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essays on the effects of caffeine.
essays on the effects of caffeine.
essays on the effects of caffeine.
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Caffeine is one of the most used beverages in the world. Some people drink caffeine because they enjoy the taste, it can improve their endurance, makes them wake up, or suppress their appetites. However, there are many negative side effects which include headaches, insomnia, nervousness, heartburn, and anxiety. Caffeine is addictive and a drug. The longer people drink caffeine, the more they have to drink to have the same effect to stay awake.
In Healing ADD, Daniel G. Amen, M.D., states: “In the short run caffeine makes you feel more focused” (211). But, consuming 250mg of caffeine in one day, which is more than one Rockstar energy drink or a venti from Starbucks, can cause some scary side effects. Taber’s Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary states that caffeine intoxication side effects include “restlessness, nervousness, excitement, insomnia, flushed face” as well as irregular heart rhythms, twitching, stomach irritation, and even death (302). One teenager in particular died of cardiac arrest from having two twenty-four ounce Monster energy drinks in a 24-hour period.
According to Dr. Hal Harden, when people who are sensitive to caffeine drink a small amount, they could suffer from not sleeping soundly for a few nights in a row. If people don’t sleep soundly, they can be extra tired. Then, in turn, they tend to drink more caffeine to make themselves wake up.
Caffeine also gives people the jitters, anxiety, nervousness, and severe headaches. If people drink caffeine and they need to sit still, they usually can’t keep from fidgeting with their clothes or getting up and down. Not only do people get the jitters, they can also be nervous and have anxiety. Anxiety is a feeling of worry. People can experience more anxiety than usual ...
... middle of paper ...
... easy to stop drinking caffeine, so follow some of these guidelines and push through.
Works Cited
Amen, Daniel G. Healing ADD. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2001. Print.
“Caffeine Intoxication.” Taber’s Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary. 2001 ed. Print.
“Caffeine Withdrawal.” Taber’s Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary. 2001 ed. Print.
Harden, Hal. M.D. Personal interview. 17 Nov. 2013.
James, Jack E. "Acute and Chronic Effects of Caffeine on Performance, Mood, Headache, and Sleep." Neuropsychobiology 38.1 (1998): 32-41. ProQuest. Web. 19 Nov. 2013.
Reddy, Sumathi. "A Coffee Withdrawal Diagnosis; Quitting Caffeine is Now Listed as a Mental-Health Disorder; the Best Ways to Break the Habit." Wall Street Journal (2013). ProQuest. Web. 18 Nov. 2013.
Schupska, Stephanie. "Not Enough Sleep: 7 Serious Health Risks." WebMD, LLC. 5 Oct. 2010. Web. 20 Nov. 2013.
Szpak, A. a. (2012, April 2). A case of acute suicidality following excesive caffeine intake. Journal of Psychopharmacology. doi: 10.1177/0269881112442788
By this definition, and after knowing the effects of caffeine upon the human body, I have come to the conclusion that drinking caffeine is a sign of a lack of respect for oneself, and of an unappreciative attitude toward the life that each of us has been blessed with. Furthermore, it shows of either our inability, or unwillingness to learn to think clearly.
