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Science

Will Caffeine Cause Health Problems? 278

Posted by Cliff from the too-much-of-a-good-thing dept.
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?"
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Will Caffeine Cause Health Problems? More

Will Caffeine Cause Health Problems?

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  • Caffeine is good for you (Score:5, Funny)

    by L. VeGas ( 580015 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @02:47PM (#6125885) Homepage Journal
    As a matter of fact, when I don't drink it, I have these POUNDING HEADACHES LIKE A NAIL IN MY BRAIN.

    Therefore, it must be good for me, right?
    • 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.
    • Then I took the blue pill and it all went away! It's amazing, I tell you... you must try it! Now if you must excuse me, I got a steak to finish...
    • As a matter of fact, when I don't drink it, I have these POUNDING HEADACHES LIKE A NAIL IN MY BRAIN.

      A nail in the brain -- that's the best description. For me, the nail was right behind my left eye, jabbing with each beat of my heart, and the pain would actually interrupt my speech with every pulse and cause my eyes to water.

      My problem was inconsistent doses of caffeine. I would go a day without drinking a drop of caffeine (thanks to my love of ginger ale) and then pound back 3-6 glasses of Coke at a r

  • from the BAWLS link (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mattsucks ( 541950 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @02:48PM (#6125893) Homepage
    BAWLS Guarana, www.bawls.com, is a high caffeine soft drink made from the guarana berry from the Amazonian Rainforest. The caffeine derived from guarana is twice as powerful as the caffeine derived from coffee.

    I thought caffeine was caffeine was caffeine was a single molecule. How can a molecule from one source be "twice as powerful" as the same molecule from another source?

    Or maybe I've just had too much coffee, and now I'm all paranoid.
    • They're talking about kinetic energy, not potential energy.

    • Re:from the BAWLS link (Score:5, Informative)

      by GigsVT ( 208848 ) * on Thursday June 05, 2003 @03:25PM (#6126276) Journal
      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.

      • Re:from the BAWLS link (Score:5, Informative)

        by Muhammar ( 659468 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @05:26PM (#6127282)
        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.
    • Probably the caffiene is twice as concentrated per wieght of the berry vs the bean...

  • Will Caffeine Cause Health Problems? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Alomex ( 148003 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @02:49PM (#6125901) Homepage

    Short answer NO. Long answer anything in excess can cause health problems, including water.

    People seem to have a moral problem with a drug that has no side effects, but let's face it, from the scientific literature it seems caffeine is it.

    It is midly addictive, in the sense that you crave it, but getting rid of the addiction is generally very easy if you use the fade out method (gradually reduce your consumption of caffeine over a period of several weeks).

    • Re:Will Caffeine Cause Health Problems? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ctr2sprt ( 574731 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @03:14PM (#6126161)
      Of course it had side effects, that's why we like it. The stimulant aspect wakes us up (people with heart problems beware), and the diuretic aspect means we get frequent breaks at work (people with kidney problems beware).

      But yeah, for most people, a reasonable intake of caffeine is not going to cause any problems. I don't know if I quite buy the addiction claim - I had no problem quitting cold turkey - but then, I also had no problem quitting smoking (and drinking) cold turkey. Maybe I've got some gene that makes me resistant to addictions. And yes, I now have the most boring life imaginable.

    • Have you read the DOD Hazardous Material Information Sheet [cornell.edu] sheet for caffeine? Choice parts include:

      • MAY ACT AS STIMULANT IF EXCESSIVE INGEST
      • INGEST:IF CONSC GIVE 1-2 GLASSES OF WATER TO DRINK,INDUCE VOMIT.
      • WARNING! POISON MAY BE HARMFUL IF INHALED OR SWALLOWED.
      • That's because around 5 grams will kill you. I read on a webpage about caffeine that around 80 cups of coffee is lethal times 60 mg caffeine each is 4.8 grams. My high school chem lab has far more pure caffeine than that, so it is reasonable to have that warning. (Not that I know why our chem lab has three bottles of pure caffeine [I'm estimating 300+ grams] but not a pellet of Nickel (II) Chloride, which would make electroplating a hell of a lot easier.) However, it is a little difficult to kill yourse
      • I like this one better:

        Unusual Fire or Explosion Hazard:
        WHEN HEATED TO DECOMPO,EMITS TOXIC FUMES OF NITROUS OXIDES & OTHER HAZARDOUS MATLS;CAN REACT VIGOROUSLY W/OXIDIZING MATLS.SEVERE(BUREAU OF MINES EXPLO HAZ RATINGS)AS DUST.


