Q: Should I be drinking tea and coffee when I’m trying to get pregnant?

A: My recommendation would be to avoid black tea and coffee when trying to get pregnant. The concern is that caffeine can delay conception and this is especially important if you over 35 and trying to get pregnant. Some research has shown that drinking as little as one of coffee a day can delay conception by up to a year or more.

Whereas other research has shown that consuming less than 300 mgs a day, or what you’d get from drinking two or three cups of coffee, doesn’t appear to affect a woman’s fertility. (That’s according to a 2003 report from the Centre for the Evaluation of Risks to Human Reproduction at the National Institutes of Health.) On the other hand, at least one large study recently found that women who consumed 300 mg of caffeine or more a day took longer to conceive than those who got less or none.

To be on the safe side, and especially if you are finding it hard to conceive, I would suggest you eliminate it altogether. Caffeine has no nutritional value and can even cause your bones to lose some calcium, an important nutrient for a healthy pregnancy. There’s also evidence that drinking 3 or more cups of tea or coffee a day can increase your risk of miscarriage.

Because caffeine acts like a drug, you wouldn’t be advised to stop suddenly and go ‘cold turkey’ because you could experience quite dramatic withdrawal symptoms such as headaches, nausea, tiredness, muscle cramps and depression.

To minimise these effects, try cutting down gradually, substituting some of your usual drinks for healthier alternatives. It’s much better to cut down slowly over a few weeks. Begin by substituting decaffeinated coffee for half of your total intake per day, and then gradually change over to all decaffeinated. Then, slowly substitute other drinks, such as herbal teas and grain coffees. You should, ideally, eventually eliminate decaffeinated coffee as well because coffee contains other stimulants (theobromine and theophylline) which are not removed when the coffee is decaffeinated.

As a substitute for coffee try Caro, Bambu or Yannoh which are grain coffees and contain healthy natural ingredients like rye, barley, chicory and acorns. Good alternatives to tea include herb teas and fruit teas. And don’t forget that caffeine isn’t just in the usual suspects (coffee, tea, and cola) it’s also in chocolate, other soft drinks (e.g. colas) and energy drinks. It’s also in a variety of over-the-counter drugs, including some headache, cold, and allergy remedies, so it is easy to have too much caffeine in your system without even realising it.

Q: I’ve heard of several studies that have shown caffeine to have a negative effect on health. Should I switch from regular coffee to decaf?

A: If you’re trying to kick the coffee habit, decaffeinated coffee is a good short-term substitute. But there are other non-caffeine substances in coffee that may have a negative effect on health as well. For example, Norwegian researchers who found that forgoing coffee for six weeks reduced total cholesterol levels believe that it’s not caffeine that raises cholesterol levels but compounds called terpenoids which are present in both caffeinated and decaf coffee.

There has also been evidence to support a link between coffee intake and fibrocystic breast disease. Again, the culprit is thought to be not caffeine but methylxanthines which are a family of substances that include caffeine, theophylline and theobromine. These methylxanthines are found in coffee, black tea, green tea, chocolate, cola and decaffeinated coffee, as well as in medications that contain caffeine, such as headache remedies. These upset the liver detoxification process and encourage cell proliferation.

If you’re worried about chemicals in your diet, bear in mind that the decaffeination process uses potent solvents that may end up in your mug. Instead, look for water-processed brands of decaf coffee that use only steam and carbon dioxide in the decaffeinating process. Or, have a cup of grain coffee or herbal tea instead.

Q: At 4 pm every afternoon my energy levels slump and I find myself reaching for chocolate. How can I stop this bad habit?

A: It seems to me that you have not been eating anything between lunch and 4 pm so your energy slump is most likely linked to a dip in blood sugar — the body’s main fuel- which causes you to become hungry.

To keep your blood sugar level stable make sure you lunch on slow releasing carbohydrates (brown rice, oatcakes and whole meal bread) and proteins (avocado, eggs, hummus, oily fish, lentils) that release energy steadily into the blood stream. I also suggest that you eat three meals a day and two snacks in between those meals to keep your blood sugar levels steady; pre-empt the energy crash by having a slow energy releasing snack (nuts, seeds, some fruit, including berries, cherries, grapefruit, pear and melon) just before 4 pm.

If you still crave sugar, a team at the US Department of Agriculture have recently found that introducing cinnamon into the diet can help — half a teaspoon a day can reduce blood sugar levels by up to 20 per cent and keep them steady through the day. Sprinkle cinnamon on porridge, a smoothie or in a hot drink.