Do Coffee Go Cubes Really Help Cognitive Performance?
A new product on the coffee scene is the Go Cube. This is a chewable cube that contains caffeine and has the texture of a gum drop. Oddity Central says it is a way to kick start your day.
San Francisco entrepreneurs Geoffrey Woo and Michael Brandt have come up with a revolutionary way for coffee lovers to get their early morning caffeine fix – chewable caffeine cubes. Each 35-calorie bite-sized ‘Go Cube’ is the equivalent of drinking roughly half a cup of coffee. So if you’re running late with no time to brew a fresh cuppa joe, just pop two cubes and you’re good to go.
Go Cubes are 100 percent vegan, made of a special blend of compounds that improve memory and alertness. With a texture similar to gum drops, each cube contains 50 mg of caffeine, 10 mg of Vitamin B6, and 100 mg of L-Theanine, an amino acid found in green tea. B6 helps aid cognitive function, while theanine helps reduce the anxiety associated with a pure caffeine buzz. They also contain about six grams of sugar per cube, and come in three different flavors – pure drip, latte, and mocha.
Is this just another variation on No Doze pills or do coffee Go Cubes really help cognitive performance. We know that coffee helps us wake up and we know that coffee before exercise helps athletic performance as well.
According to CNN.com there are five reasons to drink coffee before your workout.
A Spanish study, published in the International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism, found that trained athletes who took in caffeine pre-exercise burned about 15% more calories for three hours post-exercise, compared to those who ingested a placebo.
According to the report the necessary amount of caffeine to gain this effect is 4.5 mg per kilogram of body weight. For a 154 pound person this comes to 250 mg of caffeine in a 12 ounce cup. Additionally researchers in Japan have shown that blood flow is increased for an hour and a quarter after drinking coffee with caffeine. And, it turns out that drinking two to three cups of coffee before exercise resulted in less perceived pain from a hard workout.
But, do coffee Go Cubes really help cognitive performance? What does vitamin B6 do to aid cognitive performance and how might theanine help cognition?
What Researchers Say about B6 and Cognitive Function
As far back as 2003 researchers reviewed studies relating to B6 and cognitive function. Their findings are available in PubMed.gov under The Effect of B6 on Cognition.
This review found no evidence for short-term benefit from vitamin B6 in improving mood (depression, fatigue and tension symptoms) or cognitive functions.
It is known that older people have decreased levels of B12 and B6 and that older people have decreasing cognitive function. But when researchers gave B6 supplements in a clinical trial there was no improvement in cognitive function.
So, does acoffee Go Cube really help cognitive performance? Coffee helps you wake up and stay awake. There is no evidence that the addition of B6 makes any short term difference. Effectively Go Cubes are No Doze with sugar and a vitamin.
What Is El Niño Doing to Colombian Coffee Production?
The weather effects of El Niño are unpredictable. The last time it hit Colombia torrential rains damaged coffee crops. This time around there is drought in large parts of the Eje Cafetero. In some parts the drought is so bad that the coffee growers association (FNC) and the government are discussing ways to support coffee growers struck by El Niño as reported in vendingmarketwatch.com.
Concerned about the repercussions that El Niño is having on the income of Colombian coffee growers, the National Committee met today to discuss strategies to support coffee growers. Different support alternatives will now be evaluated in teams and presented during the next Committee meeting.
Evaluate, with the Department of Social Prosperity, the possibility of granting access to coffee growing families to socioeconomic stabilization programs that satisfy basic needs.
The Minister of Agriculture will evaluate with the Banco Agrario and Finagro issues related to credit in the coffee-growing sector. This will include favorable loans for renovation using the zoca procedure.
Explore the feasibility of launching a program to reactivate coffee production. The program will include crop and zoca renovations to recover coffee plantations affected by El Niño and will be funded by the National Coffee Fund and the Government of Colombia.
Many growers have been badly hurt and need help because of the drought. However not all growers are in trouble and, in fact, overall Colombian coffee production is up!
Colombian Coffee Production Rises Despite Drought
The Latin American Tribune reports that Colombian coffee production is up 7% for the fiscal year March 2015 to February 2016.
