How Caffeine Affects Your Body
Posted on November 15, 2012 Comments (2)
From the video by Alex Dainis: Caffeine prevents adenosine from slowing down your nervous system, by binding to the same receptors adenosine would. Caffeine also stimulates the production of adrenaline. And it increases the amount of dopamine present. The average half life of caffeine in the human body is about 6 hours.
Related: Does Diet Soda Result in Weight Gain? – Mental Pick-Me-Ups: The Coming Boom – Ritalin Doesn’t Show Long Term Effectiveness for ADHD
I have been curious about the caffeine content of various drinks and writing this post is a good enough reason to actually look it up.
- expresso (2oz) 100 mg (varies – 60 mg to 180 mg)
- coffee (8oz) 100 mg – this can vary quite a bit, 50 to over 100 mg is common. Brewed coffee has more caffeine 100-200 mg.
- Red Bull (8.2 oz) 80 mg
- tea (8oz) 20 to 80 mg (depending on strength and type, can also be higher, green tea is on the lower end)
- Mountain Dew (12 oz) 54 mg (diet has 54 mg also)
- Diet Coke 46 mg (regular Coke 34mg)
- Pepsi 38 mg, Diet Pepsi 36 mg
Sprite, 7Up and some root beers have no caffeine.
Chocolate can also be a significant source of caffeine – dark chocolate can have over 80 mg per 100 g (approximately 4 ounces).
Categories: Life Science, Science
Tags: biology, drugs, food, how things work, learning, Life Science, Science, science facts
2 Responses to “How Caffeine Affects Your Body”
Leave a Reply
November 15th, 2012 @ 12:39 pm
I was surprised to find out (the hard way) how much caffeine was in dark chocolate and ‘decaf’ coffee. I was nursing my newborn and thought I was being really good by staying away from caffeinated coffee. However, to try and trick my brain into keeping myself awake, I was downing 2-3 cups of decaf a day plus 3 or so pieces of dark chocolate (hoping for a sugar rush). My baby was super fussy and slept horribly. One night she slept through the night and after some investigation I found it was linked to my lack of coffee and chocolate that day. I’ve been off both and she is like a different baby. After some research I found out that I had been ingesting the equivalent of 1-2 cups of regular coffee each day. Shesh!
November 16th, 2012 @ 12:59 am
@Valerie — in order for coffee in the US to be classified as decaf, > 97.5% of the caffeine content must be removed. I don’t think 2-3 cups would be a significant source (although I can’t speak to the content in the chocolate).