Serving the University of Toledo community since 1919.

Caffeine: Wonder drug or addictive chemical?

Amanda Pitrof, News Editor

Hang on for a minute...we're trying to find some more stories you might like.


Email This Story






image_pdfimage_print

The world loves caffeine.

Second only to petroleum, coffee is the world’s most valuable traded commodity, according to the Global Exchange website.

Energy drinks generated $6.5 billion in 2008, according to Rick Nathanson in an article he wrote for the Albuquerque Journal.

With its energizing effects, it’s not surprising that caffeinated drinks are popular among college students.

From a barista

Rachel Kunzweiler, a fifth-year majoring in bioengineering and student manager at the Starbucks in the Student Union, has worked there for three years.

Kunzweiler estimated that at least 1,000 people come through the line every day to buy coffee.

She said the ebb and flow of students in line can vary a little depending on when students get out of classes, but that it is pretty constant all day.

“We get people who are regulars and come three times a day and get the same drink,” Kunzweiler said.

Among the drinks she said she saw as the most commonly ordered are caramel macchiatos and frappuccinos of any kind.

“If it is a cold bar drink, the coffee is a pre-made frap roast, which is a highly-concentrated form of coffee that we make cold because it’s a blended ice thing,” Kunzweiler said. “If it’s on the hot bar, we use espresso shots, which is also a highly-concentrated form of coffee.”

While each drink is made with the same amount of coffee — the smallest size drink has two pumps for cold bar items or one shot for hot bar drinks — but many people get extra shots.

“I’ve seen five shots to ten shots in one drink,” she said.

How caffeine affects the brain

Jason Levine, assistant professor of psychology and clinic director of the University of Toledo training clinic, defined caffeine as “a chemical that’s found in many different products and substances,” with the most common sources of caffeine on college campuses taking the form of energy drinks and coffee.

“Essentially, what caffeine does in the brain is it blocks certain receptors that a chemical called adenosine binds to,” he said. “It promotes sleep and it suppresses physiological arousal.”

Caffeine intake blocks those receptors and the adenosine can’t work, according to Levine.

He said, with caffeine, “you get the opposite of sleep. You get hyper-arousal instead of suppression of arousal. And when I say arousal, I mean just physiological arousal.”

But it does more than just keep you awake. Levine said it also restricts blood vessels. This restriction increases neuronal firing in the brain and increases dopamine production.

“Dopamine, very simply put, is the reward neurotransmitter in our brains,” he said. “It’s implicated in addiction, and a million other things too, but we think of it as the reward neurotransmitter.”

Positive side effects

Levine said he believes one of the things to remember about caffeine is that is isn’t all that bad.

“I think it’s important to note that there’s a lot of health benefits to drinking moderate levels of caffeine,” he said. “A lot of it depends on how it’s dispensed. If it’s in a big, sugary energy drink, then there’s issues with the sugary energy drink.”

If the daily caffeine intake comes from a cup of black coffee instead of a Monster or Red Bull, Levine said there are studies which have shown that people who drink one to three cups of coffee a day can be less likely to develop diabetes.

It would depend on what is put in the coffee though. Sugar, for example, may “negate some of the effects on diabetes,” he said.

“We also know that regular coffee drinkers — people that drink at least one cup a day — reduces their chances of getting Parkinson’s, colon cancer, other forms of cancer, and also gallstones,” he said.

Levine said there is debate about whether these effects are coming from “the bean, or the tea, or the caffeine, but there is decent evidence, sufficient evidence that caffeine does have beneficial qualities to it.”

Negative side effects

Until recently, there was not a way to diagnose caffeine-related conditions, but there are now entries for caffeine intoxication and caffeine withdrawal in the American Psychiatric Association’s fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

“Caffeine withdrawal has been documented in the literature in that people who are regular drinkers — again, those are people who consume about 100 milligrams of caffeine a day,” Levine said.

Regular drinkers can begin to have symptoms of withdrawal between a day or two after caffeine was last consumed, according to Levine.

“So after a day or two of discontinuation of caffeine the very mild symptoms are like minor mood changes, maybe feeling a little down, a little fatigued, all the way to those flu-like symptoms, like headache, feeling even nauseous, irritability,” he said. “Those symptoms can last up to two weeks.”

The symptoms affect everything from behavior to cognition, and can even affect social relationships, Levine said.

“Another potentially negative effect of caffeine is it can promote anxiety, and usually that is dose-dependent,” he said. “The more caffeine you take the more alert you’re going to be, the more neuronal firing you’re going to have, and if you’re already predisposed to anxiety, that may actually exacerbate one’s anxiety.”

According to Levine, even if a person is not usually an anxious person, too much caffeine can cause anxiety.

Why people drink caffeine

“The critical question is ‘What are you using it for?’” Levine said.

Having a cup in the morning because you enjoy it is OK, according to Levine, because it doesn’t disrupt your sleep. That is when it benefits a person’s health.

“But if you’re using it to stay up really late, to study regularly, and it’s disrupting your sleep, then it can be problematic,” he said. “It wouldn’t be considered an adaptive coping strategy or a healthy coping strategy.”

According to Levine, if someone is using it regularly as a coping mechanism for stress or a busy schedule, “that may deserve some attention.”

Recommendations

One thing Levine suggests paying attention to is when caffeine is ingested.

“Another interesting thing too is caffeine we measure chemical decay in half-lifes, and so after about six hours of digesting caffeine or consuming caffeine, about half of that amount is out of your system,” he said.

Drinking a caffeinated beverage at 6 p.m. doesn’t seem like such a bad idea, but at midnight, a person will still be caffeinated and wide awake.

“So you drink, you go to a Starbucks, you have a cup of coffee, in six hours, half of that caffeine is gone,” Levine said. “You’ve either peed it out or it’s metabolized. … Starbucks has pretty well-concentrated coffee, so maybe it has 300 milligrams of caffeine, that’s a lot — in six hours, you’ll have 150 in your blood serum level.”

Levine wasn’t too far off in his guess. According to Caffeine Informer’s coffee database, a medium Starbucks coffee — about 16 oz. — has 330 mg of caffeine in it without the help of any extra shots.

Levine said 100 mg a day is a good caffeine intake amount, but that most college students probably drink more than that.

Another thing he said to be aware of is that coffee can dehydrate people, so drinking water is important.

Levine recommends a gradual weaning off of caffeine for those who wish to lower their intake. “So what we recommend is that if you are going to stop drinking coffee, don’t stop cold-turkey if you’re a regular drinker,” he said. “Gradually decrease your amount of caffeine.”

Print Friendly

1 Comment

  • Ted

    Thanks for mentioning Caffeine Informer! Would you be able to link to our database within the content? Thanks so much and great work on the article.

    [Reply]

Serving the University of Toledo community since 1919.
Caffeine: Wonder drug or addictive chemical?