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The popular, formerly caffeinated, fruity alcoholic beverage, Four Loko, has been blamed for the spike in alcohol-related hospitalizations, especially throughout college campuses. Initially, caffeine was deemed the culprit and the Food and Drug Administration ordered all traces of caffeine to be removed from Four Loko and all other similar beverages. However, according to an upcoming evaluation in Perspectives on Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, caffeine might not be the primary cause of the spike in hospitalizations. “Four Loko didn’t have the extraordinary intoxicating effect because of caffeine, but rather because of the phenomenon of situational...

The FDA is expected to declare caffeine additives in alcoholic drinks as unsafe this week, according to Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. This will effectively ban such products. But it’s unclear how effective the ban will be. The alcoholic energy drink craze developed from nightclub patrons mixing Red Bull and vodka to stay up partying long into the night. Bartenders will continue to serve up such cocktails, and it’s not exactly rocket science for people at home.

A cheap drink that combines alcohol and caffeine will be off Oklahoma store shelves next month. Alcohol regulators said they want to stop sales of Four Loko and will target other alcohol drinks that contain energy additives. The Oklahoma Alcoholic Beverage Laws Enforcement Commission put a moratorium on all alcoholic beverages containing caffeine, guarana and taurine. Experts said one can of Four Loko is like drinking a six-pack of light beer and two cups of coffee. It also sells for less than $2 per can, which makes it popular with cost-conscious young people. "This malt beverage is actually half as...

A British man died after poisoning himself with two spoonfuls of caffeine powder bought over the internet, local media reported Friday. Michael Lee Bedford, 23, from Mansfield, central England, was at a party in April when he swallowed caffeine powder that a friend bought online for £3.29 ($5.26), Nottingham Coroner’s Court heard Thursday. He washed the powder down with an energy drink, and around 15 minutes later began sweating and vomiting blood. He later died at King’s Mill Hospital in Nottinghamshire, central England, the Nottingham Post reported. The court heard that Bedford ignored the product's recommendation to take no more...

Liquor stores reassess Four Loko for ‘liquid crack’ reputationBy Meaghan Beatley Updated: Wednesday, October 27, 2010 06:10 Recent concerns over the popular alcoholic energy drink Four Loko have prompted at least one Boston liquor store to stop selling the beverage that is often referred to as "liquid crack" and "cocaine in a can." Four Loko was linked to a recent incident involving nine Central Washington University students, some of whom were hospitalized on Oct. 9 for alcohol poisoning, according to a statement by the Washington Attorney General's office. Emmett McDermott, department manager of Liquor Land in Dorchester, said the store...

A northern Kentucky man was found guilty of murder for strangling his wife with an extension cord and rejected defense claims that his statements to police were made under stress prompted by large amounts of caffeine and a lack of sleep. The Campbell County jury deliberated about 1 1/2 hours on Friday before convicting 33-year-old Woody Will Smith in the May 2009 death of Amanda Hornsby-Smith.

New research in the FASEB Journal suggests that manipulation of the brain's own immune cells with IL-6 could lead to reversal of Alzheimer's disease pathologyA breakthrough discovery by scientists from the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, FL, may lead to a new treatment for Alzheimer's Disease that actually removes amyloid plaques—considered a hallmark of the disease—from patients' brains. This discovery, published online in The FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org), is based on the unexpected finding that when the brain's immune cells (microglia) are activated by the interleukin-6 protein (IL-6), they actually remove plaques instead of causing them or making them worse. The research...

There is a good deal of debate about the health effects of caffeine, and whether these effects are primarily positive or negative. Caffeine, particularly in coffee, has been studied closely to determine where it may be of benefit, and where it may cause undesirable effects. Health benefits of caffeine Parkinson's disease Parkinson's is caused by the loss of brain cells that produce a chemical messenger called dopamine. According to a researcher from the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, people who drink coffee or consume caffeine regularly have a lower risk of developing Parkinson's disease. The research put forth...

Scientists are reporting new evidence that drinking coffee may help prevent diabetes and that caffeine may be the ingredient largely responsible for this effect. Their findings, among the first animal studies to demonstrate this apparent link, appear in ACS' bi-weekly Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. Fumihiko Horio and colleagues note that past studies have suggested that regular coffee drinking may reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes. The disease affects millions in the United States and is on the rise worldwide. However, little of that evidence comes from studies on lab animals used to do research that cannot be...

