Drink, but Not Too Much

Happily, today physicians around the world recognize the potential benefits of alcohol consumption, even for people with blood pressure problems. Moderate drinking may actually be good for them. The watchword, of course, is moderation, as it should be for everyone. 

The benefits of alcohol consumption first got public attention when it was noted that the French, who had a very low incidence of heart disease, regularly consumed wine, particularly red wine, with their meals. The French drink a lot of wine, more than they should, and at the time, it wasn t noted that France also has one of the world s highest rates of cirrhosis of the liver. 

Since the time of those first reports, researchers around the world have contributed to the now massive body of knowledge regarding the health benefits of alcohol. Looking at mortality rates. 

Critics of that observation suggested that investigations included people who had quit drinking owing to illnesses, and that those illnesses, were, in fact responsible for earlier deaths. But when research efforts were refined to exclude such men and women, and focused only on people who had never consumed alcohol, the protection of alcohol held up. 

Then it became a question, almost a noisy argument, about what kind of alcohol was best. Was it the red wine favored by the French Of course, wine merchants touted that. Or was it the beer enjoyed by Germans and others And what about the spirits preferred by people sipping martinis  

---

Deaths and near-deaths due to caffeine poisoning have happened, but they are very infrequent. Drinking too much coffee is not a cause of these deaths, since it is virtually impossible to ingest life-threatening amounts of caffeine in beverage form. Caffeine tablets and medicine containing caffeine are responsible for the lethal doses. —... 

Today other substances can be used and they are now referred to as date-rape drugs and there is widespread belief that this type of crime is quite common. It isn t. Clinical analysis of the urine or blood of women who claim to have fallen victim to their use, shows that very few have in fact been deliberately drugged. Most have passed out unconscious because they have drunk too much alcohol. In 2005, Michael Scott-Ham and Fiona Burton of the Forensic Science Service, London, reported in the Journal of Clinical Forensic Medicine the results of a 3-year study. They analysed 1014 cases of alleged date rape but found that only 21 of the victims (2%) had had their drink deliberately spiked. On this basis, of the 500 such cases reported annually in the UK, only 10 are actual date rapes. In the USA there are more than 250,000 reported rapes per year, but how many of these are drug assisted is not known, although on a comparable basis of 2% it would mean around 5,000. What was discovered in the UK survey was that while alcohol had caused most of the... 

The patient does not work, but has many interests and he tries to get regular exercise in the form of walking. He admits that he possibly drinks too much. 

For all that, the history of coffee has not come to an end. People liked the social atmosphere of coffee drinking but did not want the possible effect of caffeine, hence the decaffeination process, or of some acids, hence the steam-treatment. For others, making coffee from the roasted beans was too much trouble, hence the preparation of soluble coffees, decaffeinated or not. All these treatments alter the content, and therefore the taste of the beverage. There is now a trend to new products (iced coffee, iced cappuccino for example). There are also gourmet people who buy specialty roasted coffee and increase the side-market for coffee-pots or espresso makers by brewing coffee according to their taste. 

A study in healthy subjects and recovering alcoholics found that disulfiram 250 or 500 mg daily reduced the clearance of caffeine by about 30%, but a few of the alcoholics had a more than 50% reduction. As a result the levels of caffeine in the body increased. Raised levels of caffeine can cause irritability, insomnia and anxiety, similar to the symptoms of alcohol withdrawal. As coffee consumption is often particularly high among recovering aleoholics, there is the risk that they may turn to alcohol to calm themselves down. To avoid this possible complication it might be wise for recovering alcoholics not to drink too much tea or coffee. Decaffeinated coffee and tea are widely available. 

We all know about caffeine. For coffee drinkers, this is probably one of our favorite chemicals In its pure form, caffeine is just another white crystalline powder, though most people have probably never seen it that way. It s more commonly found in the cocoa plant, coffee beans, and tea leaves, where people have been consuming it for thousands of years. Historically people have consumed caffeine to increase their heart rate, body temperature, mental alertness, and attention span. Today, people still use caffeine for most of the same reasons. Caffeine can be extracted using chemical solvents from sources like tea leaves and coffee beans to be used in other caffeinated products like soft drinks. Not to scare you, but it s worth mentioning that caffeine is a potentially addictive substance that stimulates the central nervous system, and if you consume too much at a given time, you may suffer from headaches, irritation, and insomnia. 

---