Informative Essay On Caffeine

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Caffeine is one of the most popularly used psychoactive substance across the globe, easily found in various products in significant amounts, like coffee, tea, cola drinks and so on. The role of caffeine and its effects on one’s health can be described simply by the word, ‘psychoactive’.

This drug, mostly consumed for its positive effects like increasing alertness and boosting one’s energy has gained much popularity amongst various generations, from adults to children.

The most commonly used form of caffeine amongst adults is coffee, while the most popular source amongst children are soft drinks like coco - cola, pepsi, red bull etc. 70% of all soft drinks contain caffeine. [1]. Energy drinks are becoming very popular and young adults may be at a risk of …show more content…

[4].
While caffeine has significant number of positive effects, its negative effects usually go unnoticed. There have been some misperceptions related to the effects of caffeine.

• The early symptoms of acute caffeine poisoning are anorexia, tremors, followed by nausea, vomiting and tachycardia. It can cause rhabdomyolysis and acute renal failure.

• Chronic high-dose caffeine intake may lead to “caffeinism” (irritability, anxiety, insomnia, palpitations, hyperreflexia and so on) [5].

A double-blind placebo-controlled cross-sectional study was undertaken to examine the performance, mood changes, headache, and sleep in over 30 healthy male and female habitual consumers of caffeine. This study revealed that participants were more alert and less fatigued after acute ingestion of caffeine, but felt less alert on chronic exposure. Performance was found to be impaired significantly on abrupt caffeine withdrawal following habitual use [6].

Several studies have shown that caffeine withdrawal or caffeine dependence has significant effects on one’s

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