The team’s results showed that only carriers of the gene mutation for slow caffeine metabolism were at increased risk of heart attack associated with drinking coffee.
Cup of Joe, or Cup of Death?
August 21, 2014
Estimates suggest 85% of Americans old enough to eat solid food consume at least one caffeinated beverage any given day. That hasn’t stopped activists from opening a scare campaign designed to “de-normalize” — fancy-pants Ph.D.-speak for “make regular people feel guilty about” — your morning cup of Joe, soft drink, or tea.
The “news explainer” website Vox.com (which is not exactly known for getting basic facts right) recently gave time to a researcher who fretted about Americans’ caffeine consumption, warning based on (here we go again) a “study conducted on rats” that teens should abstain from caffeine, lest they become stupid. We suspect most people who drank coffee, tea, or soda in high school turned out all right, but what do we know. Either way, caffeinated beverages (tea is believed to be the first cultivated) have been around for millennia, with some crediting the widespread adoption of coffee for fueling the Enlightenment, hardly a time of stupidity.
This needs to be a warning to consumers—the activists aren’t going to stop their crusade to control the dinner table with only foods you like or companies you like. They want it all, until all the American public is left to subsist on Center for Science in the Public Interest boss Michael Jacobson’s “wonderfully healthy” 16th-Century peasant diet: “perhaps a pound of bread, a spud, and a couple of carrots per day.”
Activists are only starting with sugar, soft drinks, and even meat, but their ideology demands endless conflict and endless control. For cheese, for coffee, for the good things in life, consumers must resist the efforts of self-important activists. If it’s not your chosen food or beverage today, it may be tomorrow.
Caffeine is so dangerous that it should be regulated like alcohol and cigarettes, warns leading expert
Dr Jack James claims that the stimulant is causing ‘untimely deaths’
Says its ‘lethality’ is being underestimated as it’s widely considered harmlessBut caffeine is now in many everyday foods, drinks, medicines and toiletries, meaning we are unwittingly consuming or exposed to more than we think
By Anna Hodgekiss
28 February 2013
Caffeine is so dangerous and is being consumed in such high quantities that it should now be regulated, a leading expert claims.
Dr Jack James says that the stimulant is causing ‘untimely deaths’ and that its ‘lethality’ is being underestimated.
Dr James, editor in chief of the Journal of Caffeine Research, and head of the department of psychology at Reykjavik University, Iceland, says he is concerned that the substance is increasingly being added to products such as energy drinks, alcoholic drinks and medicines.
As a result, many of us are unwittingly consuming way more than we think – with worrying implications for our health and society as a whole.
Dr James believes the risks caffeine poses to our health are so great that products that contain it should be taxed and restricted like cigarettes and alcohol. Sales to children in particular should be restricted.
He says that as well as tea and coffee, caffeine is found in fizzy drinks, energy drinks, bottled water, alcoholic drinks (such as Tia Maria), cookies, chewing gum, yogurt and flavoured milk.
It is also commonly found in cold and flu remedies, weight loss pills, mints, cosmetics, soaps and even tights to aid slimming.
Even more worrying, he says that caffeine is also frequently used as a diluent (cutting agent) in illicit drugs.
He notes that while some countries in Europe and Scandinavia have begun to take regulatory action, including sales restrictions and product labelling, most countries including the UK and the U.S. have a ‘regulatory vacuum’.?
In his provocative editorial ‘Death by Caffeine: How Many Caffeine-related Fatalities and Near-misses Must There Be before We Regulate?’, he argues that the trend of children downing energy drinks is exacerbating the problem.
He says that in order to highlight the risks of caffeine, products should be labelled with the amount they contain and sales to children in particular should be restricted.
The U.S. Food and Drug administration announced last year that it is investigating reports of five deaths being linked to Monster Energy drinks. The company has denied any link.
And in 2009, a father from Bolton said his 11-year-old son hanged himself after energy drinks changed his behaviour. Lee Johns said his son Tyler was a happy-go-lucky child until he started downing the drinks to make himself feel grown up.
Tyler went from thriving at school and impressing neighbours with his good behaviour to becoming? ‘hyper and disruptive’ in the months leading to his death last year.
A one-litre caffeine drink was lying near Tyler’s body when his mother found him hanging in his bedroom.
Dr James is also concerned that sporty teenagers who drink lots of caffeine are putting their hearts under a great deal of strain.
He adds that although caffeine has been widely considered to be harmless, ‘awareness is increasing that its consumption is associated with substantial harm, including fatalities and near-fatalities’.
He says that caffeine was named as a contributing factor in 6,309 cases that the American National Poison Data System was notified of in 2011.
And the annual number of emergency room visits in the U.S. associated with energy drinks jumped 36 per cent to 20,000 in 2011 compared to the previous year, according to a report released by the Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration.
In just one year, the substance killed four people in Sweden, adds Dr James.
He says that caffeine – in the form of energy drinks – also offsets the sedating effects of alcohol and encourages people to drink more.
Furthermore, there is a ‘growing body of evidence’ which indicates that compared to alcohol alone, adding caffeine increases the risk of having unprotected sex, experiencing or committing sexual assault, drink driving and being violent.
There is also evidence that caffeine consumption by children may also make them more likely to use alcohol, drugs and smoke in the future.
According to the Food Standards Agency, there is no recommended daily limit on caffeine because the amount people can tolerate varies hugely depending on a number of factors, such as age, weight and average caffeine consumption.
A study by the government regulatory agency Health Canada concluded that the average person can have up to 400mg of caffeine a day without experiencing negative affect, such as anxiety or heart problems.
Indeed, we can become used to caffeine over time. The only exception is for pregnant women, who are advised to consume no more than 200mg of caffeine a day, as it can have adverse effects on birth weight and pregnancy outcome.
Children should have no more than 75mg.
An 8oz can of Monster Energy has 92mg, while an 8oz Red Bull can has 83mg. A bottle of Coca-Cola contains 58mg of caffeine, while a an 8oz cup of decaf coffee has 5mg and hot chocolate has 9mg.
Caffeine intoxication is recognised by the World Health Organisation as a medical condition. Symptoms include nervousness, anxiety, restlessness, insomnia, stomach upset, tremors and rapid heartbeat.
Two known triggers of the heart rhythm disorder supraventricular tachycardia (SVT) are caffeine and alcohol, so the risk increases if they are taken at the same time. SVTs can make your heart beat very quickly – up to 160 beats per minute.
The result can be terrifying palpitations, chest pain, dizziness and feeling out of breath.
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