As if in response to my recent post about the caffeination of almost everything imaginable, from water to bars of soap and beyond, last week a British girl went into shock and nearly killed herself by slamming 7 double espressos in just a few short hours. She worked in a coffee shop and, like an alcoholic bartender, was making herself drinks along with those for her customers. According to the BBC:
“She developed a fever and began struggling to breathe after being sent home by her father. ‘I was drenched. I was burning up and hyperventilating. I was having palpitations, my heart was beating so fast and I thought I was going into shock.’”
In which case, it should be no surprise to learn that recently an otherwise healthy 28-year-old Australian man’s heart stopped after he consumed eight Red Bulls in short order — luckily, paramedics were able to get it going again, and he was okay. According to Energy Fiend’s “death by caffeine” calculator, it should take about 80 double espressos or 153 cans of Red Bull to kill you — pick your poison — though that doesn’t take into account factors such as lack of sleep (as in the espresso girl’s case) or drinking on an empty stomach (as in Red Bull man’s).
As for the above photo, I took this while on vacation in Maine, and I think it pretty much speaks for itself. (I wonder if “Shock Coffee” would’ve picked another name had they known in advance about people going into shock and cardiac arrest from caffeine.) Anyway, if coffee’s not caffeinated enough for you — and you’re not a soldier on an 18-hour patrol in a war zone — there’s clearly something wrong! As for sleep being “overrated,” I think it’s quite the opposite.
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yeah, the death by caffeine calculator suggests more cups, but never thought that only 7 double espresso could damage like that.
lucky i always limit myself to just 2 cups, 1 in the morning and 1 in the afternoon :P
posted by qureyoon on 8-20-2007 at 7:42 am
I don’t drink any caffeine at all – no soda, no coffee, no tea, etc…
once, years ago, I ate ONE chocolate covered espresso bean, and my heart started racing…I was amazed at how much power one little bean could do…
posted by donner on 8-20-2007 at 8:44 am
I’m with you…sleep “overrated”? No, way!
I love a good sleep like I love a good steak! I don’t get either very often, but when I do…ohh baby!
posted by Chris Thorpe on 8-20-2007 at 10:14 am
Years ago, I was caffeine-free. Then I started a website that sold everything caffeinated. I started sampling my own products so I could relay the information to customers curious about certain items and now, despite the fact that I sold it a year and a half ago, I’m still addicted in the worst way… caffeine headaches S U C K!
posted by R. B. on 8-20-2007 at 11:23 am
I can identify with the barista. I once worked behind the counter at a coffee house. I had this job at the same time I held a job as a technician at Gameworks. I would get to the point where I would drink breve americanos (that’s an americano with a little half&half instead of water added). One day I drank six of these in a shift, and started shaking uncontrollably. That night driving home from the technician job I started feeling numb in my extremities and had to pull over, because I couldn’t feel my feet for the pedals. After 5 minutes it passed, but after that and another time when I almost passed out while driving during one of my 4 double-shift days, I quit my coffee-shop job.
Weirdly, after that incident I was much more sensitive to caffeine. I can do up to 3 cups of coffee per 6 hours but that’s it.
posted by Leadhyena on 8-20-2007 at 11:57 am
I have to wonder if the espresso vs. standard brew reaction is a bit psychosomatic. (probably not British barista, though- eight doubles is excessive) Espresso actually has less caffeine than brewed coffee (something to do with either the roasting or pressing – I can’t remember) Furthermore, espresso tends to be consumed in smaller portions. You can give someone decaf, tell them its full strength and watch them get jittery.
I’m with you on sleep. Its been my drug of choice since birth.
posted by Allison on 8-20-2007 at 12:16 pm
@Allison:
Actually it has more to do with density than it does with caffeine content. Your standard solo espresso has 100mg of caffeine, about 1/2 the amount of your common cup of Arabica coffee (BTW the wikipedia article on this is incorrect, I’ll post a correction later). A doppio espresso therefor has the same caffeine as one cup of coffee. Most of your espresso drinks usually have between 2-4 shots of espresso in them, meaning they can possibly have more caffeine than a cup of coffee.
However, much of the effect of throwing back a shot of espresso is simply due to it hitting your system faster, in much the same way that a shot of alcohol makes you intoxicated faster than a beer, even though they contain the same amount of alcohol.
posted by Leadhyena on 8-20-2007 at 12:41 pm
I’ve never been a big fan of caffiene. Almost all of my friends at school are total addicts and they think I’m crazy. But I guess I’d much rather be kind of tired than get a headache from a lack of caffiene that was keeping me up.
