Here's one for you sciencey types. Help me work this out

So, I had my 1 year follow up with my surgeon today. Here he is, in all his glory:

Dr. Arthur Carlin and Me!

So, anyway, the appointment went well.  He is happy with where I am in my journey and with my weight loss.  BUT, he really harped on me about my caffeine consupumption.  When I asked why it was so important, he said that it actually inhibits the absorption of iron, so I should avoid it.  Just because my numbers are good right  now, doesn't mean I should pu**** for the long term.  It made sense.  I came home and googled that **** and it looks like it can block absorption.  With a normal diet, it wouldn't be an issue, but with our limited diet and malabsorption, that it should be avoided.

I'm on the fence.  I really like my coffee, but honestly I could switch to decaf and not have a problem.  Where are my science guys to help me work this out?

Love the Picture! I drink one cup of caffinatEd coffee a day and the rest decaf for just that reason. As long as I have plenty of decaf flavors I don't miss the caffeine.

Interesting!  I didn't know about the iron angle.  I have to take it easy on the caffeine because I am prone to gastritis if I have too much.  A big day for me is two regular coffees.  I keep it to one in the morning and then decaf the rest of the day.  Peet's house blend decaf or Major Dickinson's decaf are both good.

Jen

I'm a one coffee a day girl.

I have never absorbed iron well so I get IV infusions. 

I love it and could drink it all day but mine requires calories. I keep looking for ways to reduce the milk. My current fave is a double shot light can. (70 calories)

Did somebody say SCIENCE??? :-D

The research I've found specifically looks at coffee and tea as iron-absorption inhibiters. (No research on soda AFAIK.) The problem isn't the caffeine, but rather the chemicals in them called polyphenols, tannins in particular. 

Tea can cause a lot of problems because of the tannin levels, and can reduce iron absorption by 64%, but coffee only affects by 39%.

It seems that tannins have a greater effect on non-heme iron (60% of the iron in meat and 100% of the iron in plants), so if more of your protein comes from non-veggie sources it would be less of a concern.

The best summary I've found is here:

...From these calculations we conclude that the presence of sufficient amounts of iron absorption enhancers (ascorbic acid, meat, fish, poultry, as present in most industrialized countries) overcomes inhibition of iron absorption from even large amounts of tea.

If your iron intake is low, and so is your intake of absorption ENHANCERS (meat, fish, acid, vitamin C), then there's cause for concern. But there are a few recommendations to help as well:

• Have coffee/tea between meals, not WITH food
• Drink it along with (or presumably soon before/after) meat or vitamin C

This article seems to suggest that the absorption effect is almost completely minimized if you wait an hour after drinking coffee to eat your meal. So I think that would be the way to go!

(Obligatory disclaimer: I have no medical training, I'm just a statistics geek. If in doubt, talk to somebody with an MD or PhD.)

This is awesome. I knew you'd bring the science! 

I take my iron supplement with a vitamin C right before bed, and I usually only drink my coffee early in the day.  I rarely or ever drink coffee WITH a meal, so that should be fine.  I think that with my level of consumption, I should be okay as it stands, but I will keep this in mind for future.

Thank you, Julie, for breaking it down.  I googled it and looked around, but honestly you have such a great way of putting it all together in one post that just makes everything so clear.  My brain just doesn't work that way.

So glad I could help! Is it weird that I have fun doing this? :-D

Not at all. There are far too many uninformed posts here that cry out for some science.

That's exactly what I do. Coffee early AM....iron with Vit C at bedtime. Great minds and all that...