To get a good kick from caffeine, most people need only drink a 6-ounce cup of coffee, about 100 milligrams. But on a popular pro-drug Web site, a visitor reported taking seven No Doz tablets, or 1,400 milligrams of caffeine, and compared the effects to a bad trip on LSD.Then, like many who get carried away with the world's most popular drug, the person wondered: "Can caffeine really do this?"
It can. And abuse of the legal stimulant is an emerging problem among young people, according to Northwestern University researchers, who recently analyzed three years' worth of cases reported to the Illinois Poison Center.
Symptoms include everything from nausea, vomiting and a racing heart to hallucinations, panic attacks, chest pains and trips to the emergency room.
In the study that was presented at the annual meeting of the American College of Emergency Physicians, the researchers found more than 250 cases of medical complications from ingesting caffeine supplements. Twelve percent of those cases required hospitalization, including in the intensive-care unit. The average age of the caffeine abusers was 21.
"Part of the problem is that people do not think of caffeine as a drug but rather as a food product," said study author Danielle McCarthy.
Columbia College Chicago freshman Kate Kelly, 18, began taking caffeine pills for energy after an all-nighter at her friend's 16th birthday party. As a junior at Evanston Township High School, she took four a day; two in the morning and two more throughout the day. "My friends and I also drank Red Bull when we were tired; often it was our breakfast," she said.
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