Is Coffee ☕ Good for People with a Fast COMT?
The relationship is not as simple as some think…
Caffeine (through coffee, tea, or otherwise) has the clear potential to interact with different COMT variants in different ways.
I discussed some of this in a previous article, where I covered how caffeine can actually increase the risk of heart attacks in people with slow COMT variants.
But what about fast COMT variants, on the other hand? How does caffeine interact with those?
The physiology of caffeine and the COMT gene
Remember that one of the key ways that caffeine interacts with the COMT gene is through catecholamines.
Caffeine increases the levels of these activating neurotransmitters (norepinephrine, epinephrine—also known as adrenaline—etc.), and by doing so, it puts more stress on the COMT enzyme, which is responsible for breaking down these catecholamines.
People with slow COMT enzymes are at more risk for problems, because their enzyme already breaks down these activating neurotransmitters at a slower rate.
People with fast COMT enzymes, however, can more easily break down the elevated adrenaline that comes with coffee. That means that they can, theoretically, handle coffee better than others.
This has multiple important implications.
For one, it partially explains why some people with ADHD respond differently to coffee than others (I’ll perhaps write more on this in the future).
However, it can also potentially increase their risk for certain types of the post-caffeine crash.
How FAST COMT variants make you more vulnerable to a certain type of post-caffeine crash.
When someone with a fast COMT enzyme drinks coffee:
First, in response to the caffeine, their brain is flooded with activating adrenaline (epinephrine, etc.). This compensates temporarily for their lower baseline levels of these neurotransmitters, helping them be more focused—for a time.
Second: their COMT goes into “overdrive,” so to speak, to make up for this flood of extra catecholamines coming in from the coffee. And because they have the fast COMT variant, the enzyme is able to ramp up its breakdown rate of these neurotransmitters quite significantly.
Third: they run through huge amount of catecholamines, putting a lot of stress on the body’s natural catecholamine production mechanisms. This depletes the nutrients involved in this pathway.
Fourth: the coffee drinker gets a major, deep crash post-caffeine. This is because their crash is due to an actual physiological “bottoming out” of their nutrient reserves.
Fifth: it takes them quite a while—sometimes even days or weeks—to fully recover from this deep post-caffeine crash, due to the nature of how their brain works.
In brief:
Caffeine consumption in people with fast COMT variants is more likely to lead to a depletion of nutrient reserves, which leads to a delayed but deep post-caffeine crash.
This is different from the “standard” coffee crash in that the standard crash is not as much a result of nutrient depletion as it is the result of a relative drop in neurotransmitter levels and a resurgence of adenosine sensitivity once caffeine is fully metabolized. This leads to a crash within hours (less than a day) of consumption.
On the other hand, the “Fast COMT Crash”—as I’ll call it—is due to depletion of catecholamine precursors, in addition to the “standard” coffee crash factors as above. It leads to a crash within days of consumption.
It’s a much more delayed response.
Importantly, this does NOT mean that people with fast COMT variants should totally avoid caffeine. It just means that they need take certain precautionary measures to avoid the “Fast COMT Crash.” We’ll get more into that in future articles.
And if you’d like to work with me one-on-one (and live in one of the US states in which I am licensed), feel free to reach out.
More coming soon…
Keep in mind that this is not official medical advice. No doctor-patient relationship is established through this article or through any other information provided on this website.
