Some Facts about Caffeine

Up to 90% of adult Americans consume caffeine every day. Most commonly, the caffeine is in coffee, tea, soft drinks, and chocolate. A health benefit of caffeine is that it can ease a headache. The stimulant of caffeine interacts with the headaches and slowly gets rid of the symptoms. Try coffee, tea, hot or cold, the more caffeine the better, soda like Coke or Pepsi and cocoa. You will notice your headache start to disappear in no time.

Research indicates that coffee provides protective effects for the following conditions:

Asthma – Drinking coffee can help to control asthma, and in some cases can even be used to treat an asthma attack when conventional medication is not available.
Colon cancer – 2 or more cups of coffee per day can reduce the risk of colon cancer by 25%.
Gallstones – The likelihood of developing gallstones is decreased nearly 50% by drinking at least 2 cups of coffee per day.
Headache – Coffee cures or diminishes some types of headaches.
Liver cirrhosis – The risk for this condition is reduced by 80% with the ingestion of 2 or more cups of coffee each day.
Parkinson’s disease – 6 studies have found that regular (caffeinated) coffee drinkers reduce their risk of developing Parkinson’s disease by as much as 80%.
Type 2 Diabetes – A Harvard study of 126,000 people found that 1 to 3 cups of caffeinated coffee per day can reduce the risk of developing diabetes.

Drinking coffee provides a number of health benefits, including reduced risk for Parkinson’s disease, diabetes, colon cancer and even suicide. However, on the negative side, coffee can cause a number of problems for some people, particularly in large doses:

Acid imbalance - Caffeine can cause indigestion, skin irritations and arthritis flare-ups.
Hypoglycemia - Caffeine causes a release of glycogen by the liver, which can generate wild swings in blood sugar, causing attacks of hypoglycemia (low blood sugar). Hypoglycemia has a variety of unpleasant symptoms, including weakness, nervousness, sweating and heart palpitations.
Increased cholesterol - In some individuals, coffee can raise cholesterol, which increases the risk of developing cardiovascular disease.
Infertility, miscarriages and low birth weights among babies - Women who are pregnant or attempting to get pregnant should avoid excess caffeine consumption, which may increase the risk for a variety of fertility problems.
Kidney stones and gout - These conditions can result from the strain that caffeine puts on the kidneys.
Nervousness, anxiety, rapid heartbeat and trembling - Excess caffeine can overstimulate the central nervous system. This not only causes anxiety, but can also exhaust the adrenal glands over time, decreasing resistance to stress and increasing vulnerability to disease.
Osteoporosis: Because coffee prevents the full absorption of necessary minerals, it increases the risk of developing osteoporosis. Women who consume 300 mg (2-3 cups) or more of coffee per day suffer accelerated loss of spinal bone mass.
Possible addiction: People who quit coffee often experience withdrawal symptoms such as fatigue, headache, decreased energy and alertness, difficulty concentrating, and even irritability and depression. These symptoms usually begin within 12-24 hours of quitting caffeine and hit a peak within 20-51 hours. Overall, symptoms tend to last anywhere from 2-9 days.
Stretch marks – Caffeine consumption increases the risk of developing stretch marks.
Weight gain – Caffeine increases the risk of long-term weight gain by increasing stress hormones and creating a greater risk for hypoglycemia, which stimulates appetite. Although caffeine can assist with short-term weight loss, in the longer term, heavy consumption is more likely to lead to weight gain.

