"RC" > wrote in message
news:2Qh3d.57318$wu.33199@okepread04...
> > I now try my best every day to live a healthy lifestyle and exercise
when I
> > can on my days off. What really ****es me off is how our society has
such a
> > relaxed attitude towards caffeine and its related alkaloids, when in
fact
> > they are probably one of the biggest causes of heart disease - which is
in
> > fact the #1 killer of human beings in the United States.
> >

Gimme a break... I say.

Yes, caffeine is psychoactive, yes it is stimulating... but it is not bad
for most people. There is even evidence that people who consume caffeine
are mentally more healthy than those who do not, specificly, the rate of
suicide in one study was lower for coffee drinkers, than those who
abstained. Like nicotine, it might also play a role in preventing
Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. Also, tea, and to a lesser extent coffee,
contain substances called polyphenols, which have anti-oxidant properties
that are "good for you" (just like red wine, only the alcohol in red wine
isn't particularly "good for you", and not for the 40,000 people killed by
drunk drivers every year... either).

Almost everyone in the US consumes caffeine to some degree. If it were so
horrible, our society would be nonfunctional... but this is not the case.

And caffeine doesn't cause heart disease. In large doses it might cause
heart arrythmia in certain vulnerable people (we are talking ALOT of coffee
here), but overall it has not been proven to cause heart disease. A dark
chocolate bar has about 20-30 mg of caffeine- that's far less caffeine than
in a can of coke or a cup of green tea. Most people will not get a caffeine
buzz from chocolate.

So go ahead... shun every single psychoactive substance out there... for
no other reason than it is addictive. You'll be missing out, not the rest
of us.

BEFORE the discovery of caffeine, most of Europe wandered around in a
semi-drunken state - in 1790 the average European or American colonists
consumed the equivalent of 5 1/2 gallons of alcohol per year (that's pure
ethyl alcohol), whereas today the average person only cosumes about 2
gallons. Drunkeness was frequent, as well, often assosciated with
fighting, quarelling, spouse abuse, etc. It's a wonder that people got
anything done at all (and their livers didn't explode). I wonder how much
of the scientific and industrial revolution in the Western world is
attributable to these alkaloids that sobered up the white man?