caffeine and health pt 1

The UC Davis CoHo is proof that the coffee culture continues to thrive.  Ed Andrade, who orders the coffee supply, substantiates this statement: every day, the CoHo consumes between 130 and 140 pounds of coffee beans. 

College campuses are ideal settings for the coffee market: with stressed out, sleep deprived students working to meet deadlines, caffeine is often central to the period of crash studying proceeding the week of exams. 

In 2006, Northwestern University conducted a study of 265 incidents of caffeine abuses reported to the US Regional Poison Control Center between 2001 and 2004 (Time Magazine, “The Newest Addicts on Campus”).  Most surprisingly, the average age of the subjects admitted was twenty-one years old.  “People are less aware of caffeine as a drug than they are of alcohol and other recreational drugs that people come upon in college,” says Duke University’s psychophysiology lab director, Jim Lane.  Caffeine is the world’s “most popular psychoactive drug” according to sources such as National Geographic. 

The 2011 Food & Health Survey conducted by the International Food Information Council Foundation examined consumer attitudes regarding topics of nutrition, health and food safety.  This study quoted the majority of Americans (69 percent) as moderate consumers of caffeine.  The size of the “average” cup of coffee in such studies has been critiqued as notoriously vague, ranging from 8- to 12-ounces. 

Time Magazine’s “The Caffeine Habit” published government statistics citing 60-120 milligrams of caffeine for every 8-ounce cup of brewed coffee.  For those of us who have built up a tolerance for caffeine, our bodies require higher and higher doses to achieve even the slightest effect.  The average coffee consumer may be ingesting over 300 milligrams of caffeine everyday.  In contrast, those who drink coffee less often can perceive a physical or emotional change with 1.5 ounces of strong coffee—a caffeine intake of a mere 20 milligrams according to Jeffrey Kluger of Time Magazine.

The first caffeine addicts in the cultural centers of the Ottoman Empire described the physical effects of caffeine as marqaha, defined by an increased heart rate and maybe even a temporary feeling of euphoria (Hattox).  Avid coffee drinkers today are more familiar with the withdrawal symptoms of fatigue, irritability or a pounding headache.