Health for a Lifetime

Studies In Caffeine, Vitamin D, And Exercise

Three Angels Broadcasting Network

Program transcript

Participants: Don Mackintosh (Host), Dr. Neil Nedley

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Series Code: HFAL

Program Code: HFAL00234A


00:51 Hello and welcome to Health For A Lifetime, I'm Your Host
00:53 Don Mackintosh and I'm glad you are with us today.
00:55 We Are Talking with Doctor Neil Nedley and
00:57 Doctor Nedley Welcome. - Thank You.
01:00 We are going to be looking at some current studies as of
01:02 2008 and just brand new studies.
01:06 We are going to be looking at things that are kind
01:09 of a hodgepodge, these are fascinating studies
01:12 and very helpful.
01:13 We are going to look in the first half here at high
01:16 caffeine drinks, maybe you have heard about those.
01:19 We are also going to be looking at vitamin D.
01:24 It might not seem like it is important stuff but it is
01:26 very important isn't it? - absolutely.
01:28 So why don't we just start with a high dosage of
01:31 a caffeine drink here and see what that does to us.
01:35 We actually have a graphic that goes
01:37 along with this study.
01:38 There is a drink called Red Bull, it is an energy drink
01:42 that is used by a lot of university and college students
01:46 as well as athletes and those in extreme sports and even
01:50 race car drivers.
01:51 The problem with that is it can increase the risk of heart
01:54 attack and strokes significantly.
01:57 Even in younger individuals who do not have any
02:00 cardiovascular disease.
02:02 So this study was just published and it actually was done
02:09 by a group in Australia.
02:12 This Australian group was studying this drink that
02:15 actually comes out Austria.
02:18 I didn't realize how pervasive Red Bull is
02:22 but it actually sold 3.5 billion cans in 143 countries.
02:32 Wow! So lots of people are drinking this and what does it
02:36 do to you? Well what it does is it actually tightens
02:39 blood vessels, and it makes your blood vessels and your
02:43 circulation as if you already have heart disease and
02:46 atherosclerosis even if you don't have it.
02:49 It causes the blood platelets to get sticky and the
02:54 viscosity of the blood to go up.
02:56 The platelets are those things that come out when you're
02:59 going to have a clot? That's right, you want to have
03:02 platelets that work well in the problem with them is if
03:06 they work too well they get toward a more narrow area
03:09 where you might have some calcium in the blood vessel,
03:12 those blood platelets can think that the blood vessel was
03:15 damaged and they all gather together and cause an artery
03:18 to actually close off.
03:20 Platelets which is the clotting factor in viscosity which
03:23 means that it is really thick, in other words the blood is
03:27 clumping together and how does that cause that to happen?
03:31 How does caffeine cause that to happen?
03:33 Well caffeine does actually play, it is a drug when it
03:37 ends in ine, anyplace with little things on platelet
03:42 molecules called adenosine, it blocks adenosine receptors and
03:46 that makes the platelets not work like they are supposed to.
03:50 So is this true with any caffeine drink?
03:54 Not just Red Bull? While the study was done on Red Bull
03:59 and Red Bull has 80 mg of caffeine in it in one drink.
04:03 That is equivalent to a cup of coffee and so the study
04:07 researchers said we need to study a cup of coffee in the
04:11 same way, maybe it has the same risk.
04:13 We do know that coffee has the same amount of caffeine
04:16 and we know caffeine is the main problem with Red Bull but coffee
04:22 might have some advantages over Red Bull and that is
04:24 coffee has cocoa which is an antioxidant.
04:28 Antioxidants can mitigate against it slightly.
04:35 So the bad things are kind of weighed out by something else
04:39 that makes it a little less bad?
04:40 Right, but with Red Bull you are not getting any of the
04:44 good stuff, and it turns out that one hour after they
04:48 drink Red Bull their blood vessels were no longer normal
04:52 and it increased their risk of heart attack and stroke
04:57 after just one drink.
04:58 And is this even with kids, teenagers and whatnot?
05:01 With teenagers as well and the problem with this is it is
05:06 being marketed to this young age group.
05:08 In fact it is even formula on racing advertises Red Bull
05:13 says it will give you wings.
05:15 Young people are wanting to get the sprout wings and
05:18 they think the caffeine will make them feel like
05:21 they have those wings and in a sense because of the
