Ray Peat on coffee

"The individual with a defective mental energy storage system might dash around keeping his mind stimulated, or it might be that coffee or other nerve stimulants will raise the level of energy to the point that quiet integration becomes possible."

- Nutrition For Women

"In a study of the thiamine content of dark roast coffee, it was found that one or two cups provide the minimum daily requirement of vitamin B1."

- Nutrition For Women

"Caffeine, in fact, is prescribed in doses equivalent to 2 to 4 cups of coffee (200 to 400 mg.) to relieve hypertensive headaches"

- Nutrition For Women

"Coffee improves circulation to the brain; Benjamin Franklin and Goethe are said to have used 30 to 65 cups daily. This amount would be close to the maximum safe daily dosage of caffeine, 6 grams"

- Nutrition For Women

"Very small doses of caffeine have a paradoxical sedative effect, but this is a familiar effect of anything which raises the brains energy level."

- Nutrition For Women

"Caffeine (which doesnt necessarily have the same physiological effect as coffee) stimulates the sympathetic nervous system and raises the cellular level of cyclic AMP."

- Nutrition For Women

"Since both caffeine and adrenalin raise the metabolic rate, fat is presumably being consumed more rapidly. Adrenalin is known to raise blood sugar, apparently by inhibiting the utilization of glucose and increasing the utilization of fat. Coffee normally raises blood sugar, by its adrenalin-like effect."

- Nutrition For Women

"during fasting, coffee and/ or adrenalin might speed the depletion of the glycogen reserves and thus speed the appearance of hypoglycemia."

- Nutrition For Women

"Caffeine, acting through nerves as well as directly, can increase immunity. Injected into an animals brain, it was found to slow the growth of cancer. It was recently discovered accidentally that a very small amount of caffeine mixed with the tars from cigarette smoke prevented that material from causing cancers."

- Nutrition For Women

"Caffeine stimulates the thyroid"

- Nutrition For Women

"Amphetamines mimic the action of the alarm part of the nervous system (sympathetic) and so raise the level of blood sugar; this is probably the mechanism (or part of it) which suppresses appetite. Low blood sugar is associated with hyperactivity, and this is probably why the same drug is effective for the hundreds of thousands of crazy kids who get it so they will sit still in school; coffee works as well in hyperactivity, and might also help dieters."

- Nutrition For Women

"Safe things that lower carbon monoxide or protect against its effects include methylene blue, caffeine, aspirin, progesterone, and red light."

- November 2017 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"This effect of stimulants is probably also involved in their inhibition of cell division in cultured cancer cells (ephedrine and theophyllin, for example), and the ability of caffeine injected into the brain to retard tumor growth elsewhere in the body"

- Mind And Tissue Russian Research Perspectives on the Human Brain

"The oldest, most basic therapies, sleep and nutrition, have the same function of restoring energy reserves. Pavlov worked with the simplest stimulants and sedatives, for example caffeine and bromide, to restore normal nervous functions, and of course always considered sensory stimulation essential to maintaining and restoring normal functioning."

- Mind And Tissue Russian Research Perspectives on the Human Brain

"The oxidative processes that support purposive, creative functioning of the organism, optimize CO2 by inhibiting carbonic anhydrase; this enzyme is inhibited by thyroid hormone T3, progesterone, urea, caffeine, antipsychotic drugs, and aspirin. Agents that tend to cause reversion to the primitive anaerobic energy production activate the enzyme—serotonin, tryptophan, cysteine, histamine, estrogen, aldosterone, HIF, SSRIs, angiotensin, and parathyroid hormone, for example."

- March 2020 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"the bowels can influence the brain, and we have discovered a variety of things that damage the substantia nigra, producing the shaking palsy, and a few practices—drinking coffee or alcohol, smoking, using aspirin—that significantly reduce the risk. These observations suggest that there are effective ways to treat Parkinson’s disease with diet, laxatives, and anti-inflammatory substances."

- March 2017 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"things that are likely to be protective in Parkinson’s disease are broadly protective against estrogen and the inflammatorydegenerative processes: Progesterone, minocycline and other anti-inflammatory antibiotics, agmatine, aspirin, coffee, niacinamide, citrus flavonoids, vitamin D, ACE inhibitors, fibrous-antiseptic foods."