        Hehehe.... NO! It's not dangerous at ALL! ;)
      • It also says, later on down the page: "KEEP AWAY FROM FOOD." If that's true, someone should tell these guys [thinkgeek.com] that caffeine and food don't mix.

    • Honore de Balzac might had overdosed (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Allistair ( 539971 ) <james.keim-web@com> on Thursday June 05, 2003 @06:31PM (#6127716) Homepage
      Balzac is said to have died from a heart problem induced by his love for coffee. The man was an addict. See his "The Pleasures and Pains of Coffee" [jaybabcock.com]. Of course, one also note that the guy wrote well over a hundred novels during his career so it might have been a good trade -- depends on where your priorities are. I always thought Balzac should be the patron saint of geeks and programmers.

    • Here is what happened to me on caffeine... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Stalemate ( 105992 ) on Friday June 06, 2003 @10:27AM (#6131634)
      During my first year of college, I drank a lot of caffeine, mostly from Mt. Dew. I was drinking probably 6 or 7 12oz cans a day.

      During the 2nd half of the year I started noticing that about once a day for 2 to 3 seconds my whole body (and especially my heart) would feel like I was running in super hyper mode. It felt like everything in my body was just running super fast. I didn't know what to think of it, but it only happened once a day for a couple of seconds so like an idiot I just didn't worry about it.

      Over the next couple of weeks the incidents started becoming more and more frequent until I was having one of these 2-3 second super-hyper feeling spurts once every 10-15 minutes. At this point I got scared and headed straight for the local night clinic.

      When I got there they took my pulse, blood pressure, etc and hooked me up to the EKG thing and had me just hang out there and lay around for 20 minutes or so. As bad luck would have it, I didn't have a single occurrence of the weirdness while I was hooked up. After a while, they unhooked me and were getting ready to send me home, but the nurse decided to go ahead and check my pulse and blood pressure one more time.

      While she was checking my pulse, I had one of the weird speed up feelings. I didn't even have to tell her. As soon as it happened she looked up at me and said "It just happened, didn't it!" and I was like "Yes, how did you know?!?! What did you feel?!?!". She had actually felt my heart skip an entire beat while she was taking my pulse!

      The doctor came back in and when she gave him this new information he said "Do you drink a lot of caffeine?" I didn't even know what was considered a lot or which drinks had a lot, so I was like "I drink a lot of mountain dew, I think those have caffeine". When he asked me how many and I told him 6 or 7 a day he told me that was my problem. The feeling I had been having was kind of an adrenaline rush where the rest of my body was trying to get my heart started back up again.

      I immediately stopped drinking caffeine and it took about 2 weeks for the problem to completely go away. It tapered off at about the same rate it had built up in the first place.

      At the time this happened I was in really good shape. It had been less than a year since I was a 2 sport athlete in high school and my fitness level was still pretty high.

      So, caffeine may not have negative effects on everyone, but I'm pretty sure I could have killed myself on it if I had kept drinking it at the rate I had been.
      • Mountain Dew has barely more caffeine than regular coke. You can get the exact same amount of caffeine from eating two chocolate bars. From the alt.drugs.caffeine FAQ:
        • Mountain Dew 55.0mg
        • Coca-Cola 45.6mg
        • Pepsi Cola 37.2mg
        • Jolt Cola 71.2mg
        • Cup of coffee 115-175mg

        • While I agree, people tend to react different to the same amount of [caffeine|alcohol|you-name-it] so while I think it's unlikely to get a problem like the described one with 'only' 350mg caffeine, I know that I can drink 2 cups of coffee after dinner and sleep well 2 hours later, whereas my brother, after drinking one cup of the same coffee, cannot sleep way until after midnight.

      • During my first year of college, I drank a lot of caffeine, mostly from Mt. Dew. I was drinking probably 6 or 7 12oz cans a day.

        This is unusual. The normal threshold is around 5-6 cups a day. That is when most people start reporting mild unpleasant side effects (none of them permanent), assuming you are a healthy adult, of course.

        The LD_50 (lethal dose for 50% of the population) is around 50 to 200 cups of coffee.

  • caffiene? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 05, 2003 @02:56PM (#6125977)
    Just use some cocaine as a pick-me-up and then you can wean yourself away from caffiene :P
  • I'm really getting to like the recipe for fizzing blue bawls [thinkgeek.com], especially using red penguins. :P



    I'm just worried that it's not worth injuring my health over. :)

  • As long as it keeps my brain going... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by skaffen42 ( 579313 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @03:11PM (#6126129)
    ... and it seems like caffeine might actually prevent Alzheimers [216.239.57.100].

