Slashdot Mirror
Will Caffeine Cause Health Problems?
numbski asks: "We're all geeks here, and I think there is no question how much we love our caffeine. What concerns me is that my fiancee has noticed how much I take in during the morning, and that I even use Diet Pepsi in addition to pain killers as a medication for headaches. So I did my googling about caffeine and addiction. In the minority, you have one report making a scientific claim that there is no such thing as an addiction to caffeine, however many other articles (not to mention marketing propaganda) suggest otherwise. Perhaps not just the sake of having an addiction is what concerns me, but whatever other side effects. I generally take good care of myself, go to the gym, exercise, play hockey, eat right. I hate to have a stroke or heart attack later on in life because of the stuff. I'd be curious to know the thoughts of others who take in large amounts of caffeine, and perhaps what their doctors have said about it. I plan on talking to my own soon, but it seems like this warrants discussion amongst those who consume the most. Would/does this prevent you from grabbing your Bawls and running like hell?"
diÂuÂretÂic ( P ) Pronunciation Key (d-rtk)
adj.
Tending to increase the discharge of urine.
n.
A substance or drug that tends to increase the discharge of urine.
...and like any other stimulant, it can cause problems if your nervous system is sensitive to that sort of thing. Especially if you have a low-level (i.e. symptomless) case of Parkinson's or epilepsy.
I don't think it's been linked to any other problems, though.
"America has done some terrible things. But I know that Americans don't cheer when innocents die." -Dave Barry
Incidentally, the "not addictive" study you linked is speaking from an extremely specific neurophysiological perspective, and only applies to light consumers (1-3 cups of coffee / day).
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Here is a snippet about sleep and addiction
The most important long-term problem is the effect that caffeine has on sleep.The half-life of caffeine in your body is about 6 hours. That means that if you consume a big cup of coffee with 200 mg of caffeine in it at 3:00 PM, by 9:00 PM about 100 mg of that caffeine is still in your system. You may be able to fall asleep, but your body probably will miss out on the benefits of deep sleep. That deficit adds up fast. The next day you feel worse, so you need caffeine as soon as you get out of bed. The cycle continues day after day. This is why 90% of Americans consume caffeine every day. Once you get in the cycle, you have to keep taking the drug. Even worse, if you try to stop taking caffeine, you get very tired and depressed and you get a terrible, splitting headache as blood vessels in the brain dilate. These negative effects force you to run back to caffeine even if you want to stop.
I don't know if this is the real answer, but they could be talking about optoisomers.
Usually the levo isomer of a drug is more active than the dextro isomer.
Example:
dextromethorphan= cough syrup, over the counter, addictive only in extremely large doses, considered non-analgesic.
levomethorphan=opiate, codeine analog, Schedule II controlled substance
Same molecule, different isomer, radically different pharmacological effects.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
I read this book over a year ago, and it caused me to go caffeine free for the better part of a year. Since then, I've taken the road of moderation, as I do love a good cup of coffee once in a while, as well as a good iced-tea. However, I've ditched carbonated beverages for good.
The book includes over 700 references, and while I'm not medical-minded enough to call him on his conclusions, they make sense to me and follow-up internet research of my own suggests that he's in the ballpark.
In my view, there's not much of anything the body can't handle in modest amounts once in a while: caffeine, alcohol, and even some recreational drugs. But chronic usage of any substance in large amounts can't be that good for you -- that just seems like common sense (if not outright supported by the sciences). If we all consumed alcohol as much as we did caffeine, our livers would turn to mush.
If nothing else, this book has some great coffee alternatives listed at the end.
Method of processing duck feet
To make a long story short, there are some wonderful meds out there that will do a much better job than caffeine for this problem. Caffeine is really a pretty nasty drug: if you're "hooked" (i.e. find you can't function without it) I suggest you see a doctor.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
Caffeine is bug poison. Tropical plants use it to disturb the central nervous systems of insects, so that they discourage being eaten.