Colombia produced 1.09 million 60-kilo (132-pound) bags of coffee last month, a 7 percent increase over February 2015, the National Coffee Growers Federation, or FNC, reported.
Output from March 2015 through February 2016 totaled 14.2 million bags, up 16 percent from the previous 12-month period.
Despite the recent increase in production growers are concerned about pests such as the coffee borer beetle which tends to thrive in drought conditions.
A major threat to coffee crops in various locations throughout the world is the coffee borer beetle. Hypothenemus hampei, its scientific name, is a small beetle native to Angola in Southern Africa. Over the 20th century it spread to the Americas and to Hawaii. The coffee borer beetle is a threat to coffee crops wherever it is found. In the Latin American regions where the pest is found it goes by the names barrenador del café, gorgojo del café and broca del café. Infestation is spread via the inadvertent transport of infected beans. The primary way to continue to produce healthy organic coffee when there is an infestation is to hand sort the beans and dry promptly after picking. Various organic approaches can be used to deter and destroy the pest while maintaining an organic crop and organic coffee certification.
Problems for drought stricken coffee growing areas of Colombia will not stop with the dry weather but will continue with the threat of plant infestations such as coffee borer beetle on weakened coffee plants.
Coffee Prevents Multiple Sclerosis
It seems that every month or so another health benefit of drinking coffee is reported. This time Newsweek reports that coffee can lower risk for MS (multiple sclerosis) when consumed at four cups a day or more.
A new study finds drinking generous amounts of coffee-more than four cups a day-may reduce a person’s risk for multiple sclerosis, an autoimmune condition in which the body’s immune system attacks the protective layers around nerves of the brain and spine. The findings, more proof that your daily Americano has neuroprotective benefits, were published March 3 online in the Journal of Neurology & Psychiatry. The study found drinking lots of coffee reduces risk for MS by as much as 31 percent.
For the observational study, researchers looked at data from two population studies conducted in Sweden and the U.S. The study out of Sweden involved 1,620 people with MS and 2,788 controls, while the one conducted in the U.S. was based upon 1,159 people with MS and 1,172 controls.
n general, lower risk for MS was associated with high coffee consumption compared with non–coffee drinkers. The Swedish researchers observed the highest level of neuroprotective benefit in people who consumed more than six cups a day, while the U.S. study suggested similar effects in members of the cohort who consumed at least four cups.
The researchers believe it’s worthwhile to conduct further investigations to explore whether compounds that exist in coffee could provide treatment for people with MS-specifically if the health benefits stem from the caffeine or certain molecules in coffee itself. Additional studies would also need to examine if, and potentially how, coffee interrupts MS disease activity.
The benefits of coffee in the case of MS are similar to those see for type II diabetes, various forms of cancer, depression, etc. The more coffee you drink the better the benefit gets. This study like many others is on observational study in which behavior such as drinking coffee is reported and recorded over the years and compared with the emergence of a given disease such as multiple sclerosis. Cause and effect studies on humans require that people in a randomized study drink or avoid coffee for years and then the results are tallied again. However, physiological studies on animals are useful.
When Mice Drink Coffee
A study on mice shows than when the furry critters drink coffee that caffeine reduces the impact of neuroinflamation and demyelization (nerve sheath damage that happens in MS). PubMed published the abstract for an article about neuroinflammation and demyelination and suggests that caffeine treatment could improve or help prevent MS.
Caffeine treatment augmented A1AR expression on microglia, with ensuing reduction of EAE severity, which was further enhanced by concomitant treatment with the A1AR agonist, adenosine amine congener. Thus, modulation of neuroinflammation by the A1AR represents a novel mechanism that provides new therapeutic opportunities for MS and other demyelinating diseases.
This is a mouthful but the bottom line is that caffeine stimulates the production of substances that help reduce inflammation, of nerves in this case, and help prevent disease. While we know from human studies that coffee prevents multiple sclerosis when consumed at 4 or more cups a day there is basic research that demonstrates how this might happen at a molecular and physiologic level. So, enjoy your healthy organic coffee as we add one more good reason to drink coffee, aside from aroma, taste and a morning wakeup.
Should We All Drink Coffee?
