From October 5th through October 11th, I actively rejected sleep (2 - 4 hours of sleep) and took in quantities of caffeine ranging from 1.5 g to 2 g. (A cup of coffee has approx 100 mg and a strong energy drink has about 250 mg). I was preparing for launch of my product and subsequent YC application. On Saturday morning, October 11th, I had massive chest pains and I collapsed. Fortunately, everything is alright with my heart. Overall though, I felt incredibly stupid about my actions.
As hackers and entrepreneurs, it's really easy to fall into the trap of your launch being the most important thing in the world. It's not. You need to be healthy, as business is a marathon and you'll be running for awhile.
My choice was the regular Rockstar energy drink at my worst I was up to the large 750ml cans per day, then suddenly I developed back spasms for the first time in my life I thought it was a kidney stone. I could not straighten up I was curved to my right as if I was made of stone, the only thing that helped were strong muscle relaxers.
I stopped for awhile and drank just the normal ("double" is normal) Rockstar. I felt tingly all over mostly extremities. Now I have a fatty liver I am sure caused by energy drinks, I haven't had one in at least three years.
Coffee and tea are no comparison to energy drinks even a four or six shot espresso is mild in comparison. Although I believe espresso has less caffeine than regular coffee even for equal volumes.
What's odd is I never drank any caffeine until I was about 34 since even a sip affected me making my heart race from just a sip.
I've now left the stupid energy drink drinkers club!
Just jacking up caffeine intake isn't the way to go. Add in 200mg of L-Tyrosine for every 100mg of caffeine. Look into compounds in the 'racetam' family which have proven to be effective at improving attention and memory. Be sure to take some choline (Alpha GCP seems good) along with any racetam, especially if you get headaches from the racetams, they can cause your brain to eat up choline. Nootropics is an interesting field, and if you're willing to turn yourself into a lab rat (you are anyway, so I guess its just a choice to be conscious of it), there are certainly better ways to improve functioning. Also, 5 Hour Energy drinks seem to be pretty good. A little bit of caffeine and a big dose of B vitamins.
Uh, days of sleep deprivation + lots of caffeine is recipe for disaster. I have read about people getting heart attacks from that kind of combination if you take it to extremes.
A similar thing actually happened to me - I wound up triggering a hemiplegic migraine, something I'd never experienced before. Unable to talk, focus my left eye, or feel anything on the left side of my body. Probably days of marathon coding along with dozens and dozens of Red Bulls.
To this day, I still get pretty nervous anytime I lean on an arm and it falls asleep or I get any tingling.
I did nearly the same several years ago. Went a few days with little to no sleep, drank a bunch of huge energy drinks, and ended up in the hospital with tachycardia. No lasting damage, but I've definitely been more careful ever since.
My first year in college I had a french press (a kind of coffee maker) and a tin of breath mints that had caffeine in them. One night, trying to finish a project, I drank an entire quart of strongly brewed coffee (~500mg)and ate the caffeinated breath mints like popcorn (30mg each)[0]. I recall walking down the dormitory hallways with extremely heightened senses. I was hearing whispers on the other side of closed doors and watching a fly buzz past me in what seemed like slow motion. I could feel the carpet texture through the soles of my shoes and time seemed to slow down.
At the time I thought it was one of the most incredible experiences of my life and vowed to repeat it sometime.
Thinking back I realize I was probably experiencing mild hallucinations and could have been on the verge of collapse.
I know this feeling exactly.
I one time consumed 2.5g of caffeine on a very VERY stupid dare.
Me and another kid were trying to bluster each other and each were one-upping the other, though we had a hard limit of 3g.
He had 2g and started crying, shaking, and rolled up in the fetal position. In retrospect we should have taken him to the hospital, but he was fine.
The experience reminds me a lot of the movie Donnie Darko mixed with the futurama episode of Fry drinking 200 cups of coffee; it felt like you could see the animus of someone being projected into the future, and everything was practically at a standstill (like the time I was in a car accident).