Maybe I’ll just point them in the direction of this article the next time tehy bug me about it…
posted by Kaitie on 8-20-2007 at 3:11 pm
I’ve had an experience with caffeine once kind of like that girl’s. I just came off from a 14 hour night shift at work, and I needed to stay up the rest of the day due to my cousin being in town, so I decided to drink some caffeine and stay up. At first I drank 2 Cafe Lattes. Then I still felt sleepy so I drank 2 double shot drinks from Starbucks. A couple of hours later I drank 2 shots of espresso. About 4 hours later, after being up for a little over 24 hours, and being about an hour away from home, I drank a 24 ounce Pepsi to keep me up so I could “safely” drive home. When I got home I had been up about 26-27 hours. When I tried to calm down and go to bed I started shaking real bad. Then it started being EXTREMELY difficult to breathe. My legs were real weak, so I almost fell when I tried to get out of bed, but I managed to make it to my hallway before I couldn’t go any further. I sat down in my hallway and started to cry hysterically for no reason at all, and I couldn’t stop. My heart was also palpitating. I was convinced I was going to die right there in my hallway. So, convinced I was going to die anyway, I decided to drag myself to the kitchen and take 2 Tylenol PM’s just to see what it did. About 15-20 minutes later I was much more calm, so I went and laid down in bed and fell asleep in less than 20 minutes, woke up the next morning, and was fine. Needless to say I do NOT drink caffeine as much as I use to. I use to drink quite a bit when I worked on nights. After that I tried to quit completely, but that didn’t last too long. I’m starting to drink a bit much again. Every time I get carried away with coffee, or tea, I always think of that night.
posted by Tara on 8-20-2007 at 4:56 pm
These stories are all frightening and amazing — keep ‘em coming, guys! And thanks!
posted by Ransom on 8-20-2007 at 5:56 pm
The first time I tried a chocolate covered espresso bean, I loved it, so bought a pound and proceeded to eat them like M&Ms. Needless to say, a little while later I thought I was going to jump out of my skin. Even though I can eat chocolate and drink coffee today, I have no desire for a chocolate covered espresso bean. Does anybody know how much caffeine is in one? Wouldn’t it be a good idea for the caffeine content to be included with the nutritional information on all the caffeinated drinks out there? I bought caffeinated mints, and wondered about little kids (or big ones) overdosing on them, but it turns out they are slightly bitter – probably a good thing.
posted by cm on 8-20-2007 at 7:46 pm
One of my friends went into shock like that from taking an Excedrin. Of course, she doesn’t usually have caffeine in her system at all so that made it worse. Add on top of it 3 days of not very much sleep, lots of work, dehydration, and abnormally hot weather and it was pretty bad.
posted by Janel on 8-20-2007 at 11:35 pm
cm:
I don’t know how much caffeine is in an espresso bean, but there isn’t that much in the peppermints. I use to have a thing of caffeinated peppermints and the back of the tin said that 6 of them equaled 1 soda.
posted by Tara on 8-21-2007 at 9:22 pm
Tara:
I looked around and couldn’t find the caffeine content in an espresso bean (amazing the info you CAN’T find on the internet!) I did find out that caffeine has a naturally bitter taste, so that explains the bitterness of my peppermints.
posted by cm on 8-23-2007 at 4:39 pm
One night some friends and I went out to go play putt putt and I chugged two of the Blue Demon energy drinks followed by 3 Mountain Dews. We got to the putt putt place and they were closed so we went to get ice cream and I got two scoops of espresso flavored… After we finished eating we went to Starbucks, it being around 11 pm by then and not much else open. me and one of the guys were looking at the menu and out of the blue I asked him, “What do you think 10 shots of espresso would be like?”
He answered with, I dont know… try it.”
So I did. Now I’m not a coffee type of guy so I proceeded to fill the rest of this large cup with sugar (to help improve taste). Then I chugged that in about a minute. the effects were almost instantaneous. I was shaking constantly, heart was flying, I was talking nonstop, as I was walking I could feel the blood flowing around in me and couldn’t walk in a straight line. I also raced another friend (who would not have even come close to under normal circumstances) and came within 2 inches of beating him.
Then I threw up. For the next two hours. Never did it again.
posted by havokblast on 11-7-2007 at 6:57 pm
i had too many red bull and cherry vodka drinks. the bartender made the drinks so weak…that i didnt get a buzz so i kept goin back to the bar for more more more….by the time i got home i couldnt sleep and my heart was beating hard and fast..i dodnt want to be alone. i couldnt sleep or relax and i hyperventilated and my hands and arms went numb. I felt like i was going to pass out. I wqent to urgent care and they told me that there was othing they could do for me…just relax and drink lots of water and wait for all the caffine to get out of my system. BE CAREFUL WITH CAFFINE!!!!!
posted by Lyndzi on 4-20-2008 at 1:51 pm