Should I completely cut caffeine in light of genetic information?

What is 23andme?

I will tell you that once you quit, really quit, after a month or so you will feel good. You will wake up better, because you will not be in the caffiene crash. You will probably sleep better, and so you won’t feel the need to for the caffeine. It is tough at first, really tough. You probably feel like the caffeine does not affect you much at all, that you can sleep with no problem, etc., but as you withdraw you will be sleeping everywhere, be exhausted, and have a bad headache.

I recommend slowly decreasing over a a week, don’t go cold turkey, and have advil nearby.

That’s a lot of “mays”. You may crash into a rollerskating pro-wrestler on your next trip to the park and split your head open on the sidewalk. Life is short. Enjoy it.

I cut coffee out of my life about six weeks ago. I only had one cup early every morning. ONE. And letting that go was bloody effing hell. I was angry all the time, even weepy, and didn’t sleep right…. it took a month before I was human. So, given your active partnership with this particular drug, I’d be very cautious. Maybe cut back tiny bit by tiny bit, and continue to research how dangerous it really may be for you.

Sure, it’s just coffee.

I gave up caffeine when my husband was diagnosed with a heart ailment (occasional skipped beats) that is caused by it and by smoking.

Meanwhile, he went back to it with no ill effects (apparently the smoking was causing his heart ailment), but I have not.

23andme is a personal genetic testing company. This situation is precisely my problem with their methods. The data for using single polymorphisms (one change in the genome out of billions of pieces of code) to predict disease is weak at best, but much is made about these types of predictive tools.

To answer your question, there certainly is no harm in quitting, if you want, but I’m not convinced of the correlations 23andme provides. You may suffer a heart attack even if you quit, or not have a heart attack while still drinking gallons of coffee a day. The correlations are notoriously imprecise.

Of course cut out coffee. If you know it isn’t good for you—why would you even hesitate a minute? It’s like cutting out sugar if you are diabetic. Just take care of yourself. You won’t miss it after awhile. Tea can be a lovely substitute, and also something called Cafix, which I used for the many years I was pregnant and nursing and not drinking coffee.

I have one cup in the morning.

I brew my own ice tea. It is Decaffeinated.

Yes, avoid it like the plague, and read the labels of everything you eat or drink.

Do the negatives out way the positives? Coffee also has been shown to contain many antioxidants and may even be a tool for escaping Alzheimers.