I save money on coffee by not buying it. ;-) Instead, I found Jet Alert 200mg ca... (2025)

$4 for 90x0.2g of caffeine? How wasteful. I just spend $13 for 400g: http://www.smartpowders.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=s...

Please do not do this. I am sure you don't have the equipment to measure an appropriate dose of caffeine (because scales accurate to 100 milligrams are not very cheap for household use...), and it is not safe to 'eyeball' it. You will start to notice unpleasant effects (restlessness, etc) around 200-500mg, and then above that (say 600-1000mg) you may start to get into what could be called toxic effects (palpitations/arrhythmias, GI bleeding, potential for seizures). Caffeine has a half life of 5-8 hours and so by the time you go for your next dose you probably haven't cleared the first one, so you can definitely build up serum concentration.

Your body can develop a dependency on caffeine and you'll get splitting headaches when you aren't taking it. I also had a friend in college who developed a light but unpleasant allergic reaction to caffeine after (ab)using caffeine pills.

It is not easy to die from caffeine toxicity, but it is definitely possible when you have powder on hand. One or two spoonfuls will do it, so if you have children in the house I recommend even more strongly against having this powder around.

Oh, and the stuff is BITTER. Really, really unpalatable.

[1] http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/821863-overview#showal...

[2] http://articles.nydailynews.com/2010-11-03/news/27080105_1_c...

EDIT: Oh, and don't base the amount you take on the size of a caffeine pill. Tablets, capsules, etc. are formulated with binders, preservatives, and inert ingredients that often take up much, much more space than the active compound. (I'm a pharmacist).

Oh please, I've been doing it for years. I recently wrote an article about it: http://diysupplements.com/2011/02/add-caffeine-to-everything...

To summarize: Get a 0.1g accurate or better scale and dilute the caffeine in water to make measurement easy.

> I am sure you don't have the equipment to measure an appropriate dose of caffeine (because scales accurate to 100 milligrams are not very cheap for household use...)

The powder can be used by volume; it's not hard to be precise down to a quarter teaspoon or less...

> it is not safe to 'eyeball' it.

Huh? It's perfectly safe to eyeball it if you are not utterly incompetent at sizing up volume; it's a fairly bulky powder and I divided mine up over 3000 pills so I know each pill has less than 130mg. You can find studies that use up to a gram. The LD50 for my bodymass is somewhere upwards of 43 grams, as opposed to the 200mg or so that I use. As a heavy tea drinker, I have plenty of tolerance (http://www.caffeinedependence.org/caffeine_dependence.html indicates at 40mg per 6oz, and each mug around 12oz, I'm easily getting 2-300mg a day).

> You will start to notice unpleasant effects (restlessness, etc) around 200-500mg, and then above that (say 600-1000mg) you may start to get into what could be called toxic effects (palpitations/arrhythmias, GI bleeding, potential for seizures)

Where are these figures coming from, and why on earth are you presenting them without qualification as if they apply to either me or the comment I was replying to? I'm guessing from how these are lowball numbers that they are meant, if at all, for people who do not consume caffeine regularly or at all. I've used ~600mg to see what happens, and I didn't see your toxic effects as one would expect from tolerance; even 300mg doesn't cause the slightest shaking if combined with l-theanine.

And even if I had noticed such negative effects, it wouldn't bother me because I would have to error by 3x the usual amount of powder. A quarter-teaspoon doesn't even hold that much in the first place!

> Caffeine has a half life of 5-8 hours and so by the time you go for your next dose you probably haven't cleared the first one, so you can definitely build up serum concentration.

I am well-aware of this, and don't use any after 5 PM or so; with a Zeo sleep tracker it's easy for me to see the effect of night caffeine use. (I can't speak to whether the original commenter is also responsible. But this is an aspect of caffeine that is not a problem with half-sensible use.)

> Your body can develop a dependency on caffeine and you'll get splitting headaches when you aren't taking it.

As with every other one of your claims, one's mileage will vary... Every few weeks I do quit all substances. I get a mild headache for a day, and that's about it. I think the guy I was replying to (a regular user of caffeine pills, remember?) also knows how withdrawal affects him and whether it is a problem or not.

> It is not easy to die from caffeine toxicity, but it is definitely possible when you have powder on hand.

I also have enough water on hand to kill myself.

> the stuff is BITTER. Really, really unpalatable.

It's not nearly as bad as some other things like piracetam. Not that it matters at all.

> Tablets, capsules, etc. are formulated with binders, preservatives, and inert ingredients that often take up much, much more space than the active compound.

Hence the earlier point about powders coming with a volume->dose specification which makes measuring much easier.

