Coffee affects our behavior, 5 “consequences”

Everyone knows that coffee gives life to the soul. As it passes through our lips, our brain increases focus, our vision becomes sharper, and fatigue goes away. As French novelist Honor de Balzac once expressed: “Once the coffee falls into the stomach, there is a general noise. Ideas start moving like the Big Army battalions on the battle field”.

Caffeine is the main chemical in coffee drink, a psychoactive drug that changes the way we feel and conduct ourselves. The caffeine molecules are similar to the adenosis molecules in our bodies, which accumulate into our brain as long as we stay awake. And since caffeine looks like adenoline, it can block sensors and manipulate the brain to stay awake.

In view of its popularity, scientists have conducted many studies on coffee and caffeine to discern its effect on health and behavior. Here are the five less familiar and at the same time more unexpected facts they have discovered.

• It encourages you to spend more

If you're too fond of coffee every day, you'll spend more money over the week. Researchers have found that caffeine can affect what you buy and how much you spend. Researchers at South Florida University gave customers normal coffee, caffeine - free coffee, or water as they entered a store.

Coffee drinkers spent about 50 percent more money and bought nearly 30 percent more articles than customers who consumed a decaffeinated drink. Moreover, coffee consumers spent more on impulsive purchases. Other studies confirm that caffeine can affect money decision making. In a study of game players, researchers linked coffee consumption to the most dangerous bets. These findings indicate that caffeine increases impulsiveness.

• Helps You Cooperate

It is already known that coffee improves people's mood, and researchers have found that teams that are regular coffee consumers work together better. A study conducted at Ohio State University, U.S.A., revealed that coffee - drinking groups before discussing a controversial subject had a team performance better than those who drank coffee without caffeine.

Also, those who consumed caffeine spoke more during the discussion, found it easier to stay inside the subject, and declared that they would be willing to work with their group again than those who did not consume caffeine. Researchers attribute this atmosphere of cooperation to growing watchfulness by coffee.

• Makes you physically stronger

Besides mental keenness, coffee seems to increase tolerance of pain. Psychologist Burel Goodin of Alabama University, U.S.A., found that people who usually consume caffeine products can best cope with unpleasant physical stresses.

So he noted that people who consumed caffeine were less sensitive to heat and mechanical pressure. This may explain why people who consume caffeine before training tend to perform better. Caffein is one of the most used supplements to enhance athletic skills in a wide range of sports and activities.

Research conducted at the University of Granada, Spain, has shown that drinking a strong coffee half an hour before training can increase the rate of burning fats. Many studies, meanwhile, suggest that regular coffee drinkers tend to live longer, manifesting lower risks to numerous diseases, including cardiovascular, diabetes, and certain types of cancer.

Scientists recently discovered a protective feature of caffeine that operates within our body's cells - increasing the function of mitocondrites. Mitocundries are the so-called “energy plants” of the energy-generating cell. Researchers found that caffeine protects cardiovascular cells from damage. Other studies claim that caffeine opposes the effects of pro-inflammatory molecules that accumulate in the body over age.

• It has an unconscious effect on us

The exciting effects of coffee can affect our minds and behavior, even without drinking a sip. A study conducted at the University of Toronto revealed that subjects exposed simply to coffee signals - even before a cup of coffee - became more attentive.

Coffee suggestion affected participants from Western cultures more than those where coffee is less dominant in society. Behavioral scientist Adriana Madzarov of the Stevens Institute for Technology conducted a similar study. She urged participants to solve the problems of algebra in a room that smells like coffee.

Those who worked with the sweet aroma of coffee did better. Based on these findings, Madzharov suggests that employers and retailers “can use delicate aromas to help form the experience of employees or residents with their environment”.

Another unconscious influence is the way people prefer their coffee. A study by the University of Pennsylvania, U.S.A., found that American liberals were almost twice as likely as conservatives to drink coffee. Polls suggested that liberals may be more open to globalisation, while conservatives tend to be more resistant to products perceived as <x0 foreign”.

• Your great love of coffee can be determined by genes

There are two main reasons why some people don't love coffee: One is about the tongue and the other is about the liver. Nearly 25 percent of people are “up to taste” - that is, they suffer from a state of increased sensitivity to chemicals, which give taste to food and drink.

Genetic changes in so-called TAS2R genes affect the configuration of taste buds and the way people perceive different tastes. Coffee chemicals, such as caffeine and quinine, may seem bitter to the tasters.

Other types of genetic variation cannot compensate for the bitterness of sugar or cream coffee. For example, CYP1A2 is a gene that produces an enzyme of liver that breaks down caffeine. People with a version of this gene, assigned to CYP1A2*1F, don't process caffeine that fast.

In practice, this means that the drug remains active in the body for a longer period of time, which can produce trembling and nausea. People who have a slow metabolism in caffeine processing may also be in increased danger of a heart attack and hypertension when consuming overcaffeinated caffeine. As with any medicine, the body adapts and creates a tolerance, meaning that more is needed to feel the effect.