Caffeine, Alcohol and Health - How Much is Too Much?

I'm a coffee drinker, so this subject is of interest to me. Just the other night I heard on the news that a benefit to drinking coffee is that it reduces your risk for stroke. Who knows? One day it has benefits, one day it has adverse effects.

I easily drink 3 to 4 cups of coffee in the morning, and I enjoy an afternoon iced coffee. I know I have a coffee addiction since I experience headaches in the morning without it! Over the past year I have implemented many positive nutritional changes (including no alcohol), so I let go of the “guilt” of drinking too much caffeine.

One adverse effect of too much caffeine is its affect on cortisol levels. For those of you who are not familiar with cortisol, here’s a briefing from one of many articles I have read regarding this subject:
The hormone cortisol is produced in the adrenal cortex in response to adrenal cortical stimulating hormone (ACTH) produced in the pituitary gland. Cortisol plays an important role in regulating blood sugar, energy production, inflammation, the immune system and healing.
If you have too little cortisol, you may suffer from fatigue, chronic fatigue, exhaustion and a disease of the endocrine system called Addison's disease. If your adrenal glands are producing too much cortisol, you may develop conditions such as weight gain, especially around the abdomen, depressed immune function with all of the consequences, accelerated aging and stomach ulcers.
Recently, a lot of attention has been directed to the effects of excess cortisol on weight gain and on the difficulty in losing weight. Collectively, the various diet plans being promoted by a long list of diet gurus have a failure rate of approximately 93 to 97 percent. There are several reasons for this. One is clearly the difficulty in achieving behavioral modification in the face of easy availability of the wrong kind of foods, inherently sedentary lifestyles, and intense media programming. Another reason is that our hormones work against us, in the weight loss perspective. High cortisol levels is one of the culprits.
Weight gain, especially in the abdominal area and aging ... I’m starting to reduce my intake of coffee!!! If this subject is of interest to you, please read this article. One of the topics discussed within the article (near the middle/bottom) is “Coffee Alternatives” and it has a link to Teeccino which is a naturally caffeine-free herbal coffee. I just started drinking it this week (1/2 coffee and ½ teeccino). It’s great tasting, and I have not experienced any headaches. I’m not planning on giving up caffeine totally, but I am reducing my intake. Read and decide for yourself. The article also addresses alcohol intake which is also interesting.
http://www.fitnessspotlight.com/2009/11/23/coffee-health-alcohol-facts
Happy reading!