There are a lot of health benefits in a cup of coffee. Because coffee is a healthy beverage why don’t more of us drink it? An interesting article in this regard in The New York Times posed a question. “I Don’t Drink Coffee. Should I Start?”
Counting yourself out from the 64 percent of Americans who drink at least one cup a day can invite bewildered responses from dedicated coffee drinkers. To them, the benefits are clear, the drawbacks minimal.
Being in the minority, it’s easy to wonder: Have I been making a mistake? Should I and other coffee abstainers start now?
“There aren’t any guidelines to help guide you on this,” said Dr. Donald Hensrud, director of the Mayo Clinic Healthy Living Program. “This is kind of an individual decision.”
The point the doctors make in this article is that we know that coffee is not bad for you and has lots of positive health effects including living longer. But, should we all drink coffee? In other words should we treat coffee as a medicine like those that people take to treat high blood pressure or too much cholesterol? As one of the physicians noted this raises the bar for positive and negative effects of coffee. For example, there are people who are prone to acid reflux and ulcers and for those folks too much coffee causes problems. And there are people who metabolize coffee very slowly and therefore get very nervous from just a small amount. Those folks would need to consider how much discomfort they would be willing to undergo in order to experience the benefits of drinking coffee. And, what are those benefits again?
Health Benefit of Drinking Coffee
From our article, Health Effects of Drinking Coffee:
List of cancers that appear to have a lower incidence in coffee drinkers:
Diabetes Incidences Is Reduced in Coffee Drinkers
Drinking four cups of coffee a day appears to reduce the chances of getting Type II Diabetes by about a half. Research has shown that drinking coffee increases levels of sex hormone-binding globulin which in turn appears to reduce the incidence of diabetes.
Depression and the Incidence of Suicide Are Both Helped by Drinking Coffee
Everyone knows that a morning cup of coffee is a good way to wake up and that a good mid-day pick-me-up is coffee. Now research shows that one of the health effects of drinking coffee is that it reduces the risk of depression by about a fifth. Another of the health effects of drinking coffee is a reduced reduced risk of suicide in steady coffee drinkers. Drinking from two to four cups of coffee a day is associated with a fifty percent lower risk of suicide when compared to those who were not coffee drinkers.
Degenerative Brain Diseases Avoided by Drinking Coffee
For those who are concerned about the debilitating neurologic disease, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, help is not only on the way but help has always been there in the form a few cups of coffee each day. Researchers have discovered a reduced incidence of Parkinson’s disease and hope for those prone to Alzheimer’s in drinking coffee. Research has shown than drinking a cup of coffee a day is related to a lower incidence of Alzheimer’s than with non-coffee drinkers. More recent work shows that the reduction in the incidence of Alzheimer’s goes up with the number of cups of coffee that a person drinks each day.
Does Coffee Reduce the Risk of Cirrhosis?
A couple years ago we wrote that you can treat cirrhosis with coffee.
According to newly reported research drinking two cups of coffee a day can reduce the risk of dying from cirrhosis by sixty-six percent. Researchers looked at a variety of caffeine-containing drinks but it turns out that you can only treat cirrhosis with coffee. That is to say that only coffee leads to a substantial reduction in the risk of dying from cirrhosis. It is important to note that this benefit does not apply to cirrhosis causes by Type B hepatitis.
That was based on one study. Now doctors have considered the results of nine studies relating to cirrhosis of the liver and coffee. The new evidence confirms that coffee can reduce the risk of cirrhosis.
Undo Liver Damage with Two Cups of Coffee a Day
Fox News Health reports that one can undo liver damage from booze by drinking more coffee!
Drinking more coffee might help reduce the kind of liver damage that’s associated with overindulging in food and alcohol, a review of existing studies suggests.
Researchers analyzed data from nine previously published studies with a total of more than 430,000 participants and found that drinking two additional cups of coffee a day was linked to a 44 percent lower risk of developing liver cirrhosis.
“Cirrhosis is potentially fatal and there is no cure as such,” said lead study author Dr. Oliver Kennedy of Southampton University in the U.K.
“Therefore, it is significant that the risk of developing cirrhosis may be reduced by consumption of coffee, a cheap, ubiquitous and well-tolerated beverage,” Kennedy added by email.
