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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."
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.
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.
Now LD50 is a way to measure of toxicity, but I think it's fair to assume that a substance is toxic well below the lethal dose.
Put this stupid myth to rest.
You mean the myth that using fructose in place of sucrose makes no difference?
The simple fact that a simple sugar has already been broken down to a simple sugar means that it will flood the system much more quickly than a more complex sugar that needs to be converted before transport. If we don't need to pay attention to what the sugars are, then explain why cellulose (long chains of glucose) are indigestible, while simple glucose floods the system almost as soon as it is ingested.
Yes, sir, the metabolic paths for glucose and fructose are different, and flooding the liver with massive amounts of fructose rapidly does result in a different effect than a slower appearance of glucose. The liver and endocrine systems need time to react to the influx of the sugars no matter what they are, so a rapidly appearing slug of one kind of sugar can easily overwhelm the regulatory mechanisms of the body and cause harm where a slower appearance of a different sugar does not. That harm may only be an unnecessary conversion of sugars to glycogen and fat, but in the long term that results in obesity and that can be harmful.
You're talking to a diabetic who has monitored his blood sugar for years through all kinds of experiments with different sugars, who can tell you that the "glycemic index" and "sugar alcohols" information is a truly dangerous myth, along with the sugar industry shills telling us that there is no danger from HFCS. Yes, you're right that cutting sugar overall is a good thing, but trying to claim that if you are going to down a sugar laden drink that it makes no difference is just parroting the sugar industry media flacks. You'd point to data denying global warming or the link between smoking and cancer as being from an industry source, why are you so quick to accept data from the sugar industry?