Dec. 14, 2009 -- Every cup of coffee a person drinks per day may lower the risk of diabetes by 7%. A new review of research on the link between lifestyle factors, like coffee and tea consumption, and diabetes risk suggests that drinking regular or decaffeinated coffee and tea all lower the risk of type 2 diabetes. Researchers say the number of people with type 2 diabetes is expected to increase by 65% by 2025, reaching an estimated 380 million people worldwide. “Despite considerable research attention, the role of specific dietary and lifestyle factors remains uncertain, although obesity and physical...

Drinking coffee does not sober you up – and may actually further impair your judgement, new research suggests. The combination of alcohol and caffeine produces a potentially lethal mix that just makes it harder to realise you are actually drunk in the first place. And the study published in Behavioural Neuroscience suggests popular caffeinated energy drinks could also raise risks from intoxication rather than lessen them. "The myth about coffee's sobering powers is particularly important to debunk because the co-use of caffeine and alcohol could actually lead to poor decisions with disastrous outcomes. "People who have consumed only alcohol, who...

Watertown, MA—Scientists at Boston Biomedical Research Institute (BBRI) and the University of Pennsylvania have found that combining two chemicals, one of which is the green tea component EGCG, can prevent and destroy a variety of protein structures known as amyloids. Amyloids are the primary culprits in fatal brain disorders such as Alzheimer's, Huntington's, and Parkinson's diseases. Their study, published in the current issue of Nature Chemical Biology (December 2009), may ultimately contribute to future therapies for these diseases. "These findings are significant because it is the first time a combination of specific chemicals has successfully destroyed diverse forms of amyloids...

STOCKHOLM — Middle-aged people who drink moderate amounts of coffee significantly reduce their risk of developing Alzheimer's disease, a study by Finnish and Swedish researchers showed Thursday. "Middle-aged people who drank between three and five cups of coffee a day lowered their risk of developing dementia and Alzheimer's disease by between 60 and 65 percent later in life," said lead researcher on the project, Miia Kivipelto, a professor at the University of Kuopio in Finland and at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. The study, which was also conducted in cooperation with the National Public Health Institute in Helsinki and which...

SIX cups of coffee - that's the State Government antidote to sleep-deprived doctors killing and harming their patients in a haze of exhaustion. The astonishing remedy forms part of Queensland Health's new doctor fatigue policy, currently being rolled out in public hospitals. The Courier-Mail yesterday reported the confessions of junior surgeons and medics whose exhaustion-induced errors had killed or hurt patients during "on-call" shifts of 30 to 80 hours. But a guidelines document underpinning QH's Fatigue Risk Management System claims "solutions such as 'we need more staff' might not be achievable or effective in managing a fatigue risk."

In experiments with lab mice especially bred to develop symptoms of Alzheimer's disease, University of South Florida (USF) researchers at the Florida Alzheimer's Disease Research Center ADRC gave the aged animals the equivalent of the caffeine in five cups of coffee a day. The results? Their severe memory impairment was reversed. This study, along with other AD research by the same group of scientists, was just published in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease. Both studies show that caffeine significantly decreased abnormal levels of beta amyloid (the protein linked to AD) in both the brains and blood of lab rodents who...

Enlarge Caffeine treatment removed the beta amyloid plaques from the brains of the Alzheimer's mice. Credit: Photo courtesy of Florida Alzheimer's Disease Research Center Coffee drinkers may have another reason to pour that extra cup. When aged mice bred to develop symptoms of Alzheimer's disease were given caffeine - the equivalent of five cups of coffee a day - their memory impairment was reversed, report University of South Florida researchers at the Florida Alzheimer's Disease Research Center. Back-to-back studies published online today in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, show caffeine significantly decreased abnormal levels of the protein linked to...

Michael Jackson is setting out on a concert tour after a twelve year hiatus. Nothing unusual about that...until you take a look at who's helping him put the tour together! NOTE: The author of this comic requests that you visit his web site and please refrain from copying the cartoon within this thread! Thank you very much!

Have a Coke and a tax Once government starts down the "sin tax" road, it is very hard to stop. Everyone loves to tax a product they do not use. When revenues run low, alcohol and cigarettes are always at the top of the new tax list. Some municipalities have even proposed a "fat" tax. Now, a legislator in Utah has proposed a tax on caffeine. Be careful whose sin you tax. Yours may be next. Let's tax caffeine, legislator argues

Hearing voices when nobody is around or seeing things that aren't there? Too much caffeine could be to blame, British researchers reported on Wednesday. Their study found that students who consumed more than the equivalent of seven cups of instant coffee a day were three times more likely to have had these kinds of hallucinations compared to people on a single daily cup.

Wow! I never knew spiders would hve these reactions.Link