any ban on drugs, nor would it be in the spirit of giving power back to the people.

I'm actually not a fan of the federal government, I much prefer to do things locally.

I don't like the federal or local government protruding on our personal lives.

[henry quirk]

"I'd rather see more people do just about any drug, even alcohol than coffee."

And I'd rather folks like you get on with minding your own business instead of mindin' mine.

I guess neither of us is gonna get what we want.

[Gloominary]

It's good if it damages the economy, the economy needs to stop, and then recede several decades if not centuries.
The economy needs to be returned firstly to the earth, and secondly to the people.
There's no such thing as permanent, sustainable growth.

I don't think you have the slightest grasp of politics; No, prohibitions damage to the economy was most certainly not good for the people, or even the earth for that matter. A bad economy does not 'return things to the people', it raises unemployment - hence poverty and hunger, lowers a nations budget, and can even crash the global stock market, so the shit seeps into the cracks of other countries. I feel this is almost too stupid for me to reply to.

Even the biggest anarchists would agree that a bad economy, is in fact bad for the people. Because what they want would only work if no economy existed. And even the anarchists wouldn't want any ban on drugs, nor would it be in the spirit of giving power back to the people.

I'm actually not a fan of the federal government, I much prefer to do things locally.

I don't like the federal or local government protruding on our personal lives.

Reading comprehension isn't exactly your forte is it?
I never said damaging or destroying the economy would redistribute resources to the people, but it would help redistribute them to nature.
Stunted and recessive economies consume/produce less, and are less capable of extracting resources from nature.

[Gloominary]

You can't go a day without getting any carbohydrates, protein, or essential nutrients either. I guess we should all obstinate from that as well?

Now this is just plain stupid/sophistry.
Apples and oranges

No it's not, it's an exact counter-example to what you're trying to imply. I'm showing how "If you can't go one day without it without feeling dreadful, than how good for you could it really be?" is a question that needs more context to actually be answered.

Naw what is it is playing dumber than you are, or devil's advocate.

[Gloominary]

It's convenient that one of the main contentions that 'Dr' Stephen Cherniske had in his findings about caffeine being associated with a deficiency of a steriod hormone known as DHEA, just so happens to be the main ingredient in the supplement he sells for the purpose of 'replenishing' it.

Some key info for the author of OPs sourced book "Caffeine Blues"

(Stephen) Cherniske represents himself as a "renowned health educator" and nutrition consultant. A recent magazine article states that he has a background in biochemistry and is a trained nutritionist and a member of the National Academy of Research Biochemists (NARB) [6]. However, two of his credentials are as questionable as the claims challenged by the FTC. His"master's degree in nutrition" was obtained in 1982 from Columbia Pacific University, a nonaccredited correspondence school whose California operation was shut down by court order in 2001 [7]. NARB's membership certificate describes it as "An academy devoted to preserving and dispensing valuable, established and reasonable biochemical research certified that . . . . is an elected member dedicated to untiring research for the truth in behalf of those served in the field of health." However, the only requirement when I picked up a membership in 1992 was payment of a $72 fee

And some key information about the school this man went to, from the link in the quote above. Though I suggest reading the whole thing, because it's all very interesting.

In December 1999, the Marin County Superior Court ordered Columbia Pacific University (CPU), of Novato, California, to cease operations within the State [1,2]. On February 21, 2001, the judge denied further appeals and entered a final judgment ordering CPU to:

-Pay a civil penalty of $10,000 to the Bureau for Private Postsecondary and Vocational Education for violating Sections 17200 et seq. and Sections 17500 et seq. of the California Business and Professions Code

-Permanently stop operating or offering any educational programs in California.

-Notify all students enrolled from June 25, 1997 to December 1, 2000 of the injunction and of their right to a refund.

-Provide refunds to all students within 30 days of their request.

-Provide a status report to the Court by June 30, 2001.

Health-Related "Degree" Holders

Well-run correspondence schools, whether accredited or not, can provide courses that are legitimately educational and useful for some types of jobs. However, they lack the depth of full-time college or graduate school programs and cannot prepare anyone to provide competent clinical services to patients. Competence cannot be achieved without a long period of supervised experience in seeing patients. In fact, in a recent e-mail to me, CPU (Columbia Pacific University) co-founder Lester Carr stated:

CPU (Columbia Pacific University) did not prepare any students for the clinical practice of nutrition. CPU in its entire history never offered internships or clinical practicums associated with a masters or doctoral degree program of any kind which is the established requirement to justify professionally the "clinical practice of nutrition."

So I was more right to say he is shoddy than I had originally thought - he is an outright scam artist to say the worst. Not only that, but this perfectly demonstrates what I mentioned earlier about being skeptical of those within the supplement industry. I would hope his sources were not your main driving force to create this thread.