05:24 stimulation that it does they might get that feeling.
05:28 But unfortunately that feeling is not associated with
05:31 the same benefits to the hardens blood vessels in fact
05:34 it is the opposite benefit.
05:36 So basically the take-home message is, no matter what the
05:39 brand name is something that is high in caffeine is going
05:43 to try and excite you and set you up for real problems and
05:47 you could rue the day you ever drank the drink.
05:50 Yeah exactly and it is unfortunate that a lot of people
05:54 who sell caffeine have been trying to talk about
05:57 the benefits of caffeine drinks.
06:00 They have to really try to stretch it to show benefits,
06:04 and yes it does stimulate, it is a drug and unfortunately
06:07 it causes habituation and if you withdraw from it and get
06:10 severe splitting headaches that is a clue that this thing
06:13 is not very good for you.
06:14 No good natural food that is good for the heart or good
06:20 for the blood vessels when you withdraw from it
06:22 you get a splitting headache.
06:24 That is just not the way it is for healthy chemicals,
06:28 but caffeine is not one of those.
06:30 One last thing before we go to that vitamin D and that is
06:34 the mental performance of some of the drinks like this,
06:37 if you are race car driver and different things where
06:41 they are encouraging people in athletics, does it make you more
06:43 proficient? Can you focus more? Is your mental ability
06:47 increased by it?
06:48 Well there have been studies done on that as well,
06:51 typist a little faster under the influence of caffeine,
06:54 but they make 10 times as many errors.
06:56 Well I guess that's not very helpful is it?
06:58 You have to have spell checker.
06:59 If you are line man in a football game, or you are trying
07:03 to race down the sidelines the caffeine actually does seem
07:06 to help, but you don't want to give it to the quarterback.
07:09 Because the quarterback needs to have good analytical
07:14 thinking, he needs to be quick but more important than
07:17 quickness is the decision he is making with that ball.
07:22 You have one decision which is I got to run this way
07:25 verses 30 options as quarterback but it is okay for
07:29 the one option person.
07:30 It's okay for the one option person during that time but
07:33 unfortunately you setting them up for heart disease and
07:37 problems so really I wouldn't even recommend it for them.
07:40 But as far as the athletic performance is concerned
07:42 it doesn't seem to be adverse except if you are in
07:45 the decision-making role.
07:46 I just can't help myself one more question
07:49 - that's all right. - I have actually been you know
07:52 I have attended a lot of places of worship in my line of
07:55 work and of all different denominations.
07:58 Some denominations well I have actually crossed all the
08:03 denominations but there is this increase like Starbucks
08:07 mentality that the lobby you have or maybe some kind of
08:12 foods usually high Fatty and sugary foods along with
08:16 maybe a caffeine type drink, what does that do to your
08:19 ability to listen to a sermon?
08:21 Or to listen to a message or a lecture?
08:24 It really decreases the abilities significantly, in fact
08:28 if you were to drink a Red Bull before you went to
08:32 a university lecture trying to explain some advanced
08:36 concept at all you would lose focus,
08:39 you wouldn't be able to stand it.
08:41 You'd want to get up and want to move and you really
08:44 wouldn't want to stay with the lecture, and stay with the
08:48 learning aspect of things.
08:50 So maybe that's why they added a little exercise at the
08:53 beginning of the service sometimes you will have a pep
08:57 rally and is that to calm them down or maybe they feel like
09:01 they have to do that?
09:02 I don't know the two seem to work together and I thought
09:04 it was interesting.
09:06 Yeah I wouldn't recommend, you know the spirituality is to
09:09 be for the enhancement of the frontal lobes of the brain.
09:12 I mean the frontal lobe is the crown of the brain and
09:15 this is the area that really needs to be expanded and when
09:18 the frontal lobe is compromised we make poorer decisions,
09:21 risk of depression, we would end up with a greater risk
09:25 of problem children and etc. when we are parenting them so
09:28 we really want to enhance the frontal lobe function and
09:31 caffeine does not enhance it.
09:32 Caffeine blocks it the adenosine reflectors in the frontal
09:35 lobe and studies show that when you have caffeine on board
09:38 you are more likely to gossip that when
