I have tried to kick my caffeine addiction with little/some success; I have gone down from about 10 cups to about 2 mugs. I no longer drink coffee first think in the morning instead I would drink a liter to 1.5 liter of water before my first cup. We have Rooibos tea and I find it is a good substituted and tastes a little better than green tea or black tea when you drink it with out milk. Maybe it is because we grew up with the “stuff”.
>Gretchen's testing shows that for her "caffeine does seem to have an effect."
I first thought caffeine had an effect when one reading was different, but when the testing was finished, I concluded that for me and with my diet, it didn't have much of an effect, if any. Any differences could have been random variation, and in order to conclude anything I'd have to repeat the test, which I don't want to do because going without caffeine gives me a headache and I'm so sleepy I can't get any work done.
The complete results are posted here.
For a long time I could not figure out why my BG went up so high after waking. I assumed it was the Dawn Phenomenon. Upon waking, no matter what time, I would shoot up 100 + points, even not eating anything. The only constant was my morning cup or two of coffee, with a tsp of splenda. I traded the morning coffee for green tea (not decaf) with tsp of splenda and the spikes completely went away. It does not seem to be the caffeine for me neccessarily. I can have diet soda, or even an energy drink and it does not affect my BG like coffee used to.
David,
I'm a Type 1 and also drink only tea (plus the rare iced decaf coffee) and have found decaf tea most disappointing -- with one exception. There is a British-made decaf, called Typhoo decaffinated, that has the most taste of any decaf I have drunk, and I think I have tried them all. It comes in a bag and is not cheap, but has as much or more black tea flavor as some regular black teas. My system is to have a cup of regular tea, save the bag and then re-use that bag with a Typhoo bag for the next cup to add whatever little bit of caffeine is left in the first bag, although the Typhoo is actually fine by itself.
As for regular tea, Typhoo's non-caf used to be the one I drank, or another British import, called P&G Tips. Both are fairly expensive, however, and I recently discovered Trader Joe's Irish Breakfast Tea, 80 bags for (in NY City) $3-4, less than half the cost of the others. It's strong and very, very good.
i was told you can decaf any tea if you let it soak in hot water for 30 seconds not less, it removes almost all of the caffeine, it works for me as i am very sensitive to caffeine. it effects my stomach and can get me very hyper. i do use it in green tea before any exercise. hope this works for you. by the way this was told to me by the owner and importer of teas. stan
There's a lot of studies out there showing coffee, while defininely increasing post-prandial glucose, absolutely does not increase any risk of heart problems or other illness among diabetics. This is an amazing result as coffee drinking is correlated with other risky behaviours which would tend to skew the results the other way. I think if the overall result shows no risk one shouldn't worry about the minutia of every measurement too much.
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I know that the black tea I drink with half and half will cause a rise in BGs because of the lactose from the milk. So I tried pure Japanese green tea, with no additives, which I like, and also saw a rise in BG of about 30 mg/dl. I don't know how long it would have lasted, because I corrected with insulin when I saw the rise, which occurred at my normal time of 90 minutes. I am not the only person who has seen this rise with either tea or coffee. There may be other things in coffee which are beneficial, but this is another case of letting the studies say what they may, you have to listen to your own meter and act accordingly.