Caffeine can cause your blood pressure to rise and your heart to beat irregularly, but Cliff's heart surgeon said a couple of cups of coffee in the morning wouldn't hurt him... just stop at that.
Cliff likes coffee with every meal, even in this hot weather. So I bought Folgers decaf to use at all times except in the morning. I also bought decaf Diet Coke and decaf tea, feeling quite proud of my resourcefulness.
Today I decided to study up on caffeine, and the decaffeination process. You'll never believe it: The process used to take the caffeine out of coffee may actually cause decaf coffee to make your bad cholesterol higher, which is, of course, bad for the heart. Here's one source of this information. The chemical used is a solvent, which doesn't sound all that great either. Would you drink nail polish remover?
Wait until I break THIS news to Cliff. I wish I'd found out about this before his last doctor's appointment; I'd have gotten an expert opinion. I could call and leave a message for the nurse, and have her call us back... but I doubt it's all that critical.
I'm thinking I'll let him drink his decaf until his appointment in December; then we'll see what the doctor says.
The same chemical is used to decaffeinate tea, too.
Sometimes you can't win for losing.
1 comment:
My cardiologist was a bit stickier on this issue of caffeine, probably because he knew as a heavy smoker & coffee drinker there is a psychological link between the two in my noggin. So no caffeine was allowed for the first 6 months of recovery in any form, including decaf soda. After that, he allowed me to go back to drinking decaf coffee. On occassion, I will drink a caffeinated cola when buying lunch at MickeyD's (horrors! -- but a diabetic HAS to eat) and in the summer I will often buy a half decalf/ half caffeinated iced coffee as a pick-me-up. The rest of the time I drink iced tea. Caffeinated iced tea, at that. No sugar or milk, though :)
But I'm not back to drinking a couple pots of Columbian a day, that's for sure.
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