Most people who drink decaffeinated coffee do so because it doesn't make them jittery or keep them awake. But some believe it's better for them than regular coffee. A recent study of women in Iowa found that those drinking four or more cups a day of decaf had an elevated risk of rheumatoid arthritis.Decaf can, however, have some of the same effects on the body as regular coffee. It too can cause heartburn or irritate stomach ulcers in susceptible people. And oddly enough, even without the caffeine, it too can stimulate the nervous system and briefly boost blood pressure in those unaccustomed to coffee, according to Swiss researchers. But coffee, decaf or regular, does not cause hypertension. In sodas, caffeine is both a natural and an added ingredient. Only about 5 percent of the caffeine in colas and pepper-flavored soft drinks is obtained naturally from cola nuts; the remaining 95 percent is added. Caffeine-free drinks contain virtually no caffeine. Many prescription and nonprescription drugs also contain caffeine. Caffeine increases the ability of aspirin and other painkillers to do their job, and it is often used in headache and pain-relief remedies as well as in cold products and alertness or stay-awake tablets.

Because children have developing nervous systems, it is important to moderate their caffeine consumption. For children, major sources of caffeine include soft drinks and chocolate. Remember, I'm not a doctor. I just sound like one.

Take good care of yourself and live the best life possible! Please be aware that this information is provided to supplement the care provided by your physician. It is neither intended, nor implied, to be a substitute for professional medical advice.

Glenn Ellis, author of Which Doctor?, is a health columnist and radio commentator who lectures, and is an active media contributor nationally and internationally on health related topics

This is the first time I was made to feel like Jews

As a Christian, I occasionally remind my Jewish friends that I owe my faith to them. Indian tradition maintains that a few years after Christ's death, one of his apostles, Thomas (‘the Doubter’), sailed to Kerala to share the Good News with his co-religionists. Jews have lived in India for thousands of years, perhaps arriving on a mission from the court of King Solomon to trade in ‘elephant's tooth, peacocks and apes’. The Jews of Cochin are said to have been less than receptive to Thomas’s message, though he did make many other converts.

India’s ancient Jewish history, evidence of the country’s tolerance for people of all faiths, has long been a source of pride for us. But an even greater cause for satisfaction has been the fact that Indian Jews have never faced persecution. Indian Jews have flourished, and nowhere is that more evident than in Mumbai. Some of the city’s best-known landmarks, including Flora Fountain, have been built with donations from Jewish philanthropists who grew prosperous on trade and manufacturing. Most notable among them were the Sassoons, a family from Iraq. Their name is etched in plaques in at least four schools, a magnificent library, a dockyard and at least two of the city’s nine synagogues.

A more chilling reminder of the city’s role as a sanctuary for Jews is to be found on another set of marble tablets in a cemetery in Chinchpokli in Central Mumbai. One wall bears memorials to people who died in faraway concentration camps such as Auschwitz. It was donated by friends and relatives who found refuge here. Many of these exiles had arrived in India because of the intervention of Jawaharlal Nehru. “Few people can withhold their deep sympathy from the Jews for the long centuries of most terrible oppression to which they have been subjected all over Europe,” Nehru wrote, as he lobbied the British government to allow Eastern European Jews into India. “Fewer still can repress their indignation at the barbarities and racial suppression of Jews which the Nazis have indulged in during the last few years.”

Many of the exiles soon became an important part of Mumbai society, serving as catalysts for the modern Indian art scene. Rudolf von Leyden, Walter Langhammer, and Emanuel Schlesinger had brought with them full-colour reproductions of European masters and a world of ideas and discussion. They proved vital in helping the Mumbai artists discover a new way of seeing. These ideas found expression on canvas when painters such as M.F. Husain, F.N. Souza, and K.H. Ara founded the Progressive Artists Movement in 1947, bound together by the desire to find a new way to depict the stories of their newly independent nation.


Despite the significance of the contributions of the Baghdadis or the European exiles, the Jewish community that has left the deepest impression on the city are the Bene Israelis, who believe their ancestors were shipwrecked just south of Mumbai in 175 B.C.E. Centuries later, many of them migrated to Mumbai, where they built a synagogue in 1796.

Perhaps the best-known member of the community was Nissim Ezekiel, one of the pioneers of Indian poetry in English. My favorite of his poems is ‘Island,’ a tribute to my home city. The first stanza says, “Unsuitable for song as well as sense/ the island flowers into slums/ and skyscrapers, reflecting/ precisely the growth of my mind./ I am here to find my way in it.”

