Tag Archives | Coffee

Artists Who Drink Crazy Amounts of Coffee (Balzac Was a 50-Cup-a-Day Man)

By majestic on April 19, 2013 in News 0

Recently we heard about the woman who poisoned herself with fluoride by drinking 100 cups of tea a day. Now we learn that Balzac drank 50 cups of coffee a day. Can anyone up that? Mason Currey writes for Slate:

Coffee! It is the great uniting force of my Daily Rituals book. It’s what brings together Beethoven and Proust, Glenn Gould and Francis Bacon, Jean-Paul Sartre and Gustav Mahler. This should hardly be surprising. Caffeine is the rare drug that has a powerful salutary effect—it aids focus and attention, wards off sleepiness, and speeds the refresh rate on new ideas—with only minimal drawbacks. And the ritual of preparing coffee serves for many as a gateway to the creative mood. Balzac wrote:

“Coffee glides into one’s stomach and sets all of one’s mental processes in motion. One’s ideas advance in column of route like battalions of the Grande Armée. Memories come up at the double, bearing the standards which will lead the troops into battle.

… Read the rest

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Does Coffee Make You Hear Things?

By Easy Rider on June 13, 2011 in News 8

Photo: Bertilvidet (CC)

Peter Finocchiaro writes on Salon:

Scholars at Australia’s La Trobe University just released a study showing a correlation between caffeine intake and auditory hallucinations. In layman’s terms: Lots of coffee might make you more likely to hear things that aren’t there.

Researchers came to the conclusion after studying 92 people with a broad range of java-drinking habits. Participants — who were told they were taking part in hearing tests — were set up with headphones and asked to press a buzzer every time they heard audio from Bing Crosby’s classic “White Christmas.” As a matter of fact, the only sound played into the headsets was white noise. But participants who drank at least 400 milliliters (or about 13.5 fluid ounes) of coffee per day were significantly more likely to identify Crosby’s soulful croon.

“On average, low-caf subjects heard it once. But stressed coffee guzzlers buzzed three times,” said Australia’s Herald Sun newspaper.

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Coffee, Sex And Blowing Your Nose Increase Risk Of Stroke

By majestic on May 8, 2011 in News 7

Source: BBC News

Do you get the feeling that just being alive is dangerous to your health? James Gallagher reports on the latest insult to living for BBC News:

Coffee, sex and blowing your nose could increase the risk of a type of stroke, say researchers in the Netherlands.

The study on 250 patients identified eight risk factors linked to bleeding on the brain.

They all increase blood pressure which could result in blood vessels bursting, according to research published in the journal Stroke.

The Stroke Association said more research was needed to see if the triggers caused the rupture.

More than 150,000 people in the UK have a stroke each year with nearly 29,000 due to bleeding on the brain.

Bleeding can happen when a weakened blood vessel, known as a brain aneurysm, bursts. This can result in brain damage or death.

The researchers at the University Medical Center in Utrecht looked at 250 patients for three years to identify what triggers ruptures…

[continues at BBC News]… Read the rest

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Coffee Is Good For Your Heart. Really.

By majestic on April 11, 2011 in News 14

Photo: Julius Schorzman (CC)

For all your coffee addicts out there, some surprisingly good news. Too good to be true? Elane Conis reports for the Los Anegeles Times:

Looking for a reason to not give up your coffee habit? Here’s one possibility: heart health.

Numerous studies in recent years have reported that drinking coffee may be good for the cardiovascular system and might even help prevent strokes. Just last month, Swedish researchers announced results of a large study showing that coffee seemed to reduce the risk of stroke in women by up to 25%.

Not long ago, researchers thought quite the opposite about coffee and the heart, says Dr. Thomas Hemmen, director of the UC San Diego Stroke Center: “Coffee is fun and it tastes good, so people assumed for many years that it would be bad for you.”

Studies conducted in the 1970s and 1980s offered little in the way of confirmation or refutation.

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Who Needs Viagra When You Can Have A Magic Coffee!

By majestic on June 22, 2010 in News 0

Photo: Julius Schorzman (CC)

Shame I don’t like coffee! From Digital Journal:

The FDA is warning Magic Power Coffee has a little more then magic in its list of ingredients. An undeclared chemical similar to that of Viagra has been found in this powerful java. When mixed with other medicines the effects can be deadly.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is warning consumers that Magic Power Coffee, an instant coffee product marketed as a dietary supplement for sexual enhancement, contains an active drug ingredient that can dangerously lower blood pressure.Consumers who have Magic Power Coffee should stop using it immediately, the advisory states. Sexual enhancement products that claim to work as well as prescription products are likely to expose consumers to unpredictable risks and the potential for injury or even death.

In the case of Magic Power Coffee, the FDA collected and analyzed the product and determined that the product contains hydroxythiohomosildenafil.

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Coffee Stimulus Is All In The Mind

By majestic on June 2, 2010 in News 6

Photo: Julius Schorzman (CC)

Interesting – all those people who say they can’t function without coffee may be kidding themselves. Via the Daily Mail:

Many people swear they can’t start their mornings without a steaming cup of coffee, but a new study has found its stimulating effect could all be in the mind.

Researchers from the University of Bristol found there was no real benefit to be gained from that first shot of caffeine. The reason you may feel more alert is because the strong brew simply reverses the tiring effects of acute caffeine withdrawal.

Lead author Professor Peter Rogers, said: ‘Our study shows that we don’t gain an advantage from consuming caffeine – although we feel alerted by it, this is caffeine just bringing us back to normal.’

But the report also found that those who drank coffee developed a tolerance to its anxiety-producing effects. The team tested 379 people who abstained from caffeine for 16 hours.

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Living Your Life The Way Your Data Say You Should

By majestic on May 3, 2010 in News 3

Could you live your life like this? Do you know anyone who does? A report on what it’s like to live your life based on what your life’s data you’ve recorded on your computer say you should do, in the New York Times:

Humans make errors. We make errors of fact and errors of judgment. We have blind spots in our field of vision and gaps in our stream of attention. Sometimes we can’t even answer the simplest questions. Where was I last week at this time? How long have I had this pain in my knee? How much money do I typically spend in a day? These weaknesses put us at a disadvantage. We make decisions with partial information. We are forced to steer by guesswork. We go with our gut.

That is, some of us do. Others use data. A timer running on Robin Barooah’s computer tells him that he has been living in the United States for 8 years, 2 months and 10 days.

… Read the rest

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Drinking Coffee When You’re Drunk Is The Worst Thing You Can Do

By majestic on December 9, 2009 in News 4

A surprising (or not?) report from the BBC:

Reaching for a mug of coffee may be the worst thing you can to do to try to sober up, a study suggests.

Research on mice indicates the drink may make you feel that you are coming to your senses – but it is only an illusion.

In fact, it makes it harder for people to realise they are under the influence of alcohol.

The study, by Temple University in Philadelphia, appears in the journal Behavioural Neuroscience. Lead researcher Dr Thomas Gould said: “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…

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