The Half Life of Caffeine
Caffeine has become the hot-topic of the moment. With caffeine levels continuing to climb – many people are asking – what exactly is the limit?
The Mirror asks this and recommends a safe amount of 400-500 milligrams of caffeine per day. This is of course affected by body weight, health, and individual sensitivity.
“I typically have four cups [of coffee] a day. Sometimes it’s more,” says Drury freshman Cody Carr. This would put Carr well past the safe amount per day. It is this excessive use of caffeine (over 500 mg per day) that has been shown, by the Mayo Clinic, to cause nervousness, insomnia and headaches.
Caffeine takes a certain amount of time to work through your system. One study some years ago showed that the half-life of caffeine in healthy adults is 5.7 hours (see source). This means if you consume 200mg of caffeine at mid-day, you would still have 100mg in you at around 5.45pm.
The same study showed that people with compromised liver function had a significantly longer half-life (a 49-year-old woman having alcoholic hepatic disease had a serum half-life of 168 hours).
The death by caffeine calculator is for entertainment purposes – but does highlight excessive doses of caffeine can lead to health issues – and if your liver is not the healthiest specimen – then even more care is needed!
2 Comments
This might be a wake up call for some but companies are like mobs; they make money, they get political backing (and protection), they make more money. If you think you live in a free country then just try driving without your seat belt. Legislators are NOT acting in our (we the people) best interest, if they were then cigarettes would be as legal as cocaine. Seat belts are a great idea, but it makes for a very bad law. You will still be able to get a triple shot espresso at you favorite java vendor, you can smoke until your lungs dissolve… it’s legal. If I drive without my seatbelt I will be fined the equivalent of my weeks grocery budget… but I can still get a coupon for cheap or free cigarettes. It is all because given the opportunity, people will take advantage of people (most of the time). Welcome to the real world.
To be addicted to anything so as to make big companies rich seems like a no-brainer to be taboo for any of you… To make a product that is addicting for the purpose of addicting people to it so that you can sell to the addicts after you addict them seems like it should be ILLEGAL….. If you have to make a law so a dork puts a helmet on his head before he rids a bike, it shouldn’t be to big of a stretch to make it illegal to make children addicted to your product that is going to make you rich… Some people will do anything for a buck… You parents that allow your children to become addicted to this sh– should be —- I am not going to say what I am thinking….