  • Restroom please? (Score:5, Funny)

    by numbski ( 515011 ) * <[numbski] [at] [hksilver.net]> on Thursday June 05, 2003 @03:11PM (#6126130) Homepage Journal
    She said one study " reported dependence over a wide dose range", from as little as one or two cups per day to as much as 25 cups.

    25 cups???? 8 hour workday. 25/8=~3/hour

    Every 20 minutes you're downing approximately 8oz of caffeine and water.

    Man, come up for air!

    • Re:Restroom please? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Phronesis ( 175966 )
      25 cups???? 8 hour workday. 25/8=~3/hour

      I had a professor who literally drank 24 cups of coffee per day. University workdays are 12-16 hours rather than 8, so this would make 1.5-2 cups per hour. Every time he walked through the lab he had a fresh cup of coffee in his hand, so I can believe it.

      Conversations tended to go at the pace of cattle auctions, which was kind of fun, but when he got to age 65 or so he had to cut down to 8 cups per day because his caffeine jitters got in the way of aligning the mo

      • 25 cups???? 8 hour workday. 25/8=~3/hour I had a professor who literally drank 24 cups of coffee per day. University workdays are 12-16 hours rather than 8, so this would make 1.5-2 cups per hour. Every time he walked through the lab he had a fresh cup of coffee in his hand, so I can believe it. Conversations tended to go at the pace of cattle auctions, which was kind of fun, but when he got to age 65 or so he had to cut down to 8 cups per day because his caffeine jitters got in the way of aligning the mol
    • No, that's about right. Figure one of those 44 ounce plastic cups you get at 7-11, filled with ice tea (two tea bags, each in a cup of boiling water, poured over ice into that big plastic cup) every three hours ... in a 9 hour day that's 27 eight ounce cups worth. Granted it is ice tea and not coffee, but that's six tea bags worth of caffeine a day, maybe one and a half teapots worth in a nine hour work day.

      Easy.

      I wouldn't recommend that kind of intake if the drink had sugar in it (like Coke or other so
      • > Too much sugar is bad for you.

        Too much water is bad for you, too - they call it 'drowning'.
      • Too much sugar is bad for you.

        Too much fructose may be bad for you [go.com] too. (Many sodas and other foods are sweetened with fructose in the form of "high fructose corn syrup". Maybe that's just in countries that produce a lot of corn, like the USA.)

        • Cane sugar in sodas. (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Glonoinha ( 587375 )
          Actually I only know of one bottler in the US that makes Dr Pepper using the original recipe using cane sugar. The original plant in Texas (Dublin I think?) makes it and sells as much of it as they can make ... here in Austin the specialty stores sell it in the 10 oz bottles for like $6 a six-pack. And it is very, very good.

          I had forgotten how good the old flavor was until I spent time in Moscow (CCCP) a few years back - over there they made it using the original (cane sugar instead of corn syrup) recipe

        • Re:Restroom please? (Score:5, Interesting)

          by larry bagina ( 561269 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @07:18PM (#6128015) Journal
          slightly offtopic...

          Soft drinks in the USA use corn syrup because it is cheaper than sugar. If you go to canada or mexico to buy sugar, it's 2-3 times chea[er than in the US.

          Why is that? Because US sugar producers got congress to institute quotas on sugar imports, so cheap foreign sugar (from the carribean, etc) don't make it into the US.

          For a while, some candy companies imported iced-tea mix (and other sugar-laden goodies) from foreign countries to separate the sugar out of it, because it was less expensive than to buy US sugar. Of course, that's now illegal. The Life Savers plant in Michigan closed down earlier this year, and moved to canada so they could get better sugar prices.

          Who benefits? The sugar companies, and the corn syrup companies.... Most people agree that sugar-based soda tastes better than corn syrup-based soda... corn syrup would not be used if it wasn't artificially cheaper than sugar.

          Unfortunately, most people don't realize the true cost of sugar quotas, and it isnt' worth writing to your congressman over an extra expense you don't realize even exists.

    • Re:Restroom please? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Urox ( 603916 )
      1 cup = 8 oz.
      I would go through 3-52 oz containers of diet soda a day at work.
      156 oz per 8 hour = almost 2 cups per hour.

      Having found that aspartame gives me migranes upon withdrawl, I've since stopped drinking diet soda, replaced it with 3 Liters of water ( 101.4 oz total) and maybe one or two cans of regular soda. Things I've found when I start to drink the first can:
      * Have to use the restroom within 30 minutes (diuretic properties from suppressing ADH)
      * Heart rate increases dramatically within first 10
    • Except that the size of a "cup" of coffee can vary anywhere between 4 - 5.5 fluid oz. My coffee maker for example defines a cup as 5 oz, YMMV.