Cirrhosis is the cause of death of a million people worldwide every year. The primary causes include hepatitis, immune disorders, fatty liver disease and drinking too much alcohol. A cup or two of strong coffee in the morning has long been a treatment for a hangover. Now it appears that two extra cups of coffee a day could help prevent the development of cirrhosis.
Why Does Coffee Help Prevent Cirrhosis?
It is important to notice that other caffeine drinks do not have the effect that coffee does in preventing cirrhosis. The difference is in all likelihood the antioxidants in coffee.
With your morning cup of organic coffee antioxidants are included. Healthy organic coffee is not only free of many of the impurities found in regular coffee but contains things that are beneficial to your health. These things in organic coffee include antioxidants. So, just what are antioxidants and why should we want to have more of them? Scientifically an antioxidant is a molecule that inhibits the cell damage and cell death in human cells caused by oxidative breakdown of other molecule in the cell. Oxidation is a factor in sickness and aging. Antioxidants help prevent the damage caused by excessive oxidation and to a degree inhibit the aging process. When an oxidative reaction brought on by disease gets going it produces free radicals that start chain reactions which in turn cause cell and tissue damage. The human body has or uses antioxidants to control this situation. Natural means of controlling oxidation include vitamins C and E as well as glutathione. It is low levels of antioxidants that can lead to a condition referred to as oxidative stress and resultant damage to cells in the body. Organic coffee antioxidants are in the same class of molecules that help reduce oxidation.
Does coffee reduce the risk of cirrhosis? Yes, it does and the part of coffee that does the job is likely the antioxidants.
How Does the Strong Dollar Affect Coffee Growers?
Being a hardworking and efficient coffee grower may not be enough these days if you want to be successful. You will also want to live in a country whose currency is not pegged to the US dollar! What is that all about? How does a strong dollar affect coffee growers? It turns out that coffee growers in Vietnam where the currency is pegged to the US dollar are hurting and coffee growers in Brazil whose currency is not tied to the US dollar are doing well. The Wall Street Journal provides a businessman’s view of coffee, currency exchange rates and profit as they discuss how the dollar’s strength distorts the coffee market.
Vietnamese farmer Y Kua Mlo is storing coffee in his bedroom, unwilling to sell as the strong dollar makes this greenback-denominated commodity less profitable in the dollar-pegged local currency, the dong. Mr. Mlo’s wife wants him to move into other crops.
In Brazil, João Elvidio Galimberti is planting more coffee because the steep fall of the real against the dollar means the Brazilian crop fetches more.
The strong dollar is picking winners and losers in commodity markets.
In coffee, the dollar-created imbalance between the world’s biggest producers, Vietnam and Brazil, is pressuring the price of robusta, the lower-quality beans that go into instant coffee, by encouraging extra supply from those on the right side of the dollar’s rise and an overhang from those that aren’t.
This could have a long-term impact on coffee production, encouraging Brazilian farmers to grow more beans even as it pushes their Vietnamese peers to move into other crops, such as pepper.
Over the last year, robusta’s price in dollars has fallen more than 29%. With the dong pegged to the dollar, the local price in Vietnam has almost matched that, falling by 27%, and that has encouraged stockpiling.
Add Colombia to the Brazil side of the equation as the Colombian peso is not pegged to the US dollar and has fallen to sixty percent of its 2014 value against the greenback. That gives incentive for the two greatest Arabica coffee producers to up production which will in the end drive Arabica prices down, as denominated in US dollars. The biggest robusta coffee producer ahead of Brazil is Vietnam where growers are quitting coffee due to their exchange rate dilemma.
Where Does Organic Coffee Fit in This Equation?
Organic coffee typically commands a premium price providing that the grower can connect to organic coffee purchasers through middlemen and roasters. The premium that organic coffee commands is a great incentive in Brazil where the weak Brazilian currency makes coffee more profitable as it is sold internationally in dollars. Although Vietnam is not a large Arabica or organic coffee producer it will become less so as their currency tied to the expensive US dollar makes coffee growing a non-profitable venture. Coffee growers that have survived coffee leaf rust now need to contend with price fluctuations which are not based on supply and demand but on an overpriced US dollar.
