0:00

Hi, I'm Wendy Zuckerman and you're listening

0:02

to Science Versus. And this is the show

0:04

that pits facts against flat whites. On

0:08

today's show, caffeine. Should

0:11

you quit it? Caffeine

0:17

is one of the most used drugs in the

0:19

world. 85% of people

0:21

in the US drink at least one

0:23

caffeinated beverage each day. And that includes

0:25

kids. But yet, despite

0:28

the fact that we are shoving this drink

0:30

down our pie holes, there

0:33

have always been these fears that caffeine

0:35

is bad for our health. Your

0:38

cup of coffee could soon come with a

0:40

spoonful of cancer warning. My heart was racing,

0:42

I was super anxious, something was happening, I

0:44

was having a panic attack. Could it all

0:46

be a sign though of a serious problem?

0:48

A problem like caffeine addiction. And

0:50

our worries around caffeine have reached new

0:52

heights when it comes to energy drinks.

0:55

Just this year, US lawmakers, like Senator

0:57

Chuck Schumer, were fussing over this

0:59

new energy drink called Prime. The

1:02

product has so much caffeine in it that

1:04

it puts Red Bull to shame. One

1:07

family sued Panera after their daughter,

1:09

who had a heart condition, died

1:11

when she drank their caffeinated lemonade.

1:14

And this is the latest in a

1:16

long line of scary stories of people,

1:18

often younger people, dying soon after drinking

1:20

energy drinks. Davis collapsed in the classroom

1:22

of his high school in South Carolina. It wasn't