We had a few pick up games of various games at this LAN we were at while doing this, and I won every one of them having to do with twitch speed even if the person had 5 yrs experience on me in a game and I had never played it before.
Not something I would repeat voluntarily, but it was an interesting experience.
I refer to that experience as going "trans-dimensional" while the senses are heightened the mind/body split seems to be much larger and time is definitely not monotonic.
Same, 2-3 french press carafe 1/3 to 1/2 full of fresh ground coffee at the rate of one carafe per hour.
While traveling take caffeine pills to stave off headaches since the coffee routine as been disrupted.
Though the article does not take into an account the possibility that some may consume caffeine in powder form. You can find 100 grams, or over 7 times the lethal dose, for 13 bucks in Amazon [1].
As for who would use caffeine in such form are weightlifters and people interested in nootropics in general. I follow both communities online and from time to time I find some people overdosing caffeine by mistaking it to some other similar looking substance, like creatine or taurine. Though typical overdose has been about 3 grams, it has been enough to make the consumers force themselves to puke it out or get into ER.
I havent personally bought caffeine in pure form, but the idea has crossed my mind few times as these articles have started to pop out. I would not be surprised if caffeine would sooner or later be banned from being sold online.
I hope they don't ban it. Certainly people can make mistakes, but being able to buy caffeine in powdered form means you can create your own capsules and combine it with other things rather than having to just accept whatever other ingredients or binders, not to mention price markup, manufacturers decide to force on customers.
Lack of iron is a serious problem, but many people (particularly men) may have too much (even if they don't have hemochromatosis). Iron depletion has been hypothesized as the reason that blood donation may be good for your heart, although the evidence is still inconclusive. At the very least, it's not something everyone needs to be concerned about.
This article doesn't make it clear, but caffeine isn't the thing in coffee that raises cholesterol. That's cafestol, and it's captured by paper filters. So coffee made with a standard auto-dripper, or by pourover, don't have that.
>> A study has shown that caffeine may lead to higher bad cholesterol.
I don't believe that is true. The study in question shows that unfiltered coffee may lead to higher bad cholesterol. It has nothing to do with caffeine. Decaffeinated coffee has the same issue.
I don't have anemia, but simply low iron (around 20 in ferritin level, recently it been up to 50), and I did read that coffee had an impact on low iron, and I do start believe this might be my problem.
In February, I had an aortic dissection. That's a big deal medical emergency with the kill ratio of a special forces operator.
Symptoms were similar to a heart attack, so it took a while to diagnose (John Ritter died of it, because they were treating him for a heart attack). In the ER they kept asking me if I was on coke, viagra, etc. Then someone brought up coffee.
I remember admitting that I had 6 cups that day, and thinking they'd stop taking me seriously. When they* finally figured out my medical situation and told me I needed to have IMMMEDIATE open heart surgery, the first thing I said was "thank god I'm not a hypochondriac".
Then I worried about my family and work and shit like that. But thanks to coffee my first worry was they'd think I "a bubblegummer".
* - "they" btw, was an awesome nurse and NOT the 3 doctors who saw me there.
I really doubt a nurse made the diagnosis, the legal issues would be a huge problem let alone the education and complexity required to make such a diagnosis. I would know, in 2 years I'll be the single guy on around 1 out of every 10 nights who would have to make that diagnosis and I work in one of the top 10 busiest ED's in the country.
Your bodies reaction to coffee is interesting, the receptors for caffeine apparently expand up to a certain point, once you reach that level additional caffeine does not good for wakefulness but the side affects continue. It's a ceiling you cannot go beyond but people often don't recognize it.
It's strange that the article hints at genetic differences in caffeine metabolism and sensitivity ("Some people will get edgy from a weak cup of tea. For others, a double espresso is required to get them into the shower in the morning.") but doesn't follow through on the implications. For example, my 23andMe results indicate that I'm a "fast caffeine metabolizer", which is associated with a neutral to slightly lower risk of heart attack due to caffeine consumption, whereas slow caffeine metabolizers have a higher risk. In other words, it's clear that the answer to the question "How Much Caffeine Is Too Much?" is "It depends on your genes."