Though thousands of Indian Jews have emigrated to Israel over the years, many of those who stayed behind have an ambiguous relationship with the country that offers them the Right of Return. Among them is my friend Robin David, the author of City of Fear, a gem of a memoir that describes the horrors he witnessed as a reporter during the anti-Muslim pogrom in Gujarat in 2002. He also explains his frustration with Israel, a country to which he has attempted to emigrate three times, only to return. “I realised that the Promised Land was not my country,” he writes. “Even the strong fragrance of spices, wafting in from the Arab market through the yellowing Jerusalem sandstone, did not help. Just like Teen Darwaza [in Ahmedabad], but not quite home."

There’s another aspect to the relationship that goes unnoticed by most Indians. Each year, an estimated 20,000 Israelis take their vacations in India after finishing their three-year compulsory military service stints. Their 15,000-shekel bonuses go much further in India and, as one Israeli told me recently, “It’s nice to be in a place where you don't always have to watch your back.” The beaches of Goa and the slopes of Kulu and Manali rank high on the visitors’ itineraries. The massive numbers of Israelis in the subcontinent prompted the Brooklyn-based Lubavitcher sect to open its first Indian mission centre — known around the world as Chabad Houses — in Pune in 2000.

Two years ago, I travelled to Pune to interview Rabbi Betzalel Kupchick, who ran the centre. By offering his hundreds of Jewish visitors a year free meals and the chance to chat in Hebrew, Rabbi Kupchick believed he was opening an opportunity for dialogue. “There are many ways that God brings people to Him,” he told me patiently. “Here, without the pressure of family and society, Israelis are more open-minded. Often, this is their first exposure to spiritual things. When they're come to India, they’re searching.”

Mumbai’s Jewish community doesn’t have much to do with the Israeli visitors. The ultra-orthodox leanings of the Lubavitchers have been regarded with some suspicion by liberal Indian Jews. That divide disappeared on Wednesday night. When I spoke to Robin David on the phone on Friday, he was still trying to make sense of it all. “The Indian Jewish identity is the only one that hasn’t been created by persecution,” he said. “We’ve never felt scared. This is the first time we’ve been made to feel like Jews.”

That, to me, has been among the most tragic casualties of this terrorist attack. In a barrage of grenades and bullets, a part of the Indian dream that’s 2,500 years old has now been buried in a pile of bloody concrete shards.

By Naresh Fernandes
Editor of Time Out Mumbai

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Fly Catcher

Shame on Us!

Vote out this incompetent weak, government and speak out against these impotent corrupt politicians!
Vote for zero tolerance against Pakistan and any other hostile neighbour.
Stop this drama of Indo-Pak friendship tours/talks.. anything...boycott everything Pakistani....hurt their economy so their bankrupt government does not sponsor ISI/terrorism.
Look at Israel... 4 million citizens with 40 million hostile neighbours but no one dares pick up a fight with them..
Don't believe anything politicians say from across the border.
Start with convincing our pseudo-wanna-be-politicos like Mahesh Bhatt & co to stop all these pseudo-friendship tours to hostile neighbouring countries... their states kill and maim us repeatedly and we go wagging our domesticated tails to get patted on our backs by these masters of ISI...
And please stop lighting candles at the Gateway of India. We have been doing this after every terrorist attack on Mumbai.
If Javed Jaffrey is not happy staying in India, he should be free to go settle in Pakistan.
Shame on us!

