Newsgroups: sci.med.pharmacy,sci.med,sci.med.nutrition
Subject: Re: Is coffee a diuretic?
From: dyer@spdcc.com (Steve Dyer)
Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2000 23:25:49 GMT

In article <8ncs23$98q$1@nnrp1.deja.com>,
Jeffrey Peter, M.D.  <drkid@my-deja.com> wrote:
>Don;t forget, water, itself, is a diuretic. Drink water, you pee. And
>last time I checked, there is some water in coffee. I wonder if it acts
>directly on the kidney.

Bingo.  Caffeine is not a particularly powerful diuretic, as anyone
who has taken a caffeine tablet (as opposed to two cups of coffee)
can attest.  Its reputation as a diuretic was formed back when there really
weren't any diuretics aside from the barely useful methylxanthines, ammonium
salts, and perhaps calomel (i.e. before the introduction of parenteral
organomercurial diuretics, carbonic anhydrase inhibitors and the thiazides).
Caffeine maintains its reputation as a diuretic through the endless
repetition of this canard in weight loss groups and (I presume) whereever
nutritionists get their education, since this factoid seems to stick
with them after graduation.


--
Steve Dyer
dyer@ursa-major.spdcc.com