> I'm a pharmacist

Ah, so that explains the well-intentioned - yet over-generalized and somewhat alarmist - advice.

While we're at it, I'd point out that caffeine comes with a whole laundry list of long-term effects - both positive and negative: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_effects_of_caffeine#Over... Given the ambiguity, it's not worth worrying about long-term effects unless you are highly risk-averse.

If you're not drinking coffee for the taste and experience - stop drinking it.

In my opinion, there's no point in sustaining an addiction without any of the main benefits.

> you should find yourself a delicious decaffeinated coffee.

Decaf coffee is universally worse than caffeinated. It's impossible to remove the caffeine from coffee beans without also removing a good deal of the chemicals that contribute to the flavor: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decaffeinated_coffee

>I find it amusing that the guy who has two double-shot lattes a day just likes coffee,

I find it amusing that you say that, since I never implied any such thing. My father drinks coffee every morning and is a grump without it. He's just as much of an addict as someone who takes coffee pills. Trust me, I'm not one to use the "addiction" word as a scare word or to pass judgement. Though I do find it funny how often HN is anti-drug about things that are less dangerous and addictive than some recreational drugs.

>I find it amusing that you say that, since I never implied any such thing.

really? because four servings of coffee a day doesn't seem that much over the median dose, at least among people I know, if you adjust for body size. When I'm on, I consume more caffeine than that. So, to me, suggesting that someone has a problem when the dosage is that close to the median suggests that you are criticizing the delivery method more than the dosage.

While technically speaking many people (myself included) are 'addicted' to caffeine, I think comparing coffee dependence to something like alcohol dependence does not make a lot of sense; If I started every morning with a nice glass of scotch and finished a fifth every time I had real work to do, I'd likely be dead at this point. If I stop drinking caffeine, I sleep a lot and have a hard time getting work done. Some people get headaches. Withdrawal from long-term Alcohol abuse, on the other hand, often comes with hallucinations and sometimes death. Caffeine dependency isn't in the same class at all. In fact, while I agree that caffeine can be addictive, I'm not at all convinced that caffeine dependency is a bad thing.

I'm not criticizing the medium at all. In terms of health benefits, eating a caffeine pill is healthier than consuming the equivalent amount of coffee. No doubt alcohol withdrawl is worse, but if we're performing comparative metrics, I can vaporize cannabis for two months straight and stop all of the sudden without so much as a thought. I drank a twelve pack of coke across 4 days and had headaches for that Friday and Saturday.

I just don't know what you want me to say. It's not an addiction? Okay. Do you feel better? It's a chemical stimulant that you notice when you stop consuming it. You consume it so that you stay functional.

You can sugar coat it or say that it's not like being addicted to alcohol, but it doesn't change the fact that if you cut it out for a few weeks, you'd be more productive without the cost, dependency or negative side effects of coffee. The fact that you KNOW that, and continue to drink it, quite frankly supports the notion that it's an addiction.

People don't consume it just to stay functional, there are positives associated with caffeine that may outweigh the negatives. In particular, if you have any dementia in the family, it is one of the only known effective ways to reduce that risk.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21422521

http://iospress.metapress.com/content/d885346618q57103/fullt...

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19158424

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20182054

The most stunning result: http://health.usf.edu/nocms/publicaffairs/now/pdfs/JAD_Arend...

>I can vaporize cannabis for two months straight and stop all of the sudden without so much as a thought.

Now, I have little personal experience, and I'm not an expert; but I /have/ seen people lose their jobs due to their performance being diminished because of habitual marijuana use. I've never seen anyone lose a job because of caffeine.

I mean, I know plenty of people who use marijuana occasionally on the weekends and seem no worse for wear; from my understanding, it's not as bad as alcohol, and you may be right that it's not addictive, but it's certainly more harmful than Caffeine.

>but it doesn't change the fact that if you cut it out for a few weeks, you'd be more productive without the cost, dependency or negative side effects of coffee.

This is not true for me. Personally, I tend to ramp up my caffeine use slowly over a number of months, because I do develop a resistance. During these months, I am /significantly/ more effective than without caffeine, even if I quit for months.

Now, I do build up a resistance, so every few months I quit for a while, as I do eventually get to the point where I have diminishing returns. For me, this doesn't result in headaches, just a few days of more sleep than usual and reduced performance. Assuming I get my 12 hours a day of sleep, the reduced performance is still much better than, say, a hangover. I'm up to baseline performance within a week. (my baseline performance is /significantly/ lower than my caffeinated performance.)

>but it's certainly more harmful than Caffeine.

