Effects of caffeine and hormones

Are you trying to cut back on caffeine? 
In our last blog we looked at the difference between coffee & tea caffeine levels.  

What are the impacts of caffeine on women’s health and why considering lowering your caffeine intake could help you with your sleep and hormones!  

Coffee is known to give you the jitters but did you also know it can be playing havoc with your levels of anxiety, heart palpitations and your sleep.  

A study conducted by Taibah university of medical science conducted a study on 350 women said that habitual caffeine consumption can be linked to nearly all menstrual cycle disturbances, such as irregular cycles and period pain.  

The reason for this is that caffeine raises your cortisol and adrenalin in the body. Which in turn affect your hormones. Cortisol interacts with  gonadotripin releasing hormone ( the hormone that initiates the start of your cycle) and the thyroid hormone. Women are sensitive to the release of cortisol which adds stress the body. 

200mg of caffeine (about 2 cups of coffee) has the ability to interact with your oestrogen, either raising or lowering it. Caffeine has a strong interaction with the liver and oestrogen is metabolised in the liver. Depending on your ethnicity and genetic will depend weather caffeine raises or lowers your oestrogen levels. 

 
Most experts agree on a daily caffeine amount for men but not for women they have yet to agree a suitable amount, for men its 400mg per day. Its suggested 200mg per day for women dropping lower if you are trying to get pregnant or breastfeeding.  

Typically it can take 4-6 hours for your body to metabolise half of your caffeine intake. That means if you had a coffee after 4pm and went to bed at 10pm half of your consumption would still be in your system.