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Comment by emersonrsantos | Hacker News Reader

The current facts about coffee and sugar are the following: drinking coffee is good for your mental and physical, while sugar is linked to depression, addiction, anxiety, heart problems, obesity and not surprisingly, PTSD:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4522929/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4086302/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5056806/

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You're leaving out many things about coffee. Specifically, caffeine, which energy drinks are often loaded with. Caffeine on its own can cause anxiety (See "Caffeine-induced anxiety disorder") and is linked to depression. Let alone workers consuming caffeine during work time with headaches(or other withdrawal symptoms) on their days off who still haven't figured it out the stuff is just plain not good for you.

I've stopped drinking coffee as it would frequently give me anxiety and sometimes panic attacks. I now drink tea or water at work. However, I still need to work harder on cutting down on sugar.

I suspected coffee was giving me anxiety which bordered on paranoia. I stopped drinking coffee and it went away immediately. A week later (today) I had a cup to see how I'd respond. Severe anxiety came back within half an hour. Very interesting.

I found that small amounts of alcohol have a similar effect. Keep drinking though and the depressant effects then start to kick in and the anxiety/paranoia subsides.

There's a third way, very popular among hackers, yerba mate. Used by South American people.

It has good caffeine content, but apparently has a slower absorption. Helps you to keep focused, without the strong highs and lows you have with pure coffee.

Yerba mate is my favorite. I wish it was more popular in the US.

I stopped drinking coffee, the acidity was ruining my GI.

Switched to Mate or PG Tips tea as my morning drink, typically with loose leaf mate in a French press.

South American (Cruz de Malta , Taragui) are readily available on Amazon prime and much cheaper than the American brand Guayaki

From personal experience I'd say coffee is not always good for your mental state. If I drink a cup every day for a week I get into a constant state of anxiety and nervousness. I also get dizzy during workouts. I also can tell when my girlfriend had coffee because she will be much more combative in discussions.

As with a lot of other things observe yourself and don't blindly trust studies. even if the study finds positive results for 90% of people you may be in the 10%.

try adding L Theanine

I have similar symptoms when drinking coffee - although they kind of emerged. I’m drinking decaf coffee now, which tastes good enough for me to create the joy of a morning cup. I’m asking myself though, if this effect of caffeine has other reasons.

Maybe it's an age thing. I used to drink liters of coffee without problem but slowly my tolerance went down until now I can't even drink one cup without negative consequences.

I drink dandelion coffee now. It's quite good.

Pretty sure my (alleged) PTSD is from the stress of war and almost getting blown up a couple times (well, driving into a major ambush and getting a piece of shrapnel bounced off my helmet probably didn't help either) and not from my previous copious consumption of sugary caffeinated drinks.

PTSD can come from many factors, I'm not saying that it's caused specifically and only by sugar. People who didn't go to war also have PTSD, as we also have soldies who went to war and didn’t come back with PTSD.

It's the Taurene that differentiates most energy drinks.

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