I can see this in myself. I usually have about 48oz of coffee each day. Obviously less on some days and maybe more on others. On days that I don't drink coffee, I can't tell a difference in my alertness or energy. Honestly, I just really really love the taste, and knocking back a cup is a actually a great stress reliever for me.
Edit: Now that I think about it, my dad is the same way. I've watched him multiple times drink a cup or two before bed and have no problems sleeping. On the other hand, my mom can drink a 12oz cup and get a nice boost of energy.
The article doesn't talk about aggression. I'd be interested in seeing some good quality research comparing people's responses to stuff when they're had caffene vs not.
It's frustrating that the evidence around mental health is so poor. I think that small amounts of caffeine destroy my sleep hygiene so I avoid it after midday. But it'd be great to know if a couple of cups of coffee in the morning was probably good or probably not good.
Just to add another data point - I seem to be very sensitive to caffeine, too. Any more than a small cup of coffee in the morning will lower my sleep quality.
Sometime I find myself getting strangely aggressive about things if I have, say, two small cups of coffee. It helps a lot to get me going in the morning, but I have to be very careful, and take frequent vacations. I used to be able to drink a lot of coffee, too much, but I've gotten much more sensitive as I've gotten older.
This may be too Talebian a reaction, but isn't the track record of "take this-doesn't-occur-in-significant-quanities-in-food chemical and your health will improve" quite poor? Non-food chemicals are often very useful for acute interventions (e.g. antibiotics, chemotherapy), but at least in modern times, they almost always do more harm than good when taken long-term.
(To avoid getting sidetracked by chronic medicines that some people swear by, I'm directing this point more at non-food drugs that are designed to take people from normal health to great health rather than from a disease state back to normal.)
I'll never cease to be amazed by how much more alert, focused and productive I feel when I take time away to get to the gym instead of grabbing another cup of coffee and keeping at it.
I find that caffeine after ~2 P.M. is a lot more disruptive than before. I drink ~40 fluid ounces of strong drip coffee and don't have any trouble waking up (or any sort of headache, at least not anything immediate, I definitely service the habit). If I stick closer to 30 floz, I don't think I get a headache at all.
That stuff is more powerful (stimulant effect-wise) by weight than cocaine and thus much easier to O.D. on. I can't imagine being that caffeine-addicted.
in the reddit nootropics forum the other day there was a post from someone who almost accidently OD'd on caffeine.
Alot of the users there use caffeine powder, and he had his bags of powder mixed up with his vitamin c powder and almost drank a drink with multiple grams of caffeine in it. He realized it at the last second and stopped.
moral of the story: caffeine has a fairly low lethal dose and can be dangerous when using the powdered form
Even if it's "multiple grams of caffeine", it's still very far from the 14 kg mentioned in the article... Actually the only way I imagine someone being able to have such an intake would be to use many, many caffeine pills... Way more that the number of sleep pills suicidal people use...
"The present study compared the effects of caffeine on subjective arousal among introverts and extraverts.... caffeine improved the task performance of extraverts but overaroused introverts and thus impaired their performance."
[+] [-] jonpaul|11 years ago|reply
From October 5th through October 11th, I actively rejected sleep (2 - 4 hours of sleep) and took in quantities of caffeine ranging from 1.5 g to 2 g. (A cup of coffee has approx 100 mg and a strong energy drink has about 250 mg). I was preparing for launch of my product and subsequent YC application. On Saturday morning, October 11th, I had massive chest pains and I collapsed. Fortunately, everything is alright with my heart. Overall though, I felt incredibly stupid about my actions.
As hackers and entrepreneurs, it's really easy to fall into the trap of your launch being the most important thing in the world. It's not. You need to be healthy, as business is a marathon and you'll be running for awhile.
[+] [-] ultramancool|11 years ago|reply
That's a _very_ strong energy drink too, most are in the 140-160mg range in my experience. Less caffeine than a large at a major coffee joint.
