What's the reason for panicking when drinking coffee?

Coffee contains caffeine

Caffeine is a central nervous system stimulant and a metabolic stimulant. Caffeine is used as both a drink and a medicine. its function is to refresh and relieve fatigue. The exact dose of caffeine that everyone needs to produce an effect varies, depending on body size and caffeine tolerance. Caffeine can begin to work in the body in less than an hour, and the effect disappears in three to four hours for a mild dose of caffeine intake. Caffeine consumption does not reduce the amount of sleep required, it can only temporarily reduce the feeling of sleepiness.

Because of these effects, caffeine is a functional enhancer: improving the brain and body. A 1979 study showed that athletes who consumed caffeine had a 7% increase in performance in long-distance cycling compared with the control group. Other studies have yielded more significant results: an experiment on trained runners showed that after consuming a dose of 9 mg of caffeine per kilogram of body weight, the athletes' straight-line running durability increased by 44%. Ring running endurance increased by 55%. Such a significant improvement is not an isolated accident, and some subsequent studies have yielded similar results. Another study showed that the duration of cycling programs increased by 29% after consuming 5.5 milligrams of caffeine per kilogram of body weight.

Caffeine is sometimes mixed with other drugs to improve their efficacy. Caffeine can increase the efficacy of headache-relieving drugs by 40% and make the body absorb these drugs faster and shorten the time it takes to work. As a result, many over-the-counter headaches contain caffeine. Caffeine is also used in conjunction with ergot to treat migraines and cluster headaches, as well as to overcome the drowsiness caused by antihistamines.

Respiratory problems in premature babies are sometimes treated with citric acid caffeine. After using citric acid caffeine therapy, the bronchial dysplasia of premature infants was significantly reduced. The only drawback of this treatment is that temporary weight gain slows down during treatment. Citrate caffeine is available only by prescription in many countries.

Caffeine is safe for humans, but caffeine is toxic to some animals, such as dogs, horses and parrots, because these animals are much less able to break down caffeine than humans. Caffeine has a significant effect on spiders, much more than other drugs.

overuse

Too much caffeine in a short period of time can lead to addiction and a series of physical and psychological adverse reactions. in the case of long-term intake, high doses of caffeine is a drug that can lead to "caffeine poisoning". Caffeine poisoning includes addiction and a range of physical and psychological adverse reactions, such as nervousness, irritability, anxiety, tremors, muscle convulsions (hyperreflexia), insomnia and palpitations (under the strict definition of addiction, only gradually increasing dosage is addictive, it is more appropriate to describe caffeine dependence, but under a widely accepted definition, all chronic behaviors that are difficult to get rid of are called addiction. So it can also be described as caffeine addiction.) In addition, because caffeine can increase stomach acid, sustained high doses can lead to peptic ulcers, erosive esophagitis and gastroesophageal reflux disease. However, because both normal coffee and decaffeinated coffee stimulate the gastric mucosa and increase gastric acid secretion, caffeine may not be the only ingredient in coffee.

Four caffeine-induced disorders verified by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (fourth Edition) include caffeine overexertion, caffeine anxiety, caffeine sleep disorders and other caffeine-related disorders.

Caffeine is overexcited

A sharp overdose of caffeine, usually more than 250 milligrams (equivalent to 2-3 cups of brewed coffee), can cause overexcitement in the central nervous system. Symptoms of caffeine overexcitement include irritability, nervousness, excitement, insomnia, blushing, increased urine, gastrointestinal disorders, muscle convulsions, distraction, irregular or rapid heartbeat, and restlessness.

Consuming extremely large doses of caffeine can lead to death. For experimental mice, the half lethal dose of caffeine was 192 mg per kilogram of body weight. The half-lethal dose of caffeine depends on weight and personal sensitivity, about 150 to 200 milligrams per kilogram of body weight, about 140 to 180 cups of coffee consumed by the average adult in a limited period of time, depending on the biological half-life. Although it is almost impossible to die from drinking regular coffee, there are reports of deaths due to excessive use of caffeine pills.

The treatment of caffeine overexertion is usually auxiliary, that is, individual symptoms are treated accordingly. However, if the patient's serum caffeine concentration is too high, it is possible to take peritoneal dialysis, hemodialysis and hemofiltration and other methods.

Caffeine anxiety disorder and sleep disorder

Long-term excessive caffeine intake can cause a series of mental disorders. Two of those identified by the American Psychiatric Association are caffeine anxiety disorder and caffeine sleep disorder.

Caffeine sleep disorder refers to a sleep disorder caused by an individual's regular intake of high doses of caffeine, which can be detected by clinical diagnosis.

For some individuals, the anxiety caused by large doses of coffee is enough to be detected by clinical diagnosis. Caffeine anxiety disorders can take different forms, including general anxiety disorders, panic attacks, obsessive-compulsive disorder and even phobia. Because these symptoms are easily confused with basic neurological disorders, such as panic disorder, general anxiety disorder, bipolar disorder or even schizophrenia, some medical workers believe that some people who eat too much caffeine are misdiagnosed and given unnecessary treatment. they believe that caffeine-induced mental illness can be easily controlled by cutting off the source of caffeine. Although rarely diagnosed, chronic caffeine poisoning affects at least 1/10 of the population, according to a survey by the British Journal of Addiction (British Journal of Addiction).