Caffeine, it’s the world’s most widely consumed psychoactive drug, and 90% of all Americans consume it daily!
Now, I don’t know about you, but when I think of caffeine, the first thing that comes to mind HAS to be lethality! I mean 10 grams of this stuff is enough to kill ya! So I’m constantly worrying just how many Starbucks Espresso Frappuccinos I can actually drink! So I did the math.
Turns out a 24 ounce Frappuccino contains 185 milligrams of caffeine, which by the way, is more than 5 cans of Coke. So you could down 54 of them before you were near death. Incidentally, at $4.25 each that means it would cost $230 to commit suicide by Frappuccino.
But I digress. If you step it up to a regular Venti Starbucks Coffee you’re going to get a whopping 415 milligrams of “the juice” per cup. AND, its only gonna cost you $2.25. That tips the death meter towards a far more favorable price range. Because now it would only take about 24 tall boys, or $54 to put you in the hospital.
Incidentally, next time someone gives you a $50 Starbucks gift card, that could be considered attempted murder.
So the only question now is, exactly how fast do I need to drink dozens of cups of Joe in order to throw the old liver into a tailspin?
Well, it turns out that it takes about 45 minutes for liquid caffeine to enter the bloodstream, and then the half life of caffeine in the body is 4.9 hours. Meaning, if you consume 200 milligrams, it takes almost 5 hours before you only have 100 milligrams in your system.
Of course we’re only talking about healthy adults. Kids, the elderly, or people with a disease process caffeine much slower.
Now if you’re a HEALTHY person, and you consume a giant Starbucks coffee at 8am and take in 400 milligrams, by 1pm you still have 200 milligrams in your system when you stop back in for another cup after lunch. Then after draining that one, you’re up to 600 milligrams floating around in the old blood. By dinner time, you’d be down to around 300 milligrams, and if you’re lucky, by around midnight you’d be getting back to your normal sluggish self.
If you find you’re having trouble sleeping at night, now you know why! And you might wanna back off on the afternoon caffeine there. But if you do start cutting down, do it slowly! Caffeine withdrawal causes all sorts of nasty side effects like constipation, muscle stiffness, depression, sleeplessness, stuffy nose, and vomiting!
Huh, what’d ya know! It’s like real drug withdrawal!
Anyway, next time you take a look around Starbucks, do the math! I bet if you drank everything in site, it’d kill ya!
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