What’s with Death Wish Coffee?
If you watched Super Bowl 50 you may have seen the commercial for Death Wish Coffee. Vikings rowing a long boat on a stormy sea that turns out to be… Death Wish Coffee! So what’s with Death Wish Coffee? Forbes published an article about the commercial, the company and a small business ended up with a Super Bowl commercial.
Mike Brown, the founder and owner of Death Wish Coffee, a blend with twice the amount of caffeine of most coffees, won a contest for small business owners who wanted to advertise during the Super Bowl. In the commercial a Viking ship forges through stormy seas, which turn into a river of strong brew that flows into the mouth of a satisfied coffee drinker. The contest sponsor, Intuit QuickBooks, paid for the production plus the cost to air it during the Super Bowl, a reported $5 million for 30 seconds.
Mr. Brown started packaging and selling his coffee online in an attempt to add some profit to his coffee shop business. While the commercial was running the visits on his web site went up to 10,000 a minute and his sales have doubled. But, what’s with Death Wish Coffee and why is it so strong?
Robusta Arabica Mix
Mike Brown mixes Arabica and Robusta coffee beans to make Death Wish Coffee.
Robusta coffee is properly named Coffea robusta, or Coffea canephora. This variety of coffee is a more hardy plant than the Arabica variety. It is less prone to infestations of insects or plant disease so it is also cheaper to grow. Originating from plants in the western and central sub-Sahara Robusta yields more coffee beans than an Arabica plant and Robusta coffee beans contain about 2.7% caffeine as opposed to 1.5% for Arabica. The Robusta plant can grow as high as thirty feet. It is the primary coffee grown across most of Africa from Ethiopia on the Indian Ocean to Liberia on the Atlantic and South to Angola. The most recent export of Robusta coffee beans has been to Vietnam where coffee farmers produce the second largest volume of coffee in the world after Brazil.
Caffeine in non-coffee drinks comes from Robusta coffee beans. And a Robusta Arabica mix is used in Italian espresso blends.
Espresso Blending
Years ago David Schomer, a coffee lover and owner of Lucid Café, wrote about espresso blending.
Four years ago I sat down with Italian roaster Andrej Tricci. He explained that Italian gourmet roasters devote most of their time and energy searching out fine robustas to add to their blend. They look for coffees that will give them the longer lasting crema and at best will not detract from the flavor of the finer Arabicas in the blend.
Thus Death Wish Coffee has its origins in Italian espresso where robusta is used to increase caffeine content and Arabica is used for its superior flavor. According to Mr. Schomer it is possible to find single source robusta that has excellent flavor and is not just a caffeine enhancer.
Is Single Serve Coffee on the Way Out?
No less authority than The Washington Post wonders if America’s favorite coffee trend is coming to an end. They are referring to the single serve coffee pods pioneered by Keurig which still dominates the markets for coffee pods (K-cups) and coffee pod machines.
Several years ago, coffee pods seemed invincible. Sales of the single-serve cups were skyrocketing, more than tripling in the United States between 2011 and 2013. Sales of coffee pod machines were soaring, too, growing from 1.8 million units to 11.6 million between 2008 and 2013, according to data from market research firm Euromonitor.
Today, however, things aren’t looking quite so rosy for coffee in its most convenient form.
On Monday, Keurig, which dominates the U.S. market for both coffee pods and coffee pod machines, announced that it sold 7 percent fewer machines during the holidays than it had the year before, the sixth straight quarter in which unit sales fell. The news was particularly disappointing given how crucial the holiday season is for the company.
Single serve coffee grew because it is an efficient way to make coffee and it is convenient. This was an especially attractive feature during the depths of the Great Recession. However, as the economy recovers Americans are happy to buy coffee from the drive through at the coffee shop. But another aspect of this situation is that the vast majority of coffee pods are not recyclable and end up in the land fill.
Organic Coffee in a K-Cup?
Last year we questioned if organic coffee in a K-cup made sense.
