Coffee Research and Info

Two Simple Owls: Coffee is usually associated with waking people up in the morning, but it can also perk up your skin. The caffeine in coffee has a number of benefits for your skin, from treating redness and inflammation, to reducing the appearance of under-eye circles, to getting rid of cellulite. By incorporating caffeine into your skin care routine, you can reveal evenly toned, smooth skin all over your body.

Reduces Inflammation
Caffeine has potent anti-inflammatory properties that make it ideal for reducing inflammation and redness in your skin. In a 1981 study performed at the Seoul National University, researchers found that caffeine is able to reduce inflammation almost as well as aspirin; in a 1978 performed at the University of Tennessee, researchers found that adding caffeine to anti-inflammatory creams significantly increased their effectiveness. Overall, use of skin care products containing caffeine will reduce and prevent inflammation and redness, leaving you with a beautiful, even skin tone.

Helps Get Rid of Under-Eye Circles
Dark under-eye circles can be caused by a number of factors, including dehydration, allergies, lack of sleep or genetics. Although caffeine cannot completely erase hereditary dark circles, applying caffeine under your eyes will reduce the puffiness and inflammation associated with dark circles. Additionally, caffeine reduces the build-up of blood under your eyes which contributes to dark shadows. Several eye creams contain caffeine, or you can apply moist tea bags to your eyes for five minutes to reduce puffiness and give you a more alert appearance.

Gets Rid of Cellulite
Caffeine can also reduce the appearance of cellulite. In a 2008 study performed at the University of São Paulo, researchers found that an application of skin cream containing caffeine to cellulite reduced the size of cellulite fat cells by 17 percent. In addition, a 2007 study performed at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro found that caffeine cream applied to cellulite decreased the hip’s diameter in almost 70 percent of participants. A number of anti-cellulite creams have been developed to reduce the appearance of cellulite, or you can take advantage of the power of caffeine by adding ground or instant coffee to your regular body scrub at home.

Info obtained from Livestrong.com

Photo courtesy of www.alexandraresort.com

Technorati Tags: Coffee,Research,Cellulite,Inflammation,Caffeine

How Many Red Bulls Would Kill You??

How many Red Bulls would it take to kill me?

How Many Red Bulls Would Kill You?

Image via Wikipedia

The folks at Energy Fiend have developed an online calculator called “Death by Caffeine” that tells you roughly how many Red Bulls, Monsters, Rock Stars, etc you’d have to drink to keel over. The number of drinks you can choose from on the killer-drink drop down menu is staggering, but upon closer inspection it looks like they include regular sodas like Pepsi, Coke and the like along with the amped up drinks (and even energy mints and coffee ice cream).

I’m going to enter my information, choosing Red Bull as my initial poison. Here’s the result:

It would take 204.75 cans of Red Bull to put you down.

Comparatively:

Gulp down 474.78 cans of Coca-Cola Classic and you’re history.

You could drink 297.82 cans of Mountain Dew before croaking.

It would take 109.20 cups of Starbucks Tall Caffe Americano to put you down.

If you eat 341.25 Cups of Haagen-Dazs Coffee Ice Cream, you’ll be pushing up daisies.

By the way (and I say this as a die-hard coffee drinker), imbibing caffeine to stay awake is one of the silliest things we humans do. The reason is this: in the brain, caffeine acts as an antagonist (a blocker) of adenosine–the neurotransmitter that pushes us closer and closer to sleep until we nod off–and it’s very good at accomplishing this. The problem is that with less exposure to adenosine, we become even more sensitive to the neurotransmitter’s effects. If we reduce our intake of caffeine, or simply become more tolerant of it, we actually find ourselves becoming more tired. So then we jack up the caffeine to counteract the withdrawal, but that just increases our tolerance.

Takeaway: you can only fool your brain into not sleeping for so long before succumbing to the inevitable crash.

HT: MindHacks

Candy with a Jolt

A friend of mine named Amy has uncovered a new trend: candy, all hopped up on caffeine.

In an e-mail, she wrote: "Butterfinger Buzz...all the caffeine of leading energy drinks. I kid you not..."

Amy provided a link that took me to a candy review on a website called Candyblog. According to candy-lover Cybele May, Butterfinger Buzz doesn't have quite the same flaky peanut center as a normal Butterfinger, but it does deliver what the wrapper promises: the same amount of caffeine as the leading energy drink. That's 80 mg of caffeine – same as an 8-ounce Red Bull.

Other caffeinated candies reviewed on Candyblog include Snickers Charged and Twix Java. And if you're willing to venture away from familiar brand names, there are plenty of juiced up confections:

• Coffeebeat
• Pocket Coffee
• Trader Joe's Espresso Chocolate
• Caffe Acapella
• Theo 3400 Phinney Bars
• Green & Black's Espresso Chocolate
• Black Black gum

The caffeine candy I find most intriguing is Loud Truck Energy Gummies. The packaging carries a photo of a truck decked out with giant loudspeakers. Inside, honey-colored gummy bears pack 32 mg of caffeine, along with vitamins C, B, and taurine (an amino acid found in many energy drinks).

Loud Truck just might take you where you want to go.

To Your Good Health,
Jenny Thompson – HSI

Posted:  True Health Is True Wealth