This guy admits the sugar and tobacco companies manipulated science in order to make their products look good, but doesn't suspect that's happening now with coffee, a commodity many, many times more powerful than sugar and tobacco put together.
Talk about gullible/naive.
His worldview is exclusively shaped by studies, all of them corporate, government, media and/or mainline science approved, no matter how against common sense or exaggerated their claims are.
He can not put two and two together, like extreme doses of coffee tend...or always cause extreme anxiety, irritability, nervousness, among other things, and extreme anxiety, irritability, anger, nervousness and so on, isn't good for performing just about any task.
He needs someone, preferably an authority figure, to hold is hand, spoon feed him.

Coffee obviously helps kill thousands, if not millions of people a year.
I'm not talking about the people who consume a few cups that aren't extremely sensitive to it, I'm talking about people who're, extremely sensitive to it, and people like him, who drink 10, 15, 20 cups a day.
When those people get an accident, and more of them will, they need to get a DUI.

Because coffee can be so damaging, and it's so widely consumed, just about as much consciousness needs to be raised about it as alcohol, just as many taxes and regulations too.
But people love their coffee, keeps the hamsters spinning their wheels and the rats running their race.
Everyone subconsciously knows they couldn't continue as is, quite the same, nor the system itself without coffee or similar substances putting us in constant/continual fight/flight mode, when/where there's nothing to fight/flight, except ourselves and our own selfish, sick instincts, corrupted, distorted, warped as they are by stimulants, and depressants to come down at night, since we can't do that naturally anymore.

You keep drinking your coffee in excess, friendo, have an extra pot or two of coffee before you get behind the wheel on me *winks.

[Gloominary]

...which again are not mutually exclusive. You can be a superfit, healthy individual who also happens to smoke some pot and drink coffee on the side. Joe Rogan says he actually becomes more motivated to work out after taking marijuana. There are many people who think the same with caffeine.

Yea if you smoke a, little pot and drink a, little coffee on the side you can still be healthy, and if you don't smoke or drink any you can be even healthier.
I can see coffee making you more motivated to work out, but marijuana?
He must be unusual that way.
Perhaps a little can numb the pain of a workout, but a lot can more easily rob one of their motivation.
If people had more time to relax and eat healthier, they wouldn't need coffee to feel like working out in the first place, they'd naturally feel that way.
The reason why we often have so little time is cause coffee, among other things, keeps people running this capitalist, consumerist rat race, all the way to hell.

I don't think it necessarily is a guarantee that you'll be 'healthier'. When you want to start measuring something like 'health' on a exact metric system though, I think the discussion can get very discombobulated. I mean, we can make general statements and agree that someone like an athlete is healthy, but when you want to get down into the nuance and implying it has an exact gamut, I think some clarification is needed.

Why do you think that someone who smokes pot or drinks caffeine is necessarily less healthy in a given scenario? Even if due to adverse physical effects, these drugs could very well help make them happier by putting serotonin and dopamine in their brain. I don't think it's your call to say that's more or less important or 'healthier'.

Take pot this time for an example.
Contrary to your ass umption about me, I'm not a Mormon, and occasionally smoke pot here-there.

Do you have to smoke a lot of pot, for a long time to reap any repercussions?
No, a little pot will damage you a little, and a lot a lot.

My ex was a pot smoker, and after smoking it with her a few times a week, over the course of several weeks, I noticed my lung capacity was slightly diminished, it was a little more uncomfortable to breath, I hard a harder time breathing, and as far as I know, I have no preexisting condition that'd make me more susceptible to such things, no asthma, etcetera, my lungs are normally in good condition.

Now guys like Joe Rogan might have better lungs than many-most people, cause even though they smoke pot, they hike, jog, workout (so long as they don't exercise in excess or use steroids or too many supplements), but it's an even thou, they'd probably be even healthier if they gave up pot entirely, particularly if they're chronic consumers of the stuff.

Coffee too damages our bodies instantly, after just one cup, one drop, and on top of that the damage is cumulative, it's just the damage is so slight it goes undetected by the vast majority of people who's senses are dulled by years-decades of abusing themselves with substances like coffee, they hardly notice a thing till the condition is so overwhelming, perhaps only surgery or chemo can save them.

Mainline science wants you to think like severe illnesses just show about of the blue, poof, it's there, and occasionally they do, but more often than not, it took years of use, misuse and abuse to wind up that way, and if the damage was recognized earlier on, and the culprits reduced-eliminated, they could've saved themselves a lot of trouble further on down the line.
But doctors objective, often unbeknownst to them, is to keep sick people alive, not to make them well again, that's not good for business.