Wildebeest Migration In The Age of Cellular Telephony

Post-natal Depression Misdiagnosis

Joanne Morgan was initially diagnosed with post-natal depression following the birth of her first child Thomas. But tests later revealed she had a rare pituitary gland disorder called Cushing’s disease.
I tucked my baby Thomas into his cot and dabbed my eyes – maybe I was being weak, but I’d been feeling so bad lately that I could hardly cope.
“I had no strength in my legs, no energy to carry my baby upstairs or to even bend down for anything.
“By 11am I was ready to go back to sleep, I couldn’t keep my eyes open.”
Joanne Morgan had started to feel exhausted halfway through her pregnancy with Thomas. Her blood pressure had risen and she was advised by doctors to rest.
In her 20th week she was told that she may have pre-eclampsia.
She said: “I was a first-time mum – it was no beautiful experience, but I was sure that I’d pick up after the birth.
“But after Thomas was born I wasn’t feeling any better – worse if anything. I felt totally washed out.
“Some days I was so tired that I’d fall into a deep sleep, not even waking when Thomas cried.
“And there were some odd changes in me too. I had acquired a lot of facial hair and a ‘buffalo hump’ at the top of my spine. I’d shot up from a size 12 to 20.
“The weight had settled around my middle, face and shoulders. I looked flushed and had big red stretch marks. I felt a mess.”
After seeing her GP, who took blood tests, Joanne, who lived in Llandrindod Wells, was told that she was probably suffering from post-natal depression and was given a prescription for the anti-depressant Prozac.
“I wasn’t convinced, but I had been feeling very down for quite a while,” Joanne, now 39, said.
“I didn’t know what was wrong with me.
“I couldn’t cope with Thomas and I felt that my life was falling apart.”
The turning point for Joanne came when her mother suggested she speak to her former employer Kate who worked as a doctor in London – Joanne had previously worked as a nanny for her family.
She was referred to see a private gynaecologist who asked whether she had pronounced stretch marks and said he was certain Joanne had Cushing’s disease, which is caused by a tumour on the pituitary gland.
The disease can cause increased weight gain, heavy stretch marks, fatigue, anxiety and depression. In people with Cushing’s disease, the pituitary gland, which is situated at the base of the brain, produces excessive and often dangerous amounts of the hormone cortisol, which regulates metabolism.
The pituitary gland is about the size of a pea and is situated behind the nose.
Joanne, who now has a daughter Cerys after undergoing IVF treatment, said: “I was so relieved that someone believed I was ill, I wasn’t upset about the illness.
“Tests found 10 times the normal amount of cortisol in my system. If the condition had been left unchecked. I could have had a stroke or a heart attack.”
Joanne was later admitted to the University Hospital of Wales, in Cardiff, for further tests to determine whether the excess cortisol was being caused by a tumour on the pituitary gland. They revealed a non-cancerous tumour and decided to operate.
The mother-of-two, who now lives near Newark, in Nottinghamshire, was in theatre for three hours and was kept in hospital for three weeks. Despite feeling “very poorly” for the first week after surgery, her flushed face began to calm down and steadily she recovered.
“Three months later I was feeling far more lively. I went back to work part-time and I could at least give Thomas the attention he needed.
“Part of my pituitary gland had been cut away so I then had to take replacement hormones.
“If only someone had recognised the symptoms earlier before my self-confidence took such a battering.”
Pituitary gland The pituitary gland is in the bony hollow beneath the brain and behind the bridge of the nose.
The pea-sized gland is also known as the master gland as it controls all the body’s hormones.
The world’s tallest man, Ukrainian vet Leonid Stadnik who is 2.57m tall, reportedly started growing at the age of 14, after undergoing brain surgery, which stimulated his pituitary gland.
But most pituitary disorders are caused by a benign tumour on the gland and can cause a vast range of symptoms, including infertility, raging thirst, growth of hands, feet and facial bones, abnormal weight gain and even fragile skin and visual problems.
But because pituitary disorders are relatively rare and many of their symptoms are non-specific, such as constant headaches and weight gain, diagnosis can be slow and many patients can find themselves isolated and distressed as their quality of life diminishes.
Once diagnosed, treatment often involves surgery and radiotherapy and patients may have to take hormone replacement drugs for the rest of their lives.
The Pituitary Foundation has found that the hormonal changes can also cause psychological and psychiatric problems.
And because many patients know no one else with the same problem, it can be traumatic to cope with.