I am your new god.
So a few days ago, this article came out that suggested caffeine could help protect against cirrhosis of the liver. More specifically:
“Consuming coffee seems to have some protective benefits against alcoholic cirrhosis, and the more coffee a person consumes the less risk they seem to have of being hospitalised or dying of alcoholic cirrhosis,” says Arthur Klatsky at Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Programme in Oakland, California, US, who led the study.
People drinking one cup of coffee per day were, on average, 20% less likely to develop alcoholic cirrhosis. For people drinking two or three cups the reduction was 40%, and for those drinking four or more cups of coffee a day the reduction in risk was 80%.
Now, today, Indian scientists figure out that caffeine can protect you from radiation. Radiation? You know all those fancy “anti-oxidants” that people are talking about? They’re protecting you from radiation. From the article:
But British radiation expert Peter O’Neill, of the Medical Research Council’s Radiation and Stability Unit in Oxfordshire, said it would take huge amounts of coffee to protect human cells from radiation damage.
Mr George and his team injected 471 mice with caffeine and exposed them to rays of gamma radiation, enough to kill most mice.
But 25 days later, 70 per cent of the mice that received 80 milligrams of caffeine per kilogram of body weight were still alive.
For the non-math-inclined looking to find their ideal caffeine saturation levels, 80mg/kg = 36.36mg/lb. And that puts you… at nearly lethal caffeine levels. Dammit.
But then again, I’m not subjected to lethal doses of radiation daily. I’m subjected to smaller doses from the sun and various.. radiation.. out there. So a smaller dose would help prevent damage from smaller doses. Brilliant. Plus, free booze protection. Bow before me!
2 Comments
It’s all at once. Which means that in reality, it’s impossible, but it’s a fun statistic nonetheless.
Hey, i got a question- how much of the can thingys would you consume from http://www.energyfiend.com/death-by-caffeine/ in order to die?
Is it lik,e 63 cans per day, month, what?