Holy crap though, that's crazy. Over what time period did you consume that much caffeine? Do you mean daily or over the full 5th-11th period?
[+] [-] dghughes|11 years ago|reply
I stopped for awhile and drank just the normal ("double" is normal) Rockstar. I felt tingly all over mostly extremities. Now I have a fatty liver I am sure caused by energy drinks, I haven't had one in at least three years.
Coffee and tea are no comparison to energy drinks even a four or six shot espresso is mild in comparison. Although I believe espresso has less caffeine than regular coffee even for equal volumes.
What's odd is I never drank any caffeine until I was about 34 since even a sip affected me making my heart race from just a sip.
I've now left the stupid energy drink drinkers club!
[+] [-] otakucode|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] csbrooks|11 years ago|reply
You should write up a PSA blog post about it.
[+] [-] kayoone|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] adrianpike|11 years ago|reply
To this day, I still get pretty nervous anytime I lean on an arm and it falls asleep or I get any tingling.
Glad you're okay, friend.
[+] [-] hvs|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jscheel|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] frozenport|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] iamthepieman|11 years ago|reply
At the time I thought it was one of the most incredible experiences of my life and vowed to repeat it sometime.
Thinking back I realize I was probably experiencing mild hallucinations and could have been on the verge of collapse.
edit: Added caffeine estimates.
[0]Can't believe I found this. http://www.wegotcoffee.com/mints/zingo.php
[+] [-] hobs|11 years ago|reply
Me and another kid were trying to bluster each other and each were one-upping the other, though we had a hard limit of 3g. He had 2g and started crying, shaking, and rolled up in the fetal position. In retrospect we should have taken him to the hospital, but he was fine.
The experience reminds me a lot of the movie Donnie Darko mixed with the futurama episode of Fry drinking 200 cups of coffee; it felt like you could see the animus of someone being projected into the future, and everything was practically at a standstill (like the time I was in a car accident).
We had a few pick up games of various games at this LAN we were at while doing this, and I won every one of them having to do with twitch speed even if the person had 5 yrs experience on me in a game and I had never played it before.
Not something I would repeat voluntarily, but it was an interesting experience.
[+] [-] cryptoz|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sitkack|11 years ago|reply
Same, 2-3 french press carafe 1/3 to 1/2 full of fresh ground coffee at the rate of one carafe per hour.
While traveling take caffeine pills to stave off headaches since the coffee routine as been disrupted.
[+] [-] mmagin|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Jhsto|11 years ago|reply
As for who would use caffeine in such form are weightlifters and people interested in nootropics in general. I follow both communities online and from time to time I find some people overdosing caffeine by mistaking it to some other similar looking substance, like creatine or taurine. Though typical overdose has been about 3 grams, it has been enough to make the consumers force themselves to puke it out or get into ER.
I havent personally bought caffeine in pure form, but the idea has crossed my mind few times as these articles have started to pop out. I would not be surprised if caffeine would sooner or later be banned from being sold online.
[1] http://www.amazon.com/BulkSupplements-Pure-Alanine-Powder-gr...
EDIT: tried to simplify few sentences
[+] [-] dijit|11 years ago|reply
they were pretty potent and they worked, but they had a warning on the side which said "do not exceed 2 mints in 6 hours"
Some guy had 12 mints at 80mg of caffiene each, promptly had a heart attack- we never sold the mints.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2453928/John-Jackson...
[+] [-] driverdan|11 years ago|reply
It's a great way to inexpensively measure exactly how much you're consuming.
[+] [-] otakucode|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] frozenport|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rkowalick|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hessenwolf|11 years ago|reply
http://fscn.cfans.umn.edu/prod/groups/cfans/@pub/@cfans/@fsc...
And anaemia, stemming from lack of iron, leads to fatigue and irritability, which both suck balls for coding.
edit: What did we learn in the article?
1. 140 cups will kill me.
