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Millions of Americans use caffeinated beverages
every day as a pick me up.
It is after all the world's most popular drug
and with new caffeine infused products
like energy drinks, gum and even
beef jerky hitting the shelves,
our love affair with caffeine
shows absolutely no signs of slowing down.
Caffeine is an interesting drug because
when enters the body it breaks up into
three different yet very similar molecules.
When metabolized in the liver, enzymes
chisel off one of three methyl groups
to form these three metabolites with
three different effects on your body:
Theobromine. Paraxanthine. Theopylline.
While in the brain, this caffeine party crashes
adenosine receptors blocking the normal guest,
adenosine from doing its job.
Adenosine is responsible for slowing down
your back giving our brains giving us
the cue to calm down and take a nap.
Also adenosine is responsible for regulating
neurotransmitters in the brain such as dopamine.
As you can see, adenosine is also quite similar
to caffeine in structure, which is why caffeine
binds so easily to the adenosine protein receptors.
Once connected, caffeine increases the
activity in neurotransmitters like dopamine
ultimately leading to heightened brain activity.
Then the three metabolites perform their own specific functions.
Theobromine increases oxygen and nutrient flow to the brain.
Paraxanthine enhances your body's athletic
performance by increasing the rate a fat
breakdown to fuel muscle activity.
Theopylline increase your heart rate and
reinforces your ability to concentrate.
And although these effects come together
to produce a state of wakefulness,
too much caffeine can turn sour pretty quick.
At higher doses caffeine is known to cause
jitters, anxiety and just general all-around discomfort.
For this reason scientists have found
four hundred milligrams is the safest
average dose of caffeine for adults.
To put that into perspective, that'll be
around three eight-ounce cups of coffee,
five eight-ounce Red Bulls or
a whopping eight cups black tea.
And on a side note site it’s also found
that caffeine becomes toxic around 10 grams,
which works out to be about seventy five cups
of coffee, or 180 cups black tea.
However in the lethal limit does vary
widely from person to person.
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