09:40 you don't have caffeine on board so even things like
09:43 that are affected by it.
09:45 So I would say if we are really wanting to enter into
09:47 a worshipful experience, let's leave the frontal lobes
09:50 suppressants out of this picture.
09:52 What about vitamin D?
09:54 We've had enough of that little segment
09:57 so lets go to vitamin D.
09:58 Yes, very interesting study on vitamin D and we also have
10:02 a graphic in regards to this.
10:04 Vitamin D has now been shown to help colorectal cancer
10:10 patients and this is very exciting.
10:14 You can see the man there getting his vitamin D,
10:17 it is direct sunlight that is one of the best ways
10:21 of getting vitamin D.
10:22 It produces an active hormone in the body that
10:26 we know prevents cancer, but this is now a study done
10:31 on people who already have the cancer.
10:35 In fact for years Don, there have been many people
10:41 who have tried to give certain vitamins in pills to
10:45 prevent cancer, you know the beta-carotene study where
10:49 they were given beta-carotene to thousands of people and
10:52 the other people were getting a placebo, no benefit.
10:55 Vitamin C has been tried, a small benefit with vitamin C,
11:00 maybe a one or two percentage points at the most.
11:03 But there are nutrients that you can take that can
11:07 significantly decrease your risk of cancer and
11:10 we are talking 50% 60% 70% reduction in cancer.
11:14 Those nutrients are vitamin D and calcium particularly
11:18 together, and these are just studies done in the last two
11:23 years, but this actual study that we are quoting
11:27 from 2008 show that extended lives of people with
11:31 colon and rectal cancer.
11:33 Previous research of course had shown that they were less
11:36 likely to develop colon or rectal cancer if they have
11:39 higher amounts of vitamin D in both women and men.
11:42 Women are much less likely to develop breast cancer.
11:45 Both women and men are much less likely to develop
11:48 Hymnologic cancer of the blood.
11:51 It is blood related cancers.
11:54 Now this was a new study led by Doctor Ing of the Dana-
11:59 Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.
12:01 He involved 300 to 400 men and women that have been
12:04 diagnosed with colorectal cancer from 1991 to 2002.
12:07 What they did is that they went back and looked at their
12:11 vitamin D levels to see if there was any relationship to
12:14 how long they lived.
12:16 This study was just published in the Clinical Oncology
12:20 and they found that the blood vitamin D levels were
12:24 related to how long they lived.
12:26 These vitamin D levels were tracked for an average of
12:29 about 6-1/2 years and those in the highest 25% of
12:32 vitamin D levels were 50% less likely to die during
12:36 the study from their cancer or any other cause compared
12:40 to the patience with the lowest 25% of vitamin D levels.
12:44 So what if you are just in the upper fourth of individuals
12:48 after you have cancer you are going to be able to extend
12:53 your life significantly, I mean doubling your risk of
12:57 living. - or dying. - if you have a low vitamin D
13:01 you doubled your risk of dying.
13:02 So vitamin D then you cannot get it anywhere except from
13:06 sunlight? Or where else?
13:08 Well you can get it in supplements.
13:10 Which is the best supplement, one or the other
13:14 or can you overdo it?
13:15 You can overdo vitamin D, vitamin D is fat soluble so what
13:19 I would recommend as an internal medicine physician,
13:22 anyone who has cancer particularly colorectal cancer,
13:26 breast cancer, prostate cancer I recommend that they get
13:29 their vitamin D. level drawn and they see with their 25
13:33 hydroxy vitamin D. level, don't get the 125 because that
13:37 varies a lot throughout the day,
13:39 the 25 hydroxy will tell
13:41 you where your vitamin D. stores are and then you can see.
13:43 whether you may need to supplement.
13:45 If you are really low if you are in the bottom fourth,
13:48 you really need to mega doses of Vitamin D and sunlight.
13:51 for a few days isn't going to be enough to get you up there.
13:54 You need some mega doses, prescription doses of Vitamin D
13:58 to get it up there and maintain it with either supplements
14:01 or with sunlight.
14:03 We have been talking to Doctor Neil Nedley, talking about
14:06 vitamin D and it is important.
14:09 When we come back we will continue a little of that.
14:11 discussion and look at some more new research.
14:14 Join us when we come back.


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Revised 2014-12-17