Caffeinated Coffee - good or bad or neither?

[NotWorriedAtAll]

I've been on decaffeinated coffee for decades because it used to make my extremely hyper when I drank it.
But this morning after a disturbed night I got up at 4.30 in the morning (husband has serious pain issues and was very restless last night so I couldn't sleep) and decided to have a cup of the fully leaded coffee to pep me up a bit.

And eating other wise normally except for having another cup mid morning - my blood sugar readings are at 5.3 mmol/L which is about 1.0mmol/L lower than it usually is at this time of day.

I am also not even slightly hyper - just nicely alert.

So have I been avoiding coffee for no good reason all these years?
Or do you think maybe it is because since I have been on a very low carb high fat diet and all my various organs and systems have had a nice rest maybe my liver is doing its job properly without it having to strain at all the carbs it used to be struggling with?

 

[grovesy]

I find if I have a bad nights sleep my levels are usally higher.

 

[NotWorriedAtAll]

I find if I have a bad nights sleep my levels are usally higher.

I find that the better night's sleep I get the higher my morning reading.
It is interesting how different people have different experiences with diabetes.

 

[Tee G]

Hi... I have been a life long caffeinated coffee drinker. (60% coffee 20% tea 20% other drinks thru the day). Was only in recent years when I had a few high blood pressure 'episodes' (and subsequent monitoring for that) It came to light salt & coffee were the main culprits. Ditching salt in the main and reducing the coffee granules in the cup have put everything back to normal.

I still have as many cups per day, just made slightly weaker. I was never very keen on decaf because of the procedure adopted to remove the caffeine from the bean, cant remember what it was, but it put me off all the same. Maybe its changed nowadays, I dont know.

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

I saw a bit on one of those Michael Mosely programmes a couple of years back which looked into caffeine and alertness.

Caffeine is a stimulant, so does increase alertness... but only if you don’t have it regularly. The body quickly adapts and then ‘needs’ the caffeine to get back up to the level of alertness that people have who don’t drink caffeinated drinks. So the net result is zero, *but* if you regularly drink coffee, you need it to prevent you feeling sluggish!

I used to start every day with a cafetiere of proper coffee, but I save that for weekends and occasional cafe meet-ups now. I was drinking largely Rooibis as a tea replacement, but in truth I prefer proper tea, so that has crept back in to most of my hot drink spaces more recently.

 

[Eddy Edson]

FWIW, I looked into coffee when I was getting my post-DX diet together. Looking at the research evidence it seemed like:

- No particular impact on BG
- Only short-term BP increase
- Maybe some health benefits.
- No apparent downside.

Also:

- Trying to do without coffee or replacing with ** shudder ** decaf would make life not worth livig.

So I continue to drink a lot of it 🙂

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

- No particular impact on BG

Was that from studies Eddy?

Interesting that anecdata(😉) over the years suggests many people experience a BG hike from strong coffee. And not only from the amount of milk if it’s a frothy one 🙂

 

[Eddy Edson]

Was that from studies Eddy?

I think so. It may be that I latched on to the first study I found which said rivers of coffee are *just fine* for BG, seeing that's the answer I wanted 🙂

Anyway, it doesn't have any particular effect on my BG, as far as I can tell.

 

[Drummer]

I have always drunk the unchanged sort of coffee, but I don't drink it as strong as most people - I have to request a weaker than normal version if I am out of the house - though I have never had what I would call a good cup of coffee when someone else makes it for me, so if I want to schedule coffee into my day out, these days I take it myself. I used to do storage testing for Lyons Tetley so my sense of taste, and smell is quite acute.