      It's a good thing there are standard definitions for us all to follow ;)

  • Well, it IS a stimulant... (Score:3, Informative)

    by Zeriel ( 670422 ) <<gro.ainotrehta> <ta> <selohs>> on Thursday June 05, 2003 @03:12PM (#6126138) Homepage Journal
    ...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.
    • It's not a good thing for tendonitis and other sorts of RSI - as a musician, I have lots of friends with big problems with caffeine. It's very easy to have large amounts of tension when even a little bit of caffeine is involved, and that can lead to more serious injuries in the long term (not to mention it can really wreck your performance)
  • Alzheimers [alzheimersupport.com]
    or
    High blood pressure [healthandage.org]?

    • Re:It depends ... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Jerf ( 17166 )
      If you're relatively young, bet on Alzheimers. It's a relatively rare disease that will almost certainly be perfectly treatable within ten to twenty years, based on the research I've seen going by. (I take a bit of an interest as it does run in my family a little bit.)

      (Alzheimers can't be cured and the damage it does by its very nature can not be truly undone, but if it's prevented in the first place, the difference between an Alzheimer suffer and a non-sufferer will be an extra pill or two every so often,

  • Instead of Google (Score:4, Informative)

    by Otter ( 3800 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @03:18PM (#6126199) Journal
    If you're really curious, try searching Medline [nih.gov] instead of web browsing. The abstracts will probably plenty for you, and you can always go to your local university and get papers for things that particularly interest you.

    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).

  • For about 3 years straight, I drank at least 6 cans of dew a day, and that was slow. Most days was 9-12. I know that's nothing compared to hardcore coffee chuggers, but it still amounts to a signicant amount. And then about 4 month ago, for no other reason that to lose weight, I replaced all fluid intake with good ole water. Cold turkey, too. I didn't have an caffeine, to my knowledge, for about 2 months. No soda, coffee, tea, chocolate, stacker2, nothing. And I never really felt a withdrawl period.
    • I used to drink a lot of soda (Mt. Dew, Coke, Pepsi) myself. About 6 years ago, I decided to give it up for a month just to see if I had any caffeine withdrawal. I didn't give up chocolate (so I still got some caffiene) but I didn't really notice anything.

      At the end of the month, I figured there really wasn't any point in starting up again as I could save calories so I've never started again. All I drink now is water and milk (and occasional fruit juice).

      Side note: if you do go the water route - restauran
    • Congrats. I too went on a mostly-water drink diet (carbonated - the seltzer water I drink has more CO2 than flavor!). I now treat soda like candy, which it is. [saveharry.com]

      Just some interesting numbers: 10 mountain dews (non-diet) = 1650 calories = a good chunk of your 2500 recommended daily calories. That's about 3 pints of plain vanila ice cream, or 1 1/3 pints of chunky monkey!

  • Sleep and addiction. (Score:5, Informative)

    by xluap ( 652530 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @03:24PM (#6126260)
    Here is a snippet about sleep and addiction [howstuffworks.com]

    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.
    • Indeed... reading this exact same thing on How Stuff works made me make sure that if I did happen to have a coffee while out at dinner or the like, I'd make sure it was a decaf... (And a water filtered one at that, as the chemicals they use to get the caffeine out the other way is worse for you than the caffeine itself.)

      I only have about 1 cup a day, but I know that if I'm having a headache I can have a cup of coffee which'll remove the headache just as effectively as a panadol.

  • Go to your local library... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Deagol ( 323173 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @03:26PM (#6126293) Homepage
    and check out Caffeine Blues [amazon.com] by Stephen Cherniske.

    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.

    • If nothing else, this book has some great coffee alternatives listed at the end.

      Would you mind listing some of them ?

      • My personal coffee substitute is Teeccino [teeccino.com], and it is praised highly in the book I mentioned. I like it because of it's good taste, as well as the fact that it's pretty healthy for you (lots of potassium and inulin, a bennificial soluble fiber). The author's main requirement for a coffee substitute was that it maintained the ritual of brewing (or using a French press, in my case), which you can do with Teeccino. Of course, I still miss the ritual of hand-grinding beans in my Zassenhaus [sweetmarias.com], so that's why I s

  • ADHD (Score:4, Informative)

    by Fished ( 574624 ) * <amphigory@gmail . c om> on Thursday June 05, 2003 @03:28PM (#6126309)
    Most likely, most geeks are addicted to caffeine because they are self-medicating for ADHD. There is a strong positive correlation between ADHD and IQ. The problem with caffeine is that it causes serious physical side-effects long before it has enough effect on Dopamine levels. It's also quite common to find people smoking compulsively and even taking cocaine in an unconscious effort to alleviate ADHD.