I'd love to see that claim backed up by one iota of science. Considering it takes less to overdose on caffeine, caffeine has actual chemical withdrawl symptoms, that cannabis has numerous anti-cancer properties that are acknowledged by everyone (including the governmental organizations tasked with analyzing it, etc) except the US government, etc.

You're still missing the point anyway. You continue to discuss all the merits of caffeine and how you use it that specifically DEPICT how it is a habit forming drug and support all of my points. That's my only point, and you and this other guy keep repeating yourselves about how you're "good people" or something and defending yourselves from attacks that I'm not making.

Thanks for the immediate downvote too. :) Cheers!

tl;dr: I point out that caffeine is a habit forming stimulant, fellow HNer takes offense at the categorization, goes on downvoting spree and defends himself against attacks that I'm not making.

Cool. Love to see that commenting continues to improve here.

wait, what? first, I didn't downvote you. Even if I could, I would not; and I can't. the downvote button doesn't exist for posts that are responses to mine. Next, I'm not arguing that caffeine is not a habit forming drug. It obviously is habit forming. What I'm trying to say is that because the side effects are so mild, it's not that big of a deal that it is habit forming. Next, I'm not saying people who use a certain drug are 'bad people' - just that some drugs carry higher levels of risk than others, and I believe that caffeine has a very low risk of causing serious problems, even though it is habit forming.

Now, you seemed to think that the guy ought to kick his caffeine habit, which would suggest that you think there are some dangers or other serious downsides to caffeine dependency, which is why I'm addressing that. If you do have evidence for serious side effects to caffeine use, please do cite references. As far as I can tell, caffeine just isn't a very dangerous drug when consumed in anything like the usual quantities, and the side effects are fairly mild for most people.

You seemed to suggest that marijuana is better than Caffeine because it is less habit forming. My point was that marijuana has some major risks associated with it; even if it's not habit forming at all, and my observations (that heavy users of marijuana tend to have significant and long-term loss of productivity) are mere coincidence and the stuff is completely safe from a pharmaceutical standpoint, there are very serious legal dangers associated with obtaining and using marijuana.

Now, maybe we are just talking past oneanother, but I'm not seeing how you are going from what I'm saying to "I'm a good person"

You're defending caffeine use. Please show me one place where I suggested he should stop or sad that using caffeine was bad. In fact, I've gone out of my way half a dozen times to suggest the opposite.

All I did was ask why, rather than replace coffee with caffeine, he didn't simply kick caffeine all together.

Heh, legal dangers aren't probably as severe a concern as dangers during acquisition. I would suggest that anyone using cannabis at work is as dumb as anyone drinking at work. If you want to light up after work, I don't really see how that affects your performance at work. You don't get a hangover from cannabis use.

Maybe my tone conveyed otherwise, but I was really just curious as to why it was easier for the (parent, parent, parent) comment to keep using caffeine in a different form if he didn't enjoy drinking coffee.

I guess I'm still surprised at the ease of which people can ween themselves off of what I would call large doses of it. But that skepticism really isn't fair of me, especially considering peoples' default opinion of cannabis use and how much all of my experiences and friends' experiences differ from the typical stoner stereotype.

I am curious now though, when you say "heavy users tend to have long-term loss of productivity", is that even when at work, not high? Is that even after they've stopped smoking for long periods of time? Because even anecdotally, I've never really heard of that. I mean, I ditched a friend because he was addicted to pot. He was addicted to cigarettes and drinking and attention and designer glasses and he used people to get his way so I don't really think cannabis was the root issue, but I'm surprised to hear of people in the tech industry experiencing people that suffer as a result of use.

Oh well, I'm way off topic. tl;dr, I think we were talking past each other, more just making different points. Sorry for any attitude I had earlier. It's no excuse but it's been a long day, had some major presentations going on.

>You're defending caffeine use. Please show me one place where I suggested he should stop or sad that using caffeine was bad

At the beginning of this thread, you wrote:

>That's quite an addiction you have. Have you considered kicking it?

Which I interpreted to mean that you thought this caffeine addiction was a bad thing, and that he should try to kick it. Of course, it's possible that you were asking if he had withdrawal symptoms when he stopped or perhaps something else entirely, but that's why I was defending caffeine use.

>I am curious now though, when you say "heavy users tend to have long-term loss of productivity", is that even when at work, not high? Is that even after they've stopped smoking for long periods of time?

Honestly, I don't know if the people I've known with those problems were high at the time or not; Either there was some sort of lasting effect, or the people in question chose to continue using when it was clear that they were damaging their career.

I mean, like I said, I know far more people who use every now and then and seem to be fine with it, but for some people, it can be (or, at least contribute to) a problem.

Please do explain how taking 400mg of caffeine per day constitutes an addiction.