[Gloominary]

The thing about dopamine and shit is regardless of what your mind wants, your body-brain doesn't want to be happy all the time, shouldn't be happy all the time, happiness should be more-less proportionate to reality, and so if your brain-body notices an excess of happy chemicals it stops producing happy chemicals, it might even start producing sad ones, and so you need heavier dose to sustain that high, and so people start taking the drug just to feel normal, they're wasting their money, and the heavier the dose, the more it pollutes and poisons the body, until the body can't cope.
This is why if drugs ought to be used recreationally at all, they should be used more sparingly, or when there's a medical problem that can't be solved in a healthier, more natural way, ideally.
Of course this is all idealism, and there's always going to be drug addicts, in fact we could all end up that way given the wrong set of circumstances, perhaps even the most conscientious and disciplined among us, but let's not deny reality, let's not downplay the downside, pretend there's isn't a yin to just about every yang drugs provide.
Yea there's yin/yang to everything, I just think the yin to drugs, particularly coffee is underestimated.

[Gloominary]

@Suck

I don't doubt that caffeine could result in someone getting in an accident. A piece of dust flinging in the air could get in someone's eyes and cause them to crash. Maybe we should ban dust, or have mandatory inspections by law of everyone's car daily to ensure there is no dust in them? Except, that's not a plausible concern based on occurring data. If you can show me that the data backs up your claim that caffeine is a considerable concern out on the roads, then maybe you have a point.

You also didn't address my point of forcing people to consume caffeine, because the quoted study actually showed how a certain amount makes the average person better at driving, and less likely to get into a car accident. This sounds like a jocular one, but reverses the same sort of stupidity back at you. If you're goal is ultimately reducing the number of accidents at the sacrifice of freedom, why not?

I'll have to examine that study, sounds like bullshit to me, funded by coffee corps over or underhandedly, and even if they're true, coffee has so many adverse effects, especially at high doses but even at small, it wouldn't be worth it, for the little bit of benefit, people supposedly driving a little better when given small doses.
I value freedom too, consequentialism always has to be weighed against liberty.
I'm not simple, like you, an absolute consequentialist or libertarian.
I think we should either have egoism or individualism, not capitalist, or we should have the right sort of local communitarianism, the sort I envision, not authoritarianism, a greener society, one more in harmony with nature and itself.

It doesn't matter if 100% of the populace is technically 'addicted' to caffeine, the objection I raise is that it's not a very intoxicating drug to the very vast majority of people taking it. It is negligible to the rate of accidents in the US, and I've never seen any study make a connection. This is such a non-issue, you really should just stop. You're not this edgy hipster because you think it should be illegal to drive on coffee, you just sound autistic.

You sound like a retard.

If you say so. Caffeine is still nothing compared to meth in terms of its adverse side effects, tapering off of it, or its withdrawal potential. Withdrawing from meth can actually kill you, and reaching the LD50 is also not implausible.

If you take caffeine in its refined form, in large doses, it's probably just as, or nearly as bad as meth, psychoactively, and perhaps physiologically too, and the fact that you strongly think otherwise, makes you sound like a retard.
There's lots of negative literature and studies on coffee, you just don't care for them, that book contains hundreds of them, but again, I don't even need to see a single study, we know coffee, especially at extreme doses for individuals with low tolerance, is extremely bad for your psyche, makes you highly mentally and emotionally unstable, and that sort of state isn't good for anything, let alone driving.

My love for nicotine doesn't seem to blind me from clearly telling you about its adverse side effects, because with nicotine they're actually there. I'm also not really the biggest coffee fan.

Society, and you, are far more enamored with caffeine than nicotine, the real dirt has yet to be dug up on coffee, or it has been dug up, it's just been locked in a vault that needs to be blown.

I would need to know what you mean by 'mainstream science'; I don't think you fully understand what went on with Big Tobbaco. They weren't paying scientists to release false information, they bribed many studies to not release certain information.

In some cases I mean the research the corps, government and media want you to know, and the stuff the people are familiar with, and in other cases I mean what the scientific consensus, by/large is.
Consensus doesn't always mean truth, it just means consensus.
I also mean like the ideology that governs science.
And I also mean like the kind of science conducted in mainline universities and mainline journals as opposed to the kind being conducted by individuals operating outside academia altogether or in alt universities, literature, journals.

And they bribed studies to downplay the negative effects, and, they bribed to studies to overplay or invent positive effects.

And you think that much of the supplement industry isn't in it for the money?

Who said anything about the supplement industry, I never said it wasn't partly corrupt too.
Quit making assumptions about me or what I think, it's making you sound like an imbecile.

[Gloominary]

Capitalism is on its way out?

Yea didn't you hear?
Endless growth on a finite plant is impossible.

That's not necessarily true, because even on a 'finite plant' there's also a recycling effect, so growth in addition to loss. Regardless, there's no indication the world at large is giving up on capitalism. Given our current political climate, I have no idea what you're even talking about

Are you daft?
You're not growing if you're taking as many losses as gains.
We're consuming nature faster than it can restore itself, I thought you of all people, champion of mainstream science, would at least concur with that, but it seems you're being stubborn.

The world is giving up on capitalism one way or the other, voluntarily, ideally, but doubtfully, or after the system collapses in on itself, necessarily.