I am a academic clinical psychologist. I do not specialize in caffeine per se in any way, academically or clinically, but I can tell you what I know.
(1) Caffeine is not addictive in the true sense of addictive. That is, it does not lead to abnormal cravings or pathological activation of neural approach systems per se. However, it does induce withdrawal, in the sense that your body develops a tolerance to it to maintain a certain equilibrium. When you remove the caffeine, you get headaches because you're not providing the chemicals your body expects. So, it's not addictive, but it does lead to tolerance. I'm not sure if I'm explaining that well, but that's what's going on.
(2) Caffeine is known to increase levels of anxiety in various individuals. Some individuals, in fact, have acute, severe anxiety reactions to caffeine. I believe there is actually a relatively recent paper identifying the particular gene involved in this acute reaction. My guess is that you don't suffer from this, as most people who have this reaction become aware of it. But not all. And in any event, many individuals' levels of anxiety are increased by caffeine even if they don't have acute reactions. So, if you're worried about your anxiety or stress (meta-anxiety?), you might want to think about cutting caffeine and seeing if it helps. I do know various people who have stopped taking caffeinated substances and said they're much mellower and calmer people. I also know people who have starting using caffeine again after stopping it, and have commented on how much more anxious they feel. But for others, it doesn't seem to matter. You'll have to find out for yourself.
(3)As someone pointed out, caffeine habits can effect people's sleep. I once heard a rule of thumb that you shouldn't be drinking caffeinated beverages after 8:00 or so if you want to get adequate sleep. It seemed to help me; you could try it and see for yourself. Sleep problems are associated with all sorts of other issues, so even if caffeine doesn't have adverse effects directly, it may have such effects indirectly through sleep problems. But it should be okay as long as you are exposed to caffeine at appropriate times of day.
So that's what I know from that perspective. In terms of long-term physical outcomes, I don't know really. I haven't heard of such things, but I haven't paid that much attention those sorts of issues anyway.
BULL-looney: Caffeine has no optical isomers (=enantiomers) = is non-chiral: caffeine is a flat molecule (has plane of symmetry).
For a molecule (or any shape, for that matter) to be chiral = to form lefty and righty shape - like left and right shoe - it must not have any of following symmetries: 1) center of symmetry 2) plane of symmetry 3) any higher rotation-reflexion axis.
"Guaranine" is in fact impure caffein:
http://www.rain-tree.com/guarana.htm
The claim of BAWLS manufacturer about "natural guarana caffein is 2.5 more potent" is a promotional nonsense. It turns out that guarana seeds just contain about twice coffeine than coffee beans. But the stuff is identical.
Coffeine addiction: not too bad or hard to kick, but severaly affected individuals can have blood pressure effects, which can cause withdrawal headaches. I have a friend and she has breast-pain (she had some kind of cystic problem there) as a coffeine reaction. And there is the tolerance - you have to escalate the dose to get your fix.
Coffeine is pretty safe even in large doses: if you don't mind messing your sleep cycle and being sometimes unproductive, exhausted and depressed as a result.
I doubt that we will ever figure out - and I suspect that even if we did figure out we couldn't do much about it
Back in '88 I was a senior in high school. I would consume Mountain Dew x 2 in the morning to wake up. I'd have various caffinated beverages throughout the day. After work at night to stay awake for homework I'd be using Vivarin chased with as much of a 6-pack of Jolt Cola as I could stomach. Then unisom when I was done to get to sleep. Better living through chemistry I said!
It took a little while for the heart palpatations to start. I didn't like those but I was a stupid kid then. I just cut back a bit on the Jolt, but not much.
It took until early in my first year in college for the real physical effects to develop -- incredible abdominal cramps that would lay me compeltely out ina whimpering crying ball on the floor. Think appendix + gall bladder + birth. It took me a little while to start to correlate it to caffeine, but I told the doctors everything.
