A Daily Dose of Caffeine Addiction

As I firmly state my claim about caffeine being a psychologically addicting substance. There is no surprise that there are other alternative opinions about what caffeine is.

An article that was published in “National Library of Medicine,” during the era of Covid-19 where researchers, Mohammad Aghamohammadi, and his team were studying the roles of vitamins B1, B3, B6, and caffeine as potential role ingredients for a drug design to fight against Covid-19. Scientists in the article believed they could use caffeine as part of a chemical substance reaction where the effects could help our respiratory system by helping us breathe better. I can see where the science and logic behind using caffeine can help counteract the pandemic. We are already well informed of how COVID-19 affects a person’s body by describing it as a flu which acts like a flu, but it can go over the limits of what a flu can’t do. If that were the case, then why is it required to increase the amount of caffeine when we already have been eating food that contains caffeine throughout our whole lives?

Caffeine inside our bodies builds up slowly at a young age based on the article Trends in Caffeine Intake Among US Children and Adolescents where tea and soda are easy to obtain and are the most consumed caffeine products for children. Amy M Branum, one of the researchers of the article, claims that approximately 73% of children consumed caffeine on a given day which is a significant increase from 63% of kids ages 2 to 5 years old to 75% among the older age group. If we as kids are already exposed to eating caffeinated products from the start, then does that mean the vaccine is giving us twice the amount then what we need?

Of course, during the pandemic, the government would need to find a way to get rid of Covid-19, however,  the method of adding caffeine into a vaccine wouldn’t benefit us entirely because the caffeine side effects can easily affect our minds and bodies. People were skeptical and scared when the government announced the release of the vaccine because the effects were either minor or severe. We would have to make an ethical, and moral choice of whether we should take the vaccine for COVID-19 because the most common adverse side effects are headaches, trouble breathing, and tiredness which are the same aftereffects as what caffeine does.

Another suggests that caffeine is a physical drug that enhances our bodies, especially among athletes in sports. Researchers from the article Caffeine-containing energy drinks Improve Physical Performance in Female Soccer Players on the website of Springer Nature Link, suggest that ingestion of caffeine can improve peak performance in sports games. Respectfully, the way that our bodies would improve physical performance is through our minds in our brains. The brain is the main controller of our own body. The common equation that we know of is that when we feel tired then our minds malfunction to the result of our body crashing. The problem with their argument is that they only talk about the effects of caffeine on physical boost rather than mental boost. The reason is that their test isn’t complete because the researchers only tested short-term effects rather than long-term effects. What happens when athletes who consume caffeine products before their competitive match eventually start to lose their momentum later in the game if the game lasts for a very long time? Would there be a sudden change towards their mental health due to the effects of caffeine or will there be a sudden change in physical performance?

To support my argument, you could say that caffeine can act like an antidepressant drug. Based on the article by Pravin Popatrao Kale in Science Direct, caffeine acts like a psychomotor stimulant which means a drug that acts on the central nervous system. Depression is a huge problem that can’t be eliminated since over the past few years, there has been an increasing number of prescriptions for antidepressants. Caffeine that is obtained from people who are depressed can “lift” their mood up and give them the spark they need to get through their day. This is how the effects of being addicted come into play because caffeine can trigger our dopaminergic system which plays a key role in controlling our behaviors. When we first consume caffeine, we feel our spirits “lifted” with subtle joys and reduce anxiety that only lasts for a short amount of time until we feel the urge or a need to obtain that euphoric feeling again. Even though there are other methods of reducing depression, we would lean towards food products with caffeine rather than medications since food looks more pleasing to our eyes than pills or tablets. There are a bunch of different factors and reasons for individuals who want to consume caffeine products.

I firmly believe that obtaining caffeine is a byproduct of a psychological drug addiction that makes us feel alive and happy. Caffeine in itself may not be described as addictive, but the effects that come from it can be described as a psychological addiction.

Reference

Lara, B., Gonzalez-Millán, C., Salinero, J.J. et al. Caffeine-containing energy drink improves physical performance in female soccer players. Amino Acids 46, 1385–1392 (2014). https://doi-org.ezproxy.rowan.edu/10.1007/s00726-014-1709-z

Pravin Popatrao Kale 1, et al. “Caffeine-Induced Augmentation of Antidepressant Therapy.” Journal of Experimental & Clinical Medicine, Elsevier, 23 Oct. 2010, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1878331710000124?casa_token=qIgsBPashCoAAAAA%3A5k38trTBGFJNWMtu3cRM9FNUX4WMRkjXvxebK_vq3xteqM2FJPMQqg4YVh-1Wf7XEPUWrSHEm6c.

Trends in Caffeine Intake among Us Children And …, publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/133/3/386/32320/Trends-in-Caffeine-Intake-Among-US-Children-and. Accessed 25 Nov. 2024.