Effects Of Caffeine

Due to a fast paced lifestyle, most people often skip a healthy breakfast and prefer to grab a quick cup of coffee on the way to work. With the easy availability of caffeinated products, more and more people are falling prey to caffeine addiction. While there are many negative effects of caffeine, there are also positive ones. Some of the positive effects of caffeine include increasing a person’s alertness, increasing arousal and heart rate, bronchodilation and increasing the human body’s capacity for physical as well as mental labor. These positive effects play a significant role in the fact that the substance is kept readily available for employees in almost every profession.

The substance is a very quick acting drug that produces a rather similar response to the way the human body handles stress and its effects depend significantly on certain conditions such as the individual’s physical stature as well as hormonal levels at the time of consumption. In most cases, the effects of the substance are immediate and can last for as long as 6 to 8 hours after consumption. Some of the physiological effects that caffeine has on the human body include a stimulation of the respiratory systems, central nervous system, and the heart while also making the blood heavier in texture as a result of the increase in fatty acids in the bloodstream. However, caffeine will also cause the stomach to produce more acid while raising blood pressure and even irritate the stomach lining. So as you can see, there is a mixture of the adverse effects that the substance has as well as certain noticeable benefits.

Negative Effects Of Caffeine

The negative effects of caffeine should always be taken into account even though they are only really significant in cases where the individual has a high consumption of caffeinated products. Some of the negative effects of caffeine include the fact that it substantially affects the length and quality of an individual’s sleep patterns, causes a rather jittery feeling with shaking hands and wobbliness in the legs while also heightening chances of palpitations. Caffeine often causes a number of socially noticeable side effects such as irritability, agitation, headaches, and ringing in the ears. Because of the fact that excessive caffeine consumption causes an increase in blood sugar levels, the pancreas is placed under a higher workload to counter the problem. The pancreas is required t produce sufficient amounts of insulin to absorb the excessive blood sugar which, when done, will see the individual return back to his or her normal physiological state of mind and the effects of caffeine ingestion will be stunted.

Caffeine is found in a number of everyday foods that we consume such as colas, tea, coffee, and chocolate and is considered to be the most commonly used psychoactive drug in the world. Studies have shown that as many as about 80% of the worlds entire population consumes some amount of the substance on a daily basis. Given the fact that most individuals will consume certain amounts of the substance over the course of the day, it is excreted from the body thereby reducing any buildup within the system. Caffeine health problems may be segregated into short term effects of caffeine and long term effects of caffeine. While the short term effects of caffeine are more likely to be seen as benefits because of the tendency for a person’s alertness to increase, the long term effects are only likely to occur in cases of extremely excessive consumption. Moderate intake of the substance is considered to be between 130 to 300 mg per day while excessive amounts are recorded at close to 6000 mg per day.

Submitted on September 5, 2011