Caffeine raises your blood pressure when you drink/eat it, raising your blood pressure in general is not a good thing but imagine drinking and/or eating caffeine daily, and your blood pressure constantly rising. Another negative aspect is that caffeine can have a disruptive effect on your sleep. The most obvious effect of the caffeine is that it can make it hard for you to fall asleep. It can help you stay awake during the day but can also make you stay awake during the night when you are trying to fall asleep. You can also have withdraws from caffeine, going back to the story “Java Man” the author Malcolm Gladwell considered it a drug and remember you can get addicted to drugs (you can really get addicted to anything). There are plenty more negative ways caffeine can disrupt your lifestyle but you know what they say for every negative thing you can say there can be some
Caffeine is a mild stimulant that occurs naturally in at least 63 plant species. Caffeine can be found in the leaves, stems, seeds, and roots of these various plants. Caffeine is part of the methylxanthine family. It consists of a xanthine molecule with three methyl groups attached to it. Caffeine can be found in many products like sodas, tea, and coffee, but it also occurs in several other products such as prescription medications, diuretics, and pain relievers. Caffeine’s widespread use and popularity have caused many people to view the substance as an addictive drug. Thus making caffeine the most inexpensive and readily available drug known to man. Then on the other hand there are people who view caffeine as a helpful stimulant that increases the individual’s concentration and awareness as well as many other physical traits. The important thing to remember is that caffeine’s affects vary based on the person, the amount ingested, the frequency of consumption, and individual metabolism. (http://www.pp.okstate.edu/ehs/kopykit/caffeine.html)
Although individuals try to stop using caffeine, some cannot because it has a strong hold on them and some people can stop. The people that doesn’t stop may fit the clinical definition of caffeine addiction. “In this study, 94% of participants experienced withdrawal when they attempted to stop using caffeine, and 94% continued to use caffeine even though they knew that they might be harming their health with their use.” Women stop taking in caffeine during their pregnancies. Studies suggest, caffeine can be harmful to a growing baby. Most individuals with mental illnesses might be asked to stop taking caffeine. (Caffeine Addiction). All races of women consume 200 milligrams of caffeine daily. They drink coffee, black tea, green tea, and soda. About 89 percent of United States women ages 18 to 34 consume two cups of coffee a day. Even though caffeine affects men more strongly than women, caffeine changes women's estrogen levels; it has different effects in Asian, white, and black women. Studies showed that the effect differ between men and women based on the caffeine intake they consume. Men consume 7 milligrams of caffeine a day. Other men consume 85 to 170 milligrams of caffeine a day. Thirtynine percent does not drink caffeine at all.
Scrutiny of caffeine and its effects has increased dramatically in the last 20 years, due in part to an increase in consumption of caffeine. In fact, coffee consumption among young adults rose to 3.2 cups per day in 2008 from 2.4 cups per day in 2005 (Rokerya 1). For instance, in a one hour period, on Richland College’s on-campus Starbucks, the author took note of how many customers arrived and purchased a cup of coffee. Between 8:00 and 9:00 AM, there were 51 customers, implying that – especially at college - many people are dependent on coffee in the mornings. However, the results from these studies are inconclusive and often somewhat contradictory – many studies (such as that by Tetsuya Ohara et al.) show that caffeine is a great boon to
Caffeine is the most widely used stimulant on college campuses. It stimulates the central nervous system as it temporarily combats drowsiness, and restores alertness. Caffeine’s “powers” are the perfect anecdote for college student’s busy lives, but what if the opposite was true? Whether students barely come into contact with caffeine, and others use it habitually the study researchers whether caffeine has an effect on their cognitive processes. Daily caffeine regulars and sometime users consume it in many different ways, which are coffee, tea, cola drinks, candy bars, cocoa, cold and diet medications, and sleep prevention compounds, and they also consume it in various different doses. Caffeine is in about 100 medications, stimulants like NoDoz, cold preparations, appetite suppressants and mood elevating agents (Addicott, 2009). The psychophysiological effects of the stimulant include alertness, anxiety, heart rate, and these effects can result in a different performance on different task (Acevedo, 1988). The research questions whether the effects of caffeine have a positive or negative impact on student’s cognitive abilities.
Based on the website cspinet.org which is the Center for Science in the Public Interest publish on June 25, 2014 said that in documents obtained from the Food and Drug Administration show that since 2004, a total of 33 deaths have now been linked to energy drinks. Of those, 22 deaths have been linked to 5-Hour Energy, 11 deaths have been linked to Monster, and one death, a first, has been linked to Rockstar
Although there is very few data that caffeine containing energy drinks may temporarily improve alertness, but they enhance strength and decrease power (National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health). Excessive intakes of beverages lead to adenosine receptors prone to feeling increased anxiety. Energy drinks cause insomnia, which is effect of caffeine. Lack of sleep has been seen to cause impaired body function. They also cause some people to shake and be anxious. This can cause emotional issue. Where people used to take energy drinks regularly they eventually become addicted, which is one of the serious psychological effect. Beverages are the cause of increase in stress hormone, which leads to stress among consumers. In general, other psychological effects are impaired cognition, risky behavior, stress and nervousness.
