Day 134

Strung Out



Wheatus Teenage Dirtbag


I learned (by implementing the scientific process) that after taking a shot of espresso, you can't hold your breath for as long as you can when not on a caffeine bender.

Productive day at work, no?

I've been thinking a lot about caffeine. It's always been something of an interesting drug to me. I have seen my cousin become addicted to it to such an extent that he would start to shake if he didn't have a Coke every few hours - all before his 10th birthday, no less. Mormons and Christian Scientists find it to be so harmful that it's sinful to consume it. I have lulled my body into becoming tolerant of a few cups of joe, and I have see-sawed back to the point that I totally tweak after having merely smelled a particularly potent brew.

A couple of questions that have arisen in my mind over the last few years of pondering have finally come to a head. I decided to do a little research tonight.

First of all, I've been wondering lately about the dehydrative properties of caffeine. It's true that even during the times in which I have built up a noticeable tolerance to the drug, I still get the itchin' to start pissin' soon after consumption. Also, another less pleasant tidbit of information to share is that I generally have to sit on the throne a few times more during the course of the day than usual. And yes, that particular effect can be noticed throughout the entire day. According to the book Why Do Men Have Nipples?, the cause of this is routed in caffeine's natural stimulant properties; among other things, it speeds up your heart rate, and it likewise speeds up your bowel contractions. It gets the assembly line known as your large intestines working in double-time, effectively squeezing the shit out of you faster.

Okay, so it makes you pee and poop, but does that dehydrate you? I mean, if I drink water too quickly or too often throughout the day, I pee VERY frequently. Whenever I can feel that tickle in the back of my throat that always signals the coming of a cold, I become a drinking machine. I'll finish a 32oz Nalgene every other hour throughout the day, which is a lot for me. When this happens, I have been known to have to leave a 50 minute class twice to relieve myself. I almost went to a doctor to see if he could increase my bladder volume it became so burdensome. What I'm trying to get at is that frequent and high-volume consumption of water also makes me pee a lot. If I drink 3 cups of coffee in a morning, that's like drinking 3/4th of that Nalgene, or about 24oz. That's a formidable amount of liquid, so how do I know that it's not just the water in the coffee that's making me pee, and not the caffeine?

Then I was talking to Boy Shannon (shoutout!!! holla!) the other day at work, and we were discussing whether or not your intestines essentially become befuddled by all the extra crap dissolved in the water of your coffee (such as caffeine), and if that effects its absorption capabilities. We assumed that any liquid with something dissolved in it passes through more effectively and that your intestines become more inefficient. In hindsight, I'm not sure if I still agree with these conclusions. Regardless, assuming that this is true and that caffeine does in fact dehydrate you (a moderately false assumption as we're getting close to finding out), that brings up the question of how much? Let's say that you loose more eich-two-oh than you take in when drinking a caffeinated beverage, then where does that ratio break even? You get the same amount of caffeine in a cup of espresso as in a cup of coffee, but the espresso has less water in it making its ratio of caffeine:water much higher than coffee. Then iced tea (another common drink I have at the Café) must have a much smaller ratio. So does that mean that you loose LESS water than you drink when having iced tea, hence resulting in net hydration?

Well it turns out all the thought I put into this subject is just a moot point anywho ("It's like a cow's opinion...it doesn't matter."). It turns out the brilliant scientists at the University of Connecticut have done some fairly conclusive research suggesting that sure, caffeine is a diuretic (makes you pee), but only slightly. The article linked to above is short and interesting, so you really should read it. But to summarize its main bullet points pertinent to our discussion, you do in fact retain some of the water that's in coffee, and that its diuretic nature is actually about on par with water's which does in fact make you pee inordinate amounts when consumed in large quantities (yay! I knew that my bladder wasn't malfunctioning!). These findings were subsequently strengthened by another study published in the same journal that the first team of shit-faced-on-coffee researchers were in.

Okay, so it's only a wee bit (tehe, I made a pun) of a dehydrator. Very nice. Check that off the list... Now a more important question: why in the hell am I obsessing over caffeine's dehydrative properties when I just ate a whole bag of sunflower seeds while typing about it which surely sucked every last drop of water out of my body. Talk about dehydration, I'm now 70% less massive, hallelujah! Moving on...

Now I understand that caffeine occurs naturally in teas and coffee beans, but where else does it come from? In other words, what does Coke and Pepsi use to caffeinate their products? In the past I have just accepted the fact that some sodas have caffeine and some don't. But is there some kind of inherent difference between Sprite and Mountain Dew that makes one docile and the other the antichrist of jitters? Is there something that naturally occurs in an ingredient of cola that contains caffeine that might not be found in other sodas, and do they have to decaffeinate that ingredient to make a caffeine free version Pepsi? Is it an additive, and if so is it a natural additive or synthetic?

Well it turns out that synthetic caffeine exists, but is rarely needed and therefore used. Caffeine in sodas actually are additives, and caffeine free sodas are not decaf, they're uncaf since caffeine was simply never added in the first place. And the caffeine they use, it comes from coffee. Decaf coffee to be precise. During the process of extracting the caffeine from coffee beans to produce a decaf blend for consumers, coffee factories actually turn the caffeine into a tangible solid, not just some obscure extra few molecules floating around in a giant vat of chemicals. Actually, I saw a show a while ago (I can't remember what) that showed the caffeine subtracted from coffee beans, and it was actually a waxy consistency. They then shovel that wax and ship it off to soda plants. So rather than throwing away their waste, they have found a useful way of disposing of their excess product while still making a buck (you didn't think they were just giving it to Coca-Cola Inc., did you?).

Um...yeah. Fin.