    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.

    • I might be inclined to agree with you, if there was some hard evidence ADHD actually existed [newswithviews.com]. The corelation between ADHA and IQ seems bogus. I know several people whom I would consider intelligent and whom are diagnosed ADHD. They exhibit absolutely no psychiatric abnormalities. Occasionally, in certain situations, they may get bored or restless, but so does everybody. As it is, it seems to just be a money making scheme by the pharalogical industry.
      • I have to disagree. Not too long ago, I was diagnosed ADHD (at the age of 29) after twenty years of life being pretty shitty. Prior to that time, I dropped out of high school, dropped out of college, my marriage was falling apart because of outbursts of "screaming fits" that I couldn't seem to get a handle on, I was unable to function in the ministry to which I felt called, and my life was generally sucky. I couldn't even keep my checkbook balanced because I couldn't pay attention long enough.

        Then I me

    • a fscking fantasy. Why is it that in a certain affluent area in Rhode Island fully 33% of the children are in "Special Education" classes? Because the school system caters to it, and Soccer Mommy wants Junior to get that extra attention. Get over it, ADHD et.al. is bogus. Turn off the TV, read a book, and train your brain to focus for more than 10 minutes at a time.

  • If by health problems you mean.. (Score:3, Funny)

    by recursiv ( 324497 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @03:28PM (#6126311) Homepage Journal
    If by health problems you mean my 20 page term paper, and by cause you mean solve then YES, emphatically.

  • Cafeinne (Score:3, Interesting)

    by drivers ( 45076 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @03:28PM (#6126312)
    IANAD but Cafeinne increases your blood pressure. If your blood pressure is over 115 (used to be 120 but that has been revised recently) one of the first things you can do is cut out the cafeinne. It sure beats taking blood pressure medication which can cause sexual disfunctions! When you cut out cafeinne you will probably have a couple days of headaches to put up with, especially the first day. I haven't drinken (drunk?) any cafeinne in about 3 weeks, but started again yesterday and today. Oh well. If you are hardcore addict (whatever that might mean) then I'd recommend a gradual, planned reduction to reduce the headache problem.

  • Caffeine is bug poison. (Score:4, Informative)

    by Futurepower(R) ( 558542 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @04:11PM (#6126694) Homepage
    Caffeine is bug poison. Tropical plants use it to disturb the central nervous systems of insects, so that they discourage being eaten.
    • > Caffeine is bug poison. Tropical plants use it to disturb the central nervous systems of insects, so that they discourage being eaten.

      As someone else pointed out from the "hot sauce" thread: "Man is the only animal stupid enough to eat scotch bonnet peppers."

      (Stupid bugs, they don't know what they're missing either :)

    • Caffeine is bug poison. Tropical plants use it to disturb the central nervous systems of insects, so that they discourage being eaten.

      This explains why the mosquitoes avoid me at the cottage. No West-Nile worries for me!

  • Here's the scoop from a psychologist. (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 05, 2003 @04:23PM (#6126789)
    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.
    • 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
      • I have not heard of caffeine doing this, but I know of a case of a bipolar patient who was misdiagnosed as depression case. When the SSRI antipresants (like Prozac) did not work too well so his therapist (who turned out to have had just a psychology undergrad degree) got a bright idea to try some short-acting + strongly stimulating medication, which brightened the depressions rightaway - and got his occasional hypomania into full-blown uncontroled manic delusion episodes!
    • I've experienced what you describe in number 2. I was diagnosed as having an anxiety disorder and found that quitting caffeine had almost as much of an effect on lessening my problems as did my meds. I stear clear of most caffeine now, with the occasional exception.

      BTW to others who plan to cut their caffeine: I was suprised to learn that a cup of black tea has almost as much caffeine as mountain dew or other sodas.

  • Sleeping better without it (Score:4, Interesting)

    by SnowDog_2112 ( 23900 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @04:31PM (#6126858) Homepage
    Since my early teen years, I was a caffeine junkie. Coffee and colas, nonstop. I used it both habitually (urg, morning, give coffee) and recreationally (yeah, drink 3 espressos and feel wacky, then stay up all night playing D&D) [yeah, yeah, nerd alert]. When Penguin Mints came out, I was buying them by the box via mail order, and eating a few every hour at work.