Caffeine has many negative effects on humans, such as increased heart rate (Lane, J.D., 2002), depression (Goldstein, 2008), and addiction to this “drug.” You may be asking yourself, “What is caffeine?” Well, caffeine is actually a stimulant (Barone, Roberts, 2008) that is found in beverages such as tea, coffee, and soft drinks. In fact, caffeine is the highest grossing and most used stimulant in the United States (Barone, Roberts, 2008). It is estimated that 85% of adults living in the United States consume caffeine on a daily basis (Barone, Roberts, 2008). That means for every 100 adults, 85 of them have had a drink that contained caffeine on any given day. One reason caffeine is so widely available compared to other stimulants is because caffeine is socially acceptable (Brice, Smith, Sutherland, Chistopher, Childs, deWit, 2008). If nicotine was as acceptable to people as caffeine is, cigarettes would be more heavily used and might not even have a law on how old you should be before you smoke. One study showed that 75-98% percent of youth intake at least one beverage containing caffeine each day. 31% of the same youth consume 2 or more beverages containing caffeine daily (Morgan, Stults, Zabmick, NFS, 2008). If caffeine wasn’t so socially acceptable, these numbers would be drastically different. When youth were polled on when they consumed the most caffeine during the week, the results showed that after midday Wednesday, the consuming of caffeine begins to rise. Sometime on Saturday is when it reaches its height, and begins to go back down (Pollack, Bright, 2008). There are many opinions on why this is happening, such as stress relating to school, getting through the week, or less sleep during the week. When scientist Hoidrup lo...
The media fails to project the negative effects of excessive caffeine intake. This literature review will illustrate how excessive caffeine consumption can be detrimental to one’s life, and how problematic caffeine use derives from conditioning by the caffeine industry. Caffeine is the single most widely consumed psychoactive substance in the United States (Einöther & Giesbrecht, 2013). According to Einöther and Giesbrecht (2013), 80% of the world’s population consumes caffeinated products every day, with coffee and tea being the primary sources. In the recent years, the demand for coffee has increased, causing the caffeine industry to create an expansion of coffee shops, new caffeinated beverages (Bailey, Saldanha, Gahche, & Dwyer, 2014), and mass-media advertising.
In the present society, people’s schedules tend to be extremely hectic due to either strenuous work schedules or keeping up with school and families. Due to this, numerous individuals do not obtain the recommended eight hours of sleep. On top of not getting enough sleep, they do not eat the proper foods to nourish their bodies. In return, they have a substantial lack of energy. Usually people who do not take care of themselves tend to eventually get more tired by mid-day and as their day goes on. A simple solution would be to go to bed earlier and eat better foods. However, our society has become very lazy, obese, and have started to take the easy way out over the years. Instead of eating better and trying to get more sleep, people drink energy drinks as an easy and fast way to get a boost of energy. Energy drinks have been around since the nineteen-sixties and have become increasingly more popular. There are hundreds of different brands of energy drinks that are sold in grocery stores and gas stations today, and worse than that billions of them are consumed every year. Even though multiple energy drinks are consumed every year, many people are uninformed about; what an energy drink is, what the benefits and non-benefits are, what different types of energy drinks there are, and how mixing them with alcohol can be seriously dangerous.
Feature, Camille PeriWebMD. "10 Surprising Effects of Lack of Sleep." WebMD. WebMD, 08 May 0000. Web. 25 Feb. 2014.
Coffee is the first thing that people associate with instant energy on a groggy morning. “In the U.S., coffee is king of beverages” (Reinke) Research has been done that has named coffee as an addiction to the people who consume large quantities of it. Coffee was named the top source of antioxidants. This is partly because of the amount consumed each day. Some of the antioxidants that coffee has are quinines and chlorogenic acid. It also contains trigonelline, an antibacterial compound. This is where coffee acquires its delicious aroma. Now let’s step back for a minute and just think about how much caffeine people consume. In an 8oz cup of coffee it has about 85 milligrams of caffeine. This is about double the amount that tea contains. Studies have shown that caffeine stimulates the brain and nervous system. This is where you get that energized feeling. After about the third cup, knees start to bounce, pens are clicking and people start running laps around the office. Caffeine can become addicting if you drink too much. Coffee can become that addictive habit people are unable to shake.
Feature, Michael. "Chronic Sleep Deprivation and Health Effects." WebMD. WebMD, n.d. Web. 13 Mar. 2014. .