Why It's So Hard To Predict How Caffeine Will Affect Your Body

carmendrahl writes "Emergency-room visits linked to caffeine-laden energy drinks are on the rise. This gives scientists who'd like to see caffeine regulated the jitters. But the U.S. Food and Drug Administration seems to be dragging its feet on regulating caffeine content in food and drink, because people have different sensitivities to it (abstract). Currently, caffeine-rich products like Monster Energy get around the rules because they're marketed as dietary supplements. 'Caffeine gets cleared from the body at different rates because of genetic variations, gender, and even whether a person is a smoker. For this reason, it’s difficult to set a safe limit of daily consumption on the compound. Physiological differences, as well as differences in the way people consume caffeine, have tied FDA in knots as it has debated how to regulate the substance. ... The toxic level in humans, about 10 g, is roughly the equivalent of imbibing 75 cups of brewed coffee (in 8-oz mugs) or 120 cans of Red Bull over a few hours. But that lethal limit can vary widely from person to person, experts say."

Comments

Drag them Feet, Feds

[retroworks]

Drag away. What they should be measuring is the amount of caffeine that is going into the water table from urine. At that point, it's actually affecting someone else, second hand, and may actually be appropriate to regulate.

Re:Drag them Feet, Feds

[sjames]

It must be a lot. I've never seen a fish blink even once!

Re:Tremors and explosive diarrhea

[vlm]

No no no AC we're talking about caffeine here not taco bell. Get with the program!

There should be a simple test

[Anonymous Coward]

that would measure the effect on the subject, rather than physiological measures.

Give the subject some simple tasks and ask him or her to solve the problem using Perl. Check back after two hours:

- less than 50 Perl LOC: not enough caffeine
- 50 - 500 Perl LOC: just enough caffeine
- more than 500 Perl LOC: too much caffeine

Re:There should be a simple test

[PRMan]

I would think it would be more like:

- 500 lines of Perl: not enough caffeine
- 50 lines of Perl: just enough caffeine
- 1 line of Perl: too much caffeine

Re:Toxic level

[MiniMike]

According to the eminent Wikipedia, that's the LD50 (150 to 200 mg/kg).
If you gave an average group of humans 10g of caffeine, half of them would die.

But you wouldn't know which ones for a few hours...

Re:Caffeine is a drug..

[Beardo the Bearded]

The part about caffeine that is dangerous is that, like other stimulants, it gives the impression of improved brain performance without really delivering it.

That's not true for all drugs. For example, ethanol intake makes me funnier, smarter, stronger, and sexier.

Re:Tremors and explosive diarrhea

[Lumpy]

In the future all restaurants are Taco Bell... oh dear god.....