After ramming a wonderful camera up my tail and submitting me to a string of other humiliating tests (complete with barium enemas -- can you say "shitting rocks for 3 days?") the doctors told me that essentially I would never be able to have caffeine again without side effects because of the damage it did to my bowels & intestinal tract. I was now caffeine intolerant.
There was a drug I could take if I really didn't want the incredible abdominal cramps but it gave me nightmares. I actually tried it and the night terrors weren't worth some caffeine.
It took me 2 weeks worth of pretty nasty withdrawl symptoms before I got over it.
I have now been clean about 14 years. Nothing with caffeine, no cola, no chocolate, nothing. I read ingredients lists religiously looking for anything with more than 5gm of caffeine. A cup of Swiss Miss Hot Cocoa (5mg) gives me a pretty good buzz and I can't tolerate two of them without some mild pain.
Yes, it is a drug. Yes, it is addictive. Yes, you go through withdrawl, and yes, you can live without it. I don't know ho wmany 36 hour days I've done on sugar and micro power naps alone.
Time is the quality of nature that keeps events from happening all at once. Lately it doesn't seem to be working. -Anon
If you want medical advice, don't ask Slashdot. Ask your doctor.
I say this as an M.D. who relies on a pot of coffe to get going in the morning, and 2-3 20 oz cokes and/or a vente starbucks in the afternoon:
coffee has several known effects on an organism's health:
coffee's effect on wakefulness is likely mediated by interfering with adenosine receptors in the frontal lobes of the brain (competitive antagonism). although I personally feel that coffee makes me more alert and attentive, there is always the possibility that this is a fabrication of my own self-perception. which is to say: i do not know of an objective way of supporting the statement "coffee enhances my mental functioning despite being sleep deprived."
antagonism of adenosine receptors in the heart leads to an increased tendency for the cardiac muscle to contract spontaneously. this leads to an extra contraction known as a PVC (premature ventricular contraction). i do not know what the health implications of this are. common sense would suggest that there is little consequence to this unless you have a very sick heart to begin with.
caffiene is a weak diuretic (it makes you pee). this can promote the formation of kidney stones in some people. it can also dehydrate you, which is why you should never hit the StarBucks just before you cross Death Valley by foot.
caffiene both increases acid production in the stomach and weakens the tone of the sphincter (valve) between the esophagus and the stomach. this results in gastroesophageal reflux (heart burn). gastroesophageal reflux, if severe, can lead to esophagitis, Barrett's esophagus (metaplasia, e.g. precancerous change), and adenocarcionoma (cancer) of the esophagus. i don't know of any studies that show an increased risk of developing esophageal cancer in coffee drinkers, but such a study would be retrospective and probably very difficult to pull off with sufficient power.
Lastly, and I know this is kinda weak: people who drink X number of cups of coffee each day _may_ have an increased chance of developing bladder cancer.
all in all, though, coffee is a pretty benign habit. in a public health sense, it pales in comparison to simple things, like limiting saturated fats, not smoking, moderate alcohol intake, and wearing seat belts.
Fermat's other theorem: "I have a simple proof, but I can't write it down as I fear it's a DMCA violation to discuss it"
Caffeine can affect your mood. If you're already subject to mood swings, caffeine can be very bad news. I had a friend with a very mild case of manic depressive disorder (Mild enough that she was able to hide it from nearly everyone until it was too late.) At one point, she started pulling all-nighters and taking Vivarin. The combination of the three made the manic depressive disorder FAR worse - She became suicidal within days. (This could be related to the above comments about causing anxiety in some people.)
In moderation, if you have no preexisting conditions, caffeine should be safe. But don't use it to stay up at night - It just stresses out your body and mind in far too many ways at once.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
There's lots of other "microbrews" for soda that use cane sugar also..
Root 66 Root beer is one of my favorite, brewed rootbeer made with cane sugar.
Blessed are the pessimists, for they have made backups.