- March 2017 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Other substances that protect against the effects of hypoglycemia or impaired glucose oxidation include progesterone, caffeine, certain anesthetics including xenon, niacinamide, agmatine, carbon dioxide,"

- January 2017 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Some of the most important anti-nitric oxide defenses are progesterone, vitamin E, vitamin K, vitamin A, niacinamide, coffee, aspirin, and foods containing flavonoids, terpenoids, polyphenols, and sterols. Grass-fed milk contains a variety of polyphenols. Citrus fruits, many tropical fruits (e.g., guavas, longans, and lychees), and cooked mushrooms are good sources of apigenin, naringenin and related chemicals."

- January 2016 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Although I tended to be hypermetabolic, and had been puzzled for years about the co-existence of signs of both hyper- and hypothyroidism, I finally tried taking thyroid. Immediately, I was able to sleep easily and deeply, and my need for food decreased. It was obvious that thyroid was having a quieting effect on my whole metabolism. I slept more efficiently, woke up refreshed, and had abundant energy during the daylight hours, and began looking for chores to do around the house, just for fun. Before taking thyroid, the first thing I did every morning was to drink two or three cups of coffee, but a few days after taking thyroid I noticed I didn’t think about coffee very often, and I drank about 90% less, without feeling any withdrawal symptoms."

- 1994 - April - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Since the 1960s, a stimulant, Ritalin (methylphenidate) has often been prescribed for hyperactive kids, because it made them able to quietly pay attention. This effect was called paradoxical, but for scientific physiology — there was nothing paradoxical about it. The frontal lobes of the brain, the most highly evolved part, give us the ability to plan and to understand complex things that require prolonged attention. Without this higher part of the brain which has a very high energy requirement, people and animals become hyperactive and unable to concentrate. Ritalin (or coffee) makes anyone, even the brightest students, more attentive and focussed. Caffeine and Ritalin temporarily raise the energy level of the brain."

- 1994 - April - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Physiology compensates continuously to maintain balanced functioning in the presence of a great variety of drug-like substances in our diet. When the diet is changed suddenly, eliminating alcohol or caffeine or other biologically active substances, our compensatory counter<cyclic adjustment is revealed."

- 1991 - June- Ray Peat's Newsletter

"desires reflect needs, though seldom in a fully rational way. The fact that something makes you feel better, and that you feel worse when you stop using it, shouldn’t be taken as evidence of its addictiveness, but many people feel that way about thyroid hormone, coffee, vitamins, and even the most ordinary foods."

- 1991 - June- Ray Peat's Newsletter

"The fact that a taste of chocolate can provoke a wild lust for more chocolate, or that one cigarette renews the addiction, does not mean that the presence of chocolate or nicotine in the blood creates a craving. Rather, it is that an organism in an unstable state perceives the availability of something which promises to partially restore the desired stability. It is obvious that smoking cigarettes is not a good way to achieve the needed stability but this observation can’t be generalized to the craving for potato chips, or coffee, or the multitude of other things that people often crave."

- 1991 - June- Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Other studies found an entire lack of association between caffeine and breast disease, but I will not be surprised if caffeine is ultimately found to be therapeutic for some types of cystic breast disease, because of its effects on hormones and cell-regulation."

- 1990 - May - - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Several studies have found caffeine to have a protective effect against cancer. For example, Wiirzner, et al. found that tumor incidence in rats fed coffee went down as the caffeine content went up"

- 1990 - May - - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Caffeine has several effects which protect against cancer. It strongly protects against the cancers caused by chemical carcinogens (including those in smoke), and even against those caused by ultraviolet radiation. It stimulates the repair process which corrects mutations (in mammals, but not in bacteria), and it stimulates the immune system."

- 1990 - May - - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"I think some of the beneficial effects of caffeine result from its stimulation of the thyroid gland, and of normal respiration. While it stimulates normal respiration it has an anti-inflammatory action, which probably involves both prostaglandin regulation and an antioxidant action. It is chemically very similar to our natural antioxidant, uric acid, and it raises the level of uric acid in both the blood"

- 1990 - May - - Ray Peat's Newsletter