    It got to be a bit much. Shakiness and being groggy in the morning until I dosed up were acceptable, almost "cool" within the right circles. But when I started having some stomach troubles (which apparently were unrelated) I decided on my own to give it up cold turkey.

    I've been off it for a few years now, and I certainly sleep more now and feel more alive in the morning than I did when I was using it.

    I still miss it every day, though.

    I mostly miss the "recreational" aspect of it, though -- getting a good caffeine buzz to make the night last longer. But I know myself -- if I started drinking it "just on the weekends" or "just on game night" it wouldn't be long before I was back to my insane ways....

    Now, where's my beer?
    • oh contraire...

      your stomach problems were probably related to your diet. Coffee is nasty for your stomach in the first place. Caffeine causes your stomach to produce more acid.

      My boss used to make black-death-coffee. Then I'd stop on the way home and have a beer or two. I was smoking at the time -- not that much, but still -- and that does the same thing. Combined, I ended up with gastritis and was on Prilosec for a couple months.

      Nowadays, I don't smoke, drink once in a while, and have maybe a cup a

  • Are some people immune to caffeine? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by kavau ( 554682 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @05:15PM (#6127211) Homepage
    If I drink just a single cup of coffee (or a can of Mountain Dew, or...) after 5pm, I will probably stay up until sunrise (or roll around in bed, trying unsuccessfully to fall asleep). My girlfriend, on the other hand, usually falls asleep before her head hits the pillow, right after downing an extra large, extra strong cup of coffee.

    Are some people naturally immune to caffeine?

    • Though I don't have any references to cite, I'd be willing to guess that one's body can become accustomed to virtually any drug and therefore more tolerant of that drug. To a certain extent, then, the more you ingest the more tolerant you become.

      I've been drinking coffee in rather large quantities for a couple of decades now. I'm probably in the extreme range at this point: 30-40 cups a day, from the time I get up to to minutes before I go to bed. Unless I consume a large amount of caffeine in a short

    • My girlfriend, on the other hand, usually falls asleep before her head hits the pillow, right after downing an extra large, extra strong cup of coffee.

      Dude, you must be really boring in bed!.

    • I used to be like this - no real effect except for the taste. Then, when I was about 25, I got a good case of the flu, and during that sickness my regular coffee (pot a day) started to give me a heart arhythmia. To this day I'm hyper-sensitive to caffeine, anything more than a couple diet cokes will give me trouble. During my detox period (a couple weeks) my kidneys ached like hell.

      I'm not sure if it was the flu or my age, or both, but most old people are not immune.

      Fortunately, in my quest for still-g

  • Ok, time for my $0.02.

    Being mildy ADHD and a qualified genius according to even the old IQ tests, I've always enjoyed caffeine. It wakes me up, keeps me going, and lets me focus, within reason.

    The good thing about caffeine is that it's very self-regulating. I'm lucky in that I don't become chemically dependent (3 pots to zero, no headache; same with 1 pack cigs/day to zero... no effect). If I have too much caffeine, I notice that I start to lose focus, and my stomach starts to growl. While some people may

  • Caffeine's effects on me (Score:3, Interesting)

    by rebill ( 87977 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @05:42PM (#6127398) Journal

    This is my personal experience ... treat the following like you would with any anecdote - with suspicion.

    I observe Lent every year - not out of some sense of religious need, but to help me break "bad habits." I find it much easier to give something up when other people around me are giving things up, and if I can kick a bad habit for 48 days, it is easy to keep on kicking it.

    Last year's target for me was caffeine - no Colas, no Tea, no Excedren (read the label on that pain-killer!) nothing. I had the usual headache for the first couple of days, which then wore off.

    Some background: I have had a consistent problem with leg cramps for years. It was especially bad after exercise - play three games of volleyball on a Friday night, and a few hours later my legs would cramp so strongly that I would have to lever them against a wall to get them to stop hurting. I took to taking pre-emptive doses of aspirin . . . and really stepped up my consumption of Gatorade and water on the days of the games, just to be able to play.

    Lent starts on a Wednesday, so my first volleyball league match was two days after going off caffeine - and for the first time in months, I did not cramp up after the game. This continued through the following six weeks of that season.

    When Lent ended, I fell off the wagon, and went right back to my colas. The following Friday, my leg cramps were back with a vengeance. When I recovered, I decided to lay off the caffeine again, just to see if there was a correlation (or to see if I was imagining things), and to date, the leg cramps are gone.

    Was it caffeine, or something else that I was consuming? I have no idea. All I know is that I avoid them as much as possible, now, and I do not even remember the last time that a leg cramp woke me up at night.

