More To Coffee Buzz Than Caffeine

MrByte420 writes "WebMD has story about every computer geek's favorite beverage enhancer. Seems like there's more to the kick than just the caffeine that makes coffee a favorite amongst the sleep deprived programmers of the world. Some more information can be found here with some interesting details why decaf can keep ya up and wired too. In related news, scientists report no progress in determining why the best computer code is written at 4:27 AM on a tuesday morning surrounded by a box of Mountain Dew."

Comments

Insoluble in liquid C02?

[Simon Field]

I wonder which caffeine extraction method was used?

Liquid C02 under pressure is often used to extract the caffeine. But there are other methods.

It might be interesting to see if the same results come from decaffeinated coffees made by different methods. It might also be interesting to see if the study controlled for the effects of smell and taste. People who don't drink coffee might find their heart races when forced to drink something that is definitely an acquired taste.

It might also be that removing caffeine and two other alkyloids (theophylline and theobromine, although I am unsure how prevalent those are in coffee) which are diuretics and vasodilators might allow other ingredients to have the opposite effect (previously mitigated).

junkies...

[iamjim]

Shouldn't this have been posted a little later in the evening (morning)

Anyway: I do not drink coffee yet I function with little more than 4 hours of sleep. My beverage of choice is water. After realizing many years ago that soda rotted your teeth and had WAY too many calories per can (most juices too) I kicked the habit. I enjoy the occasional cappaucino now and then, but nothing like I used to with nightly visits to Dunkin D's during college.

My question for the everyone: how effective is self-determined sleep depravity? I tend to just "keep myself awake". Sure, I get to the point to where I can no longer function and pass out - in fact if I go to bed before this point I tend to not be able to sleep because I can still be doing "more productive" things with my time.

Are there signs that I am not getting enough sleep? I know it is time to go to sleep when I start slurring my words, which generally happens in the 30-40th hours of being awake.

I am asked how I do it, my answer is that I just do. I just have stuff to do and believe that sleep is a waste unless I need it. Do you find yourself doing this? Is this common among people you know?

I DO get a kick seeing all of the drones "needing" their coffee in the morning - people don't realize they are hooked on the caffine. More addictive than crack!

For the biologist out there ... or wannabes

[foniksonik]

Coffee with or without the caffeine contains significant numbers of expectorant and diuretic alkaloids, ie: oils and along with caffeine these are known to strip out calcium from the body... calcium being the major nerve insulator with it's major contribution being the meyelin sheath surrounding nerve bundles. So if you drink a lot of this stuff that sucks off calcium from your nerve bundles you end up with 'twitchy' nerves that arn't insulated enough and start 'cross-talking' and causing lots of electrical feedback loops/shorts... ...kind of like when you play the bass too loud for too long on unprotected audio cables (oxidation), the signal gets a little scratchy and fuzzy.