I also take a daily multivitamin that contains ginseng, and a 'super' vitamin B pill. The latter makes the biggest difference in energy levels. I guess I'm 'addicted' to vitamin B, as well.

Please do explain how taking 400mg of caffeine per day constitutes an addiction.I also take a daily multivitamin that contains ginseng, and a 'super' vitamin B pill. The latter makes the biggest difference in energy levels. I guess I'm 'addicted' to vitamin B, as well.

I would say the difference between addiction and supplementation is not in what you take, but rather what happens if you do not take it.

I'm supplementing with Vitamin D but I often forget to take it, sometimes for days.

Now would you be able to forget your caffeine? If yes, I'd say there's no addiction. If you'd start feeling cravings in a few hours, that's a different story ...

Now would you be able to forget your caffeine?

Yes, of course I can, and do. Why would you assume that I'm somehow dependent upon caffeine?

Yes, of course I can, and do. Why would you assume that I'm somehow dependent upon caffeine?

It's a substance known to cause addictions and I personally know a number of people who claim that they "need" it - nothing personal here.

Are you kidding? You're taking a stimulant to get through the day and when one form of it is taken away, you supplement with another form.

How is that different than a junkie getting their fix to stave off withdrawl? You don't need to get defensive about it, but if you're taking a concentrated form of a drug to get through your day... and you notice when you don't take it... that's the definition of an addiction.

You're taking a stimulant to get through the day

Come again? This is news to me.

when one form of it is taken away, you supplement with another form.

Again, what? I decided to try caffeine in a pill form and found that I mostly prefer it to the coffee form. Nothing was taken away.

How is that different than a junkie getting their fix to stave off withdrawl

For starters, because I don't experience any withdrawl.

You don't need to get defensive about it.

I'm not the least bit defensive about it. Rather, I find it bizarre that you make so many assumptions, and view taking a legal, safe stimulant as an inherent addiction.

if you're taking a concentrated form of a drug to get through your day

Again, where did I say anything about 'getting through the day'? Where did I imply that I 'need' caffeine? I should not benefit from a chemical, which seems to have no downside for my body, simply because it offends your arbitrary principles? How is it a "concentrated form of a drug" when a single cup of coffee contains 150mg of caffeine, in what seems to be a more rapidly absorbed liquid form? (Incidentally, a Starbucks Tall drip has 240mg, while a Grande has 320mg)

I hope you see that you're projecting a lot onto my statements.

and you notice when you don't take it... that's the definition of an addiction.

That is neither what I said, nor is it the definition of addiction. http://www.google.com/search?q=define%3A+addiction

I can't get over the amount of defending people do here of DOSING caffeine. Your first comment was specifically talking about the psychological effects that you're getting from the chemical stimulant caffeine. You find that going to the pure, drug-only, form of it is better for you. You clearly consume it for the stimulant effects, or why else would you take it.

> someone who is physiologically dependent on a substance; abrupt deprivation of the substance produces withdrawal symptoms

If you can quit caffeine when you're taking 400mg and NOT experience any side effects, go see a doctor because you're a modern miracle. It's a stimulant, you take it regularly. If it's not an addiction... it's certainly a habit that you seem to be unwilling to give up.

Note that NO where did I say it was a bad thing. I mean, it costs money, but I'm sure it's not a lot. I was merely curious if you'd actually tried to stop consuming caffeine. The response taking offense at me calling it precisely what it is... is telling in my armchair-psychiatrist opinion.

I can't get over the amount of defending people do here of DOSING caffeine.

Since I don't want to keep going in circles, I'm just going to say this: replace, "dosing caffeine" with the less inflammatory, "drinking coffee." Now, consider what the difference is.

Regarding your claim that you didn't say it was a bad thing, I will remind you that you wrote, "How is that different than a junkie getting their fix to stave off withdrawl." If that's not passing judgment on someone, I don't know what is.

You're not drinking coffee though, you're, I'm laughing here because I keep having to reiterate this...

You're not consuming coffee because you like coffee. That's obvious. You like the buzz. You like the stimulant effect of the drug caffeine. I am comparing in the motions of a junkie... I know caffeine addicts that are bigger caffeine junkies than some hard drug users I know. It's neither here nor there, but I could care less if you shoot heroin, let alone drink coffee or take caffeine pills. If it helps you do your job and it doesn't ruin your life, fine. Lord knows I'm sick this week during a week that I simply can not be sick, I'm using Aleve and Mountain Dew like they're going out of style.

I just wanted to point out that plenty of people are very productive without caffeine. Seeing as caffeine doesn't give you abnormal abilities... it seems to be that it would be better to not be dependent on it, or not use it as a crutch, or whatever it is that you're using it for.