Caffeine & Headaches
Caffeine. We all love it. Okay maybe not all of us, but a lot of us.
In fact up to 85% of adults consume caffeine everyday with an average intake of 180 milligrams a day, or equivalent to about 2-3 cups of coffee or 4 sodas.
When it comes to the health benefits of consequences of caffeine the literature is just about everywhere.
Caffeine can improve your short term memory, decrease fatigue and improve your mental function.
It can also lead to restlessness, shakiness, headaches, insomnia, dizziness and abnormal heart rhythm.
When it comes down to it caffeine is another drug that can be beneficial or it can have negative consequences.
Since many of us consume 180mg a day of caffeine when we don’t get that cup in the morning we sometimes feel a change in our mood, drowsiness, and sometimes even get headaches (the most common effect of caffeine withdrawal).
Why does this happen?
When we continually drink or consume high levels of caffeine our body has the potential for us to become dependent on it because of caffeine’s affect on the adenosine system.
(The adenosine system essentially acts as a manager/go-between when it comes to regulating the release of neurotransmitters.)
When adenosine binds to a specific receptor it slows down the activity of our brain(pre-cursor to sleep) and helps to dilate blood vessels to help increase the amount of oxygen getting to tissues.
So what does caffeine do to this system?
Caffeine causes an up-reguation of the adenosine system resulting in an increased sensitivity to adenosine when we haven’t had caffeine (during withdrawal).
Normally adenosine acts on certain receptors that help blood vessels in the brain expand(vasodilation). However caffeine stops adenosine from having the normal vasodilation effect because caffeine essentially takes the place of adenosine and doesn’t allow it to bind, as pictured on the right, not allowing adenosine to do its job.
When we stop ingesting caffeine after periods of high caffeine intake our body is highly sensitive to the adenosine that can now reach the receptors that were previously blocked by caffeine.
This can then cause an over dilation of the blood vessels leading to headaches and even migraines in some individuals.
These symptoms only happen to certain individuals though and they believe it is genetic. For instance I do fine going from mulitple cups of coffee a day down to zero with no headaches or drowsiness etc., my wife on the other hand, not so much.
So what to do if you get caffeine withdrawal headaches?
1st- Regular caffeine consumption will stop these headaches from happening.
2nd- If you aren’t wanting to continue to drink caffeine but you get headaches every time you start to stop you’ll have to slowly taper off your caffeine so that your body starts to have a normal response to adenosine again.
If caffeine isn’t causing you headaches and you still experience headaches check out how we help individuals with headaches in Columbus with our Data-Driven Approach here.
References
Fried, N., Elliott, M., & Oshinsky, M. (2017). The Role of Adenosine Signaling in Headache: A Review. Brain Sciences, 7(12), 30. https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci7030030
Shapiro, R.E. Caffeine and headaches. Neurol Sci 28, S179–S183 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10072-007-0773-5
Zhu, K., Born, D.W. and Dilli, E. (2020), Secondary Headache: Current Update. Headache: The Journal of Head and Face Pain, 60: 2654-2664. https://doi.org/10.1111/head.13986