Top 5 Stimulating Facts About Caffeine
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Top 5 Facts About Caffeine
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Caffeine. The glorious drug that increases your mental alertness, wakefulness, and can almost make you a tolerable human being before 8 AM. Welcome to WatchMojo's Top 5 Facts. In today’s instalment, we're counting down the most energizing facts about caffeine, the tea-and-coffee-drinking world’s favourite drug of choice.
#5: Caffeine Consumption in North America is Over a Thousand Years Old
Yes, caffeine is not only a popular drug, but a very old one as well. Archaeologists have discovered beakers located in Cahokia, a site in the central United States, that have been linked to the historic “Black Drink.” Sounds a lot like coffee, doesn't it? Well, it's not far off. Black Drink is a liquid made from ilex vomitoria and ilex cassine, two different types of holly that have generous amounts of caffeine and theobromine, a compound also found in cocoa. These beakers have been dated to roughly 1050, almost five hundred years before the Europeans made contact and introduced the coffee bean.
#4: Worker Bees are Just Like Office Workers
Are you like so many office-dwelling individuals who need regular caffeine injections to prevent you from giving your monitor the thousand mile star all day long? Turns out, bees are the same! Just, without the monitor part. The nectar of many flowers, including citrus blossoms, contains small amounts of caffeine. Using side-by-side taste tests, scientists actually determined that bees prefer the caffeinated nectar to the non-caffeinated nectar. So scientists believe these plants developed the ability to produce caffeine in order to attract bees to them, and have also observed that caffeine improves bees’ memory. Do you prefer your caffeine with a dose of nicotine on the side? Bees do as well– the nectar in question contains nicotine as well as caffeine.
#3: High Caffeine Intake Doubles the Risk of Miscarriage
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For any pregnant or hoping-to-be pregnant women watching this, doctors say you should stay away from caffeine. It won't turn out well for you or your baby. [Soundbite: Seinfeld- ugly baby] Studies have shown that women who consume 200 mg or more of caffeine per day, the equivalent of just two cups of coffee, doubled their risk of miscarriage. The researchers believe this is because caffeine travels through the placenta to the fetus, but due to the baby's underdeveloped metabolism, it’s not able to process the chemical. Other studies have shown that caffeine consumption during pregnancy is linked to low birth weight.
#2: Caffeine Helps Protect Against Various Diseases
For those of us who are not pregnant, drink up, because not only will caffeine give you enough energy to climb a mountain, but it can also help protect you against many diseases. Scientists have recently discovered that caffeine has a preventative effect against heart disease and Alzheimer's disease. Caffeine containing foods like chocolate and coffee have long been seen as healthy dietary staples due to their antioxidants, but research now suggests that the antioxidant properties are actually coming largely from the caffeine within them.
#1: Caffeine is Like a Hard Drug in More Ways Than One
Caffeine can be both helpful and detrimental, but we don’t often think of caffeine in the same way as hard drugs or pharmaceuticals. It’s an apt comparison though; for one thing, caffeine is extremely addictive, and experts say it only takes 100 mg, roughly one cup of coffee, for it to sink its hooks into you and begin the addiction. Even at that low level of regular consumption withdrawal symptoms may occur, such as the famous caffeine headache, fatigue, and being a total asshat to everyone in the office. And like any hard drug, it is even possible to overdose on the stuff. If you consume a large amount of caffeine at once, you can be treated to convulsions, hallucinations, vomiting, and yes, even death at absurd amounts. But, in theory, you’d need to chug about 125 double espressos to get there. Overdose info: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6bsClvqr5c So, caffeine: friend or foe? What’s the most caffeinated you’ve ever been? For more addictive Top 10s and migraine-inducing Top 5s published every day, be sure to subscribe to Watchmojo.com.