Billions of K cups go into landfills each year. If part of the reason you drink organic coffee is that you want to protect the environment then even organic coffee in a Keurig K cup is a problem. But there was a solution. Keurig also made refillable K cups under the brand, My K Cup. You could also refill these with any coffee of your choice, which would commonly be cheaper than the coffee from Keurig. Unfortunately that changed.
Some years back, thousands of Keurig single-serve machine fans found a cheaper alternative, however -refillable, non-disposable K-cups, little plastic coffee grounds holders, which the company graciously sold under the brand of “My K-Cup.”
Not only was it cheaper, but the coffee drinker had more choice, as “My K-Cup” could be filled with any brand of coffee off the shelf.
But in August 2014, when Keurig introduced its “2.0” line of coffeemakers, it stopped making “My K-Cup” for it and made the machine incompatible with any K-cups already in existence, as well as with any unlicensed disposable K-cups made by other companies.
So Keurig is back to producing little plastic cups to fill up landfills and is enticing environmentally minded coffee drinkers by selling expensive organic coffee in those cups.
If there are more environmentally friendly ways to make and serve coffee it appears that environmentally minded coffee drinkers will find them, to the detriment of single serve coffee. Single serve coffee will continue because in places like hotel rooms and for single individuals on the go it is an efficient way to have a cup of coffee but for anyone who serves coffee to more than one person there are more environmentally friendly ways to make coffee and the single serve coffee maker will get moved to storage.
Drinking Coffee Does Not Damage Your Heart
There are cardiovascular benefits to drinking coffee so drink up according to an article published in the New York Post.
Researchers from the University of California San Francisco looked at 1,388 people who were taking part in a larger heart study, specifically 60 percent of group who said drinking caffeinated drinks – coffee, tea and chocolate – were part of their daily routine.
The researchers looked for heart irregularities – premature ventricular and atrial contractions – in the participants over a year, but found that there were no differences among the participants, average age 72, regardless of their caffeine intake.
Their findings go against the conventional clinical knowledge in the medical world that caffeine causes palpitations, which can lead to more chronic problems including heart failure or arrhythmias.
In fact, they discovered that “habitual coffee drinkers” actually have less of a chance of developing coronary artery disease.
This is another addition to the list of benefits of coffee, especially organic coffee.
Coffee drinkers are less likely to develop any of several types of cancer. Drink coffee regularly and you are less likely to get type II diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, or depression. There are, unfortunately a whole host of chemical impurities that may be found in a cup of regular coffee. The benefits or organic coffee over regular coffee hinge on the fact that healthy organic coffee is free of these substances.
What other heart healthy aspects does coffee offer?
Coffee and Your Heart
Last year we wrote about coffee and your heart.
Several months ago researchers reported that coffee drinkers have lower risk of having calcium deposits in their coronary arteries. Drinking three to four cups a day maximized the benefit of avoiding clogged coronary arteries as reported in Live Science. This means a lower risk of heart attacks.
The study of healthy young adults in Korea found that, compared with people who didn’t drink coffee, those who drank three to five cups of java per day had a lower risk of having calcium deposits in their coronary arteries, which is an indicator of heart disease. (The coronary arteries are the vessels that bring oxygenated blood to the heart muscle itself.)
The study participants who drank three to four cups had the lowest risk of developing clogged arteries seen in the study, said Dr. Eliseo Guallar, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland, and co-author of the study published today (March 2) in the journal Heart.
It seems like the evidence for coffee as a health benefit just keeps coming.
Another issue with coffee and your heart was the concern that too much coffee would precipitate a condition called atrial fibrillation. Fox News reports that coffee is safe for your heart in this regard. (Republished from Live Science)
Researchers found that drinking coffee was not associated with an increased risk of a condition called atrial fibrillation, which is a type of irregular heartbeat, in either men or women.
“This is largest prospective study to date on the association between coffee consumption and risk of atrial fibrillation. We find no evidence that high consumption of coffee increases the risk of atrial fibrillation,” Susanna Larsson, an associate professor of epidemiology at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden and lead author on the study, said in a statement.
It was a long term concern that since coffee is a stimulant that it would cause heart beat irregularities. But, that is not the case so drink up and enjoy. And there are more health benefits.
Drinking coffee not only does not damage your heart but is good for it!