2. Up to six cups a day will result in higher or lower mortality, depending on the study.
3. A study has shown that caffeine may lead to higher bad cholesterol.
[+] [-] travisp|11 years ago|reply
Random biased selection of sources:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12430669 - A historical cohort study of the effect of lowering body iron through blood donation on incident cardiac events.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18619522 - Iron in arterial plaque: modifiable risk factor for atherosclerosis.
[+] [-] hypersoar|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] calm_down_pls|11 years ago|reply
I don't believe that is true. The study in question shows that unfiltered coffee may lead to higher bad cholesterol. It has nothing to do with caffeine. Decaffeinated coffee has the same issue.
[+] [-] guiomie|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thisjepisje|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sitkack|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tmmm|11 years ago|reply
What if you take vitamins & minerals?
[+] [-] huehue|11 years ago|reply
The chances of you developing anaemia because of coffee are dim.
[+] [-] ludicast|11 years ago|reply
Symptoms were similar to a heart attack, so it took a while to diagnose (John Ritter died of it, because they were treating him for a heart attack). In the ER they kept asking me if I was on coke, viagra, etc. Then someone brought up coffee.
I remember admitting that I had 6 cups that day, and thinking they'd stop taking me seriously. When they* finally figured out my medical situation and told me I needed to have IMMMEDIATE open heart surgery, the first thing I said was "thank god I'm not a hypochondriac".
Then I worried about my family and work and shit like that. But thanks to coffee my first worry was they'd think I "a bubblegummer".
* - "they" btw, was an awesome nurse and NOT the 3 doctors who saw me there.
[+] [-] akrasia|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] coldcode|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mhartl|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thisisdallas|11 years ago|reply
Edit: Now that I think about it, my dad is the same way. I've watched him multiple times drink a cup or two before bed and have no problems sleeping. On the other hand, my mom can drink a 12oz cup and get a nice boost of energy.
[+] [-] benzimmer|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DanBC|11 years ago|reply
It's frustrating that the evidence around mental health is so poor. I think that small amounts of caffeine destroy my sleep hygiene so I avoid it after midday. But it'd be great to know if a couple of cups of coffee in the morning was probably good or probably not good.
[+] [-] webnrrd2k|11 years ago|reply
Sometime I find myself getting strangely aggressive about things if I have, say, two small cups of coffee. It helps a lot to get me going in the morning, but I have to be very careful, and take frequent vacations. I used to be able to drink a lot of coffee, too much, but I've gotten much more sensitive as I've gotten older.
[+] [-] Cthulhu_|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] waylandsmithers|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] karzeem|11 years ago|reply
(To avoid getting sidetracked by chronic medicines that some people swear by, I'm directing this point more at non-food drugs that are designed to take people from normal health to great health rather than from a disease state back to normal.)
[+] [-] ryno2019|11 years ago|reply
I'll never cease to be amazed by how much more alert, focused and productive I feel when I take time away to get to the gym instead of grabbing another cup of coffee and keeping at it.
[+] [-] snarfy|11 years ago|reply
I didn't start drinking coffee until my mid thirties. I can resoundingly say I slept better and woke up easier without it.
[+] [-] maxerickson|11 years ago|reply
I find that caffeine after ~2 P.M. is a lot more disruptive than before. I drink ~40 fluid ounces of strong drip coffee and don't have any trouble waking up (or any sort of headache, at least not anything immediate, I definitely service the habit). If I stick closer to 30 floz, I don't think I get a headache at all.
[+] [-] RankingMember|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] utnick|11 years ago|reply
Alot of the users there use caffeine powder, and he had his bags of powder mixed up with his vitamin c powder and almost drank a drink with multiple grams of caffeine in it. He realized it at the last second and stopped.
moral of the story: caffeine has a fairly low lethal dose and can be dangerous when using the powdered form
[+] [-] hobbes78|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gimboland|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ChaoticGood|11 years ago|reply
200 mg = too little
[+] [-] somberi|11 years ago|reply
"The present study compared the effects of caffeine on subjective arousal among introverts and extraverts.... caffeine improved the task performance of extraverts but overaroused introverts and thus impaired their performance."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10472512