The main point of this post: Sometimes what your brain wants isn’t good for your body. We all know this to be true. Any food that is high in fat, salt and sugar attracts us. Visit any coffee shop in the country and you’re likely to see people smoking cigarettes with coffee and glazed donuts. Why do people choose to consume highly harmful chemicals? Smoking it kills slowly and nicotine is extremely toxic, caffeine is harmful to the heart muscle and can cause dangerous arrhythmias in high doses, regular consumption of sugar-filled donuts leads to diabetes and obesity-related diseases.
The reason is simple: our brain rewards us for consuming these foods/chemicals. (For a more detailed discussion of this topic, go here: Your Brain on Food: How Chemicals Control Your Thoughts and Emotions.) It is known that nicotine, caffeine and sugar create euphoria, which encourages their long-term use. However, science has clearly shown their toxicity to our physical health; Is there any evidence that caffeine, nicotine and sugar are good for the brain? Yes. Let’s look at the evidence.
Donuts
It’s early morning and you’re struggling to pay attention traffic, boss, whatever you want to achieve. Why? Your brain isn’t cooperating because when you wake up, it’s low on one important ingredient, sugar. You’ve been fasting since last night’s dinner and your blood sugar has dropped. Sugar is indispensable. Your brain can’t function without it and will do everything to convince you to eat sugar as soon as possible. Why?
Basically, it’s normal to have sugar in your brain, and its absence triggers cravings and food-seeking behaviors, such as looking for a cupcake or a candy machine. There’s a reason donut shops and sugar-laden cereals are so popular: You can blame it on neurons in the hypothalamus’ feeding center. If your brain didn’t crave those donuts so much, the stores wouldn’t be so densely distributed along your commute.
Once inside the brain, sugar is also used to produce a very important neurotransmitter chemical called acetylcholine. Acetylcholine helps you learn and remember, regulate your attention and mood, and control how well you can move. Your brain makes acetylcholine from choline. We often drink choline diet by consuming the lecithin found in donuts. So a donut first thing in the morning supplies your brain with sugar and choline, which it needs to focus and learn new things. Your big active brain uses the same amount of sugar as 10 donuts every day.
Coffee
When you are to dream For several hours before waking up, your brain burned through many energy molecules ATP. All the cells in your body need ATP to function. When ATP is consumed, the “A” molecule in ATP falls off and begins to accumulate as waste. “A” stands for adenosine. Unfortunately, as adenosine levels rise, it begins to violently shut down your acetylcholine neurons. This is unfortunate because when your acetylcholine neurons are turned off, your brain can’t pay attention or learn new things!
What is the cure? Coffee. The caffeine in your coffee is able to block the effects of adenosine and release your acetylcholine neurons from their chemical shackles; Your focus will improve and you’ll be ready for anything – at least until the caffeine effect wears off. However, as with almost everything we consume, a little caffeine is good, but too much can kill you. About five grams of caffeine (about 25 cups of instant caffeine) is a lethal dose for a typical adult. Consuming more than 400 mg of caffeine per day (three espressos) increases the risk of cardiovascular disease. Chronic caffeine consumption can impair autonomy nervous systemcauses an increase in blood pressure and heart rate, which can predispose some vulnerable people to atrial fibrillation.
Human epidemiological studies consistently show that chronic, moderate consumption of caffeine reduces the risk of many age-related neurodegenerative diseases. Forty years of clinical research has confirmed that the incidence of Parkinson’s disease is dose-dependently reduced (up to 85 percent!) with coffee consumption up to five cups per day (Tan et al., 2007).
Large epidemiological studies involving hundreds of thousands of people have consistently reported a dose-dependent reduction in the risk of brain tumors in coffee. The risk of brain gliomas, the most common type of brain tumor, was significantly reduced when subjects drank more than three cups of coffee per day (Di Maso et al., 2021). Coffee consumption was associated with a lower incidence of small cerebral infarctions associated with ischemic stroke. In addition to improving cognitive function, daily coffee consumption increases brain endogeneity antioxidant systems.
Cigarettes
People have a complicated relationship with tobacco. Tobacco was once used to treat persistent headaches, colds, and head abscesses or sores. Tobacco enemas were used to treat flatulence, and even more surprisingly, the smoke was once inhaled deeply to reduce a severe cough. A cigarette made from tobacco contains 1-2 milligrams of nicotine. Since nicotine is very volatile and heat resistant, only 20% of it is inhaled into the body. At the same time, due to the excellent solubility of lipids, at least 90% of inhaled nicotine is absorbed into the body. Sixty milligrams is considered a lethal dose for humans; death lasts only a few minutes and is caused by loss of control of nicotinic receptors in the diaphragm muscle.
Nicotine has neuroprotective properties. Epidemiological studies consistently show an inverse association between smoking and the risk of developing Parkinson’s disease (Yang et al., 2025). Long-term heavy smokers (who do not die from lung cancer) have a significantly lower incidence of Parkinson’s disease than non-smokers. This protective effect appears to be dose-dependent and diminishes after cessation, suggesting that continued nicotine exposure may be required to maintain this effect. Nicotine is probably the active component responsible for this reduced risk.
So the next time you see someone smoking a cigarette with a coffee and donut, congratulate them on working hard to keep their brains healthy.
