Pretty cool, right? But what if we get even closer? If you look at caffeine crystals under a high powered scanning electron microscope, these white strands look even crazier. This image is colored after it was taken in black and white, but it still gives you the best idea of what caffeine actually looks like at only 40 microns in length. Caffeine's effects may be much milder than those of illicit drugs, but kicking a caffeine habit can be difficult for someone who has made the drug a large part of his or her diet and lifestyle.
Caffeine is unlike many other drugs in that it is abundant in what we eat and drink. Read on to learn more about what foods provide most of the world's caffeine, and discover the many ways in which consuming caffeine has become part of global culture. Sign up for our Newsletter! Mobile Newsletter banner close. Mobile Newsletter chat close.
Mobile Newsletter chat dots. But that really depends on the person. Effects of caffeine depend on your gender, age, and health condition. Women should limit caffeine to mg a day during their reproductive years, say researchers at the Bureau of Chemical Safety, in Ottawa, Canada. And caffeine should not even be in childhood and adolescent diets, according to an American Academy of Pediatrics clinical report. Overdose from caffeine powder caused tachycardia, seizure, and ventricular fibrillation in a year-old woman, as reported in British Medical Journal Case Reports in The patient was a woman who had overdosed on drugs before and suffered from depression.
She survived with serious heart and lung complications after hospital workers filtered her blood and restarted her heart repeatedly with CPR. Evidence that caffeine can be extremely toxic comes from other rare case reports, as well. At only 31, a man intentionally took his life by overdosing on caffeine, reported Forensic Science, Medicine, and Pathology in April While caffeine may not be suspected at the time of heart-related deaths and is rarely measured, at least in these cases, the concentrations were fatal.
Holstege says that he has seen cases of caffeine toxicity in his own practice as recently as this year. In an extreme case he reported in , a woman ate about 50 gm of caffeine in a massive overdose suicide attempt, taking tablets of mg each. She had multiple organ failure, but survived after emergency treatment from Holstege and his team. You can get used to consuming certain levels of it, and you may go through withdrawal when you give it up.
Caffeine occurs naturally in products such as coffee, tea, chocolate and cola soft drinks, and is added to a variety of prescription and over-the-counter medications, including cough, cold and pain remedies.
Energy drinks may contain both naturally occurring and added caffeine. The following are typical amounts of caffeine in products you may use regularly. A cup refers to a small take-out cup size of mL [8 oz]. Keep in mind that coffee and tea are often served in much larger cups.
To find out the amount of caffeine in headache and cold medicines, check the label of over-the-counter medication, or ask your pharmacist about caffeine in prescription drugs.
In Canada, manufacturers of products that contain naturally occurring caffeine are not required by law to list caffeine as an ingredient on the label. Only added caffeine must be listed. Because some of the caffeine in energy drinks may come from plant ingredients, such as yerba mate Ilex paraguariensis and guarana Paullinia cupana , caffeine may not be listed on the label. The origins of the words reflect the spread of coffee into Europe via Arabia and Turkey from northeast Africa, where coffee trees were cultivated in the sixth century.
Coffee began to be popular in Europe in the 17th century. By the 18th century, plantations had been established in Indonesia and the West Indies, and by the 20th century coffee had become the biggest cash crop on earth. Caffeine was first isolated from coffee in It is also found in tea; in cacao pods, and hence in cocoa and chocolate products; in kola nuts, used in the preparation of cola drinks; in the ilex plant, from whose leaves the popular South American beverage yerba mate is prepared; and in guarana seeds, an ingredient in some energy drinks.
The caffeine content of coffee beans varies according to the species of the coffee plant. Beans from Coffea arabica, grown mostly in Central and South America, contain about 1. Beans from Coffea robusta, grown mostly in Indonesia and Africa, contain about 2. Caffeine is the most widely used psychoactive substance in the world. In North America, more than 80 per cent of adults regularly consume caffeine.
The average amount of caffeine consumed per person in Canada from all sources is estimated to be to mg per day. In Canada, coffee consumption increased from 96 litres per person in to litres per person in Consumption of tea has also increased, up from 42 litres per person in to 77 litres per person in
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