    • Found a simple soloution: pottasium chlorate(sp). Mine, and probably yours are most likely cause by a low pottasium level, which seems to hit the big muscles first. I would always wake up with a leg cramp bad enough to hurt for 2 days.
      i started using the salt designed for people with heat peoblems. THis is usually potassium chloride.Ii dont even use salt noramlly, but i sprinkle a bit in my water before running, and add more when i came back, kind of a poor mas gatorade without all the sugar. I haven
    • Caffeine is a diuretic (i.e., takes water out of your system). It could be the dehydration that was causing your cramps.

      • One of the big problems with dehydration is not necessarily lack of water, but chemical imbalances resulting from the water being carried away (either in sweat or urine). "dehydration" is as much a potassium/sodium shortage as an H2O shortage. This is why pure water alone often doesn't cure dehydration headaches. Putting a small amount of light salt (Morton's Light Salt is a mixture of normal salt, aka sodium chloride, and potassium chloride, in proportions VERY similar to Gatorade.)

        Don't use too much s

  • My Issues with Caffeine (Score:5, Informative)

    by Fish Heads ( 642181 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @06:01PM (#6127492)

    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.

  • advice (Score:5, Informative)

    by falsification ( 644190 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @06:08PM (#6127540) Journal
    If you want medical advice, don't ask Slashdot. Ask your doctor.
    • Normally I'd agree... but as far as caffiene goes, Slashdot seems to be the best resouce of experience, neh?
  • If you're posting this from US soil you are whining. US coffee is weak except for some distant niches and even starbucks cannot even sell a good espresso (they cannot even make ristretto's in most shops). Last 2 weeks I was there I visited 20 assorted coffee shops only one shop came to a decent strength. Oh and coffee is *not* drunk from a paper cup!

    Over on the other side of the pond where true espresso is made and drunk (Italy, France, Spain most commonly) people enjoy stiff coffee's that would know a yan

  • health effects of caffiene (Score:5, Informative)

    by borg ( 95568 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @11:41PM (#6129395)
    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.

  • Some Article Extracts (Score:4, Interesting)

    by SpiritHex ( 443323 ) on Friday June 06, 2003 @12:34AM (#6129595)
    Coffee makes us speedy, irritable, sleepless, and often causes heartburn or ulcers. The removal of caffeine is supposed to reduce some of these undesirable effects. Coffee is an addicting beverage. If you consume more than 2 cups per day, you are likely to experience unpleasant withdrawal if you stop. The minimal suffering includes a headache, irritability, and fatigue. The popular ideas that the bad effects of coffee are caused by one chemical, caffeine, is misleading. The 800 or so other chemicals in coffee include aromatic or phenolic chemicals and many are probably neurotoxic; other chemicals are allergenic. Coffee is also a crop with pesticide residues. Coffee can be allergenic and makes some people obviously sick. Chlorogenic acid is one of the allergens which coffee shares with oranges.

    Tea and coffee have much in common, although they different plant products from different geographic zones. Tea contains caffeine and other members of the drug family, methyxanthines. Tea also contains tannin, a good tanning agent. The caffeine dose in a cup of coffee ranges from 100 to 160 mg. A cup of tea has 20-60 mg and 12 ounces of regular Coca Cola has 45 mg of caffeine. The symptom complex produced by tea parallels coffee. Chronic heavy tea- users have sometimes been nicknamed Tuffers. Teas are addicting and are allergenic.

    Daily coffee or tea ingestion induces a 24 hour cyclic disturbance with morning arousal, irritability, difficulty concentrating, subtle levels of disorganization, clumsiness, and forgetfulness. As the day progresses, 2 or more cups later, a heavy fatigue sets in by mid to late afternoon. Further coffee doses may rouse one a bit, but then further collapse is inevitable by evening. Irritability may evolve into disproportionate or inappropriate angry outbursts, pleasure-loss, absence of good-feelings, or empathy anesthesia. It is likely that the subtle pyschopathology of moderate to heavy coffee consumption contributes to the production of unnecessary conflict and dysphoria. The subtle cognitive and memory deficits which appear after coffee intake should alarm employers who expect their employees to think, remember, or carry out skilled, coordinated acts. It may be that coffee and tea intake facilitates dull, routine, rote tasks where thinking, skill, and initiative are unimportant. The cognitive and emotional defects of the coffee-drinker should also alarm a spouse or close family member who cannot understand why the relationship is not working. Until you consider coffee and other food-factors, mental and emotional disturbances may be totally mystifiying. Early sleep may be denied the infrequent coffee user. The chronic coffee-used may go to sleep readily but sleeps poorly and awakens feeling tired and mentally clouded. Morning fatigue demands more coffee to get going. A familiar recursive loop is established following the familiar addictive sequence.

    If you begin in a clear state with no symptoms and a clear mind, the ingestion of even one cup of coffee will often produce a marked and undesirable effect. The sustained ingestion of even small amounts of coffee seems to produce a subtle psychopathology. The chronic coffee user risks a variety of physical and mental disabilities, especially coffee-user-fog. If your Cuffer spouse, employer, employee, or best friend seems irritable, obtuse, unduly nasty, or depressed, nurse them through the three-day- withdrawal headache and serve nice cups of hot water instead. Coffee substitutes are definitely not recommended. Many ex-cuffers find that a "nice cup of hot water" becomes a suitable drink. Others switch to light consume, soup, or hot water, lightly flavored with lemon and honey.

  • Just a note about the headaches. The first presumption I've come across when mentioning caffeine works wonders on my migraines is "well of course, your body's gone too long without its caffeine fix". It's pop medicine, and is a typical reaction rfom doctors, friends, relatives etc. It doesn't mean that caffeine withdrawal headache doesn't happen, but not regarding it as a valid fix for some people is just being dismissive. Hell, some migraine medications -contain- caffeine.

    I've gone without using caffeine/

  • Hmmm... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by The AtomicPunk ( 450829 ) on Friday June 06, 2003 @10:11AM (#6131487)
    Have you considered, I don't know, maybe... asking someone in the medical profession?

    "I have cancer, and I'm wondering what course of treatment slashdotters would recommend?"

  • Well, if you are taking in too much caffine, you are definitely NOT eating right. This came up in a discussion with my doctor a few weeks ago. I had a mild prostate infection. He told me that caffine will irritate the tissue in your prostate and urinary tract. If you, in my case, don't drink enough water to make you urinate enough, the natural bacteria in your urine will infect the irritated tissue.

  • It caused enough problems for me (Score:4, Interesting)

    by lga ( 172042 ) * on Friday June 06, 2003 @11:07AM (#6132024) Journal
    I used to drink around 6 to 10 mugs of filter coffee a day, along with many penguin mints, cokes and other caffeinated products.

    I also had frequent migraines, an insomnia problem, and was often too tired in the evening to go out.

    About a year ago I cut down my caffeine intake dramatically. Now I have 1 or 2 coffees a day, or a coke instead. No Penguin mints. The difference was incredible: Hardly any migraines, I was able to sleep at night, I was more active in the evenings. As a bonus, my pericarditus (inflamed muscles around the heart) went away completely.

    I still enjoy my coffee and caffeine, but I think it should come with a health warning. We certainly shouldn't be giving so much of it to children.

    Steve.
  • Caffeine is a drug, of course, and like all drugs, there are interactions, side effects, and tolerance levels to think about in addition to addiction questions.

    For example.

    First, Caffeine- every /.er knows this- is a stimulant. This becomes an issue when you combine it with other things. Including things like basic pseudoephedrine, for some people. Blood pressure is an issue for a lot of people, and so is heart rate. This means that people with conditions ranging from vasovagal syncope to basic high bl

    • It also can be used to treat athsma, which can be life-threatening. In the event of an emergency attack, two cups of coffee can save your life (talk to your doc about it if you have athsma, just to get a sure dose, because i'm tiny so my dose is much lower. If you're big or have a tolerance, it may be higher.) You might not sleep that night, but you'll be alive.

      I've always had really bad asthma and this is quite true. The principal is rather simple too. Caffeine increases your blood pressure and will ge

  • Speaking from experience (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Two words...

    Kidney Stones.

    About a year ago I had to deal with this blight. I can remember a remarkable conversation I had with the doctor at the time of diagnosis. She said that she could NOT believe the rapid increase in the number of young people (people not normally getting kidney stones, like me) who were getting them.

    She attributed them to the increase consumption of soda's coffee (starbucks anyone) and such especially now that these are sold in junior and senior high schools.

    ya See caffeine make
  • I have an espresso machine, (cheap one by Mr Coffee). It doesn't seem to build up a lot of pressure so I use drip ground coffee unless I want to wait 15 minutes for it to squeeze out some juice on an espresso grind. Fill the chamber with coffee grounds and pour about 1 to 1.25 cups of water in the top. (The decanter cracked a while ago so I have to guesstimate) So that equals 4 to 5 2oz. espressos I suppose. I pour the coffee liquid into a 32oz cup, add 2 packets of sweet and low, and enough milk to get it

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