Why Caffeine is So Addicting

What makes coffee, sodas and chocolates so addicting knowing to much of these stuffs are actually bad for our health but we cannot control ourselves asking for more?

A caffeine is a plant-based alkaloid that stimulates the central nervous system and is being considered as a psychoactive drug which means that it crosses the blood-brain barrier and alters how the brain function including mood, perception, consciousness, cognition and behavior. Caffeine is actually in the same family with morphine, cocaine and nicotine with the same white powdery form after being reduced to its natural state. It is actually bitter in taste that is why many softdrinks company tends to put large amount of sugar in their beverages to make it sweeter and delectable thus could result to obesity and diabetes. However, caffeine is not included in the list of controlled substance since it is considered "relatively harmless". With this, no doubt, it is the most widely used drug around the world being 90% consumed daily and 400 million cups a day in the US alone is being made. But what is the main reason why people are so hooked to caffeine? Just like heroin, it manipulates the dopamine production which activates the "pleasure center" in the brain that provides our body that boost that makes you feel good about yourself and gives you the temporary "high". However, contrary to the popular belief, caffeine does not produce energy in our body, the temporary spike of vitality is actually the result of the addiction that you are having from taking too much of the drug.

However, too much of everything is bad how "relatively harmless" it may be. We ourselves can observe that after 2-3 cups of coffee, our heart rate starts to increase and constriction of blood vessels occurs especially in the brain and it blocks the adenosine's ability to slow the nerve which explains why a person stays alert and active. In connection to this, caffeine significantly increases the intraocular pressure while at the same time decreasing the microcirculation of our eye. Similar to what is happening in the brain, caffeine generally constricts the vessels, limiting the delivery of oxygen and vital nutrients to the eye. Moreover, the diuretic effects of caffeine can make the eye so dry that wearing contact lenses becomes impossible and dangerous. With all of these, I was even more astounded when I found out that the innocent caffeine we all love is attached to so many diseases like heart attack, osteoporosis, menopausal symptoms, depression, PMS, fibrocystic diseases, miscarriages, spontaneous abortions and malformation of fetuses. Furthermore, it can also contribute to a number of deficiencies like B vitamins, calcium, iron, magnesium, potassium and zinc. Also, since caffeine affects the digestive process, B12 cannot be manufactured in our body which could result to Pernicious Anemia. Caffeine also neutralizes our HCL, contributing to a number of other digestive disorders as well. With all of these, the worst is yet to come as in the case of detoxifying the different substances and toxins in our body, our friendly kidney's main job is by trying to get rid of the caffeine molecule which however is quickly reabsorbed into our bloodstream before it even reaches the urinary tract placing the entire burden on our overworked liver.

It's nice to have some coffee, chocolate, soda, tea and coffee-flavored ice cream once in a while and there is nothing wrong with that; however, people should also know how to have self control with all the food that they are storing inside their body and never abuse our precious organs with all these harmful toxins just for the sake of satisfying our taste buds because believe me, with all these diseases, I don't think it is even worth the risk.