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Health coach Carey Peters answers all of host Judy Greer’s questions about caffeine, including how much is too much?

Your morning latte could actually reduce your risk for certain diseases.

For many of us, a morning without coffee or tea is a like the proverbial day without sunshine. For me, much of it is about the ritual. OK, who am I kidding? It’s about the caffeine. Mmm, I love caffeine — that naturally occurring alkaloid found in the leaves, seeds, and fruits of more than 63 plant species worldwide. But at what risk do I indulge in my morning coffee and afternoon espresso?

Caffeine is most famous for its role as a stimulant and its ability to delay fatigue. I clearly get a boost of energy and clarity, as had been scientifically proven. But caffeine has also acquired a bad-boy reputation — an unfair one, perhaps? Extensive studies into its safety show that there are still many misconceptions about caffeine. Allow me to tackle some of the myths surrounding my beloved alkaloid.

Read more: Seven myths about caffeine

Novel way to lose weight: Eat less and exercise more.

Shortly after the year started, in early January, Australian researchers announced the only reliable way to lose weight was to eat less, exercise, or do both. But the eye-rolling should be directed toward the magical, fat-burning promises made by some products and eaten up by some consumers.

The researchers intended to disprove the idea that a person can lose weight by simply tricking his or her body into burning calories from fat, not carbohydrates, and thus make stored fat evaporate. Their study showed that mice, genetically altered to burn fats rather than carbohydrates, had body compositions similar to that of normal mice. That’s because their bodies simply converted the unused carbs into stored fat.

“Our data urges a correction in people’s concept of a magic bullet – something that will miraculously make them thin while they sit on the couch watching television,” said Greg Cooney, one of the study researchers and a scientist at Sydney’s Garvan Institute for Medical Research.

Caffeine affects kids’ sleep.

That stuff we drink in the morning to stay alert seems to do just that. Kids who consume caffeine sleep less, and the more they consume, the less they sleep, a study found. A survey of children’s snack and beverage consumption revealed that kids ages 8 to 12 took in the equivalent of nearly three cans of caffeinated soda per day. They also slept an average of 8.47 hours per night, less than is recommended by the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC).

The survey, conducted by William Warzak, a psychology professor at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, and colleagues, queried parents of 200 children ages 5 to 12. Despite caffeine’s diuretic effect, the kids who drank it didn’t appear prone to bed-wetting.

Kids who study abroad drink more alcohol.

Hey, parents, if you send your kids abroad (to study), a pond away from parental guidance and punishment, they’re going to live a little. In October, researchers reported in the journal Psychology of Addictive Behaviors that students doubled how much they drank while they were away, upping their consumption from about four alcoholic drinks per week while at home to about eight weekly drinks abroad.

The findings also support the idea that students younger than 21, the legal drinking age in the United States, take advantage of relaxed drinking laws abroad. The underage students in the study nearly tripled their drinking, whereas students over 21 doubled their intake of alcohol.

Read more: Duh! The Most Obvious Scientific Findings of 2010

For all of its wild popularity, caffeine is one seriously misunderstood substance. It’s not a simple upper, and it works differently on different people with different tolerances—even in different menstrual cycles. But you can make it work better for you.

Read more here: What Caffeine Actually Does to Your Brain

Caffeine is one of the 2 most widely used psychoactive drugs on earth (the other being alcohol). Psychoactive means that it has an effect on your psychological functioning (in addition to a number of physical effects). One of the primary effects is to stimulate the sympathetic nervous system, which governs the stress response. This produces anger, fear, anxiety, increased heart rate and blood pressure, tremour, a jittery feeling, rapid or shallow breathing, change in pain sensitivity, and dozens of other changes.

Read more here: Addicted to caffeine?

Talk about happy trends. More and more yum-ola foods that used to be considered bad news are turning out to be good for you. First it was wine. Then olive oil. Chocolate. Guacamole. And now coffee. (Hey, can ice cream be far behind?!)

What restored coffee’s reputation? Caffeine. After years of being viewed with suspicion, caffeine has pulled a scientific switcheroo. Besides helping students pull all-nighters and weekend warriors jumpstart their jump shots, there’s now evidence that it defends against diabetes, Parkinson’s, asthma symptoms, post-workout soreness, and even hunger pangs. Cool.

Read more here: Nine top caffeine fixes

If, like us, you can’t bare to face the morning before a near-ritualistic double espresso, then this bizarre gizmo could be just your sort of thing.

It’s a ‘coffee inhaler’ which allows users to ‘inhale’ 100mg of caffeine – the equivalent of a single espresso – in the form of a breathable coffee powder.

Read more: Inhale your coffee — It’s the liquidless future of caffeine

TORONTO – Non-cola soft drinks could soon be spiked with an eye-opening ingredient – the caffeine that’s already added to colas.

Health Canada announced Friday it is authorizing the use of caffeine as a food additive in all carbonated soft drinks, not just cola-type beverages. Beverage companies will be allowed to add synthetic caffeine to non-cola soft drinks in concentrations no higher than 150 parts per million. The maximum amount of caffeine allowed in colas is 200 parts per million.

Read more: Health Canada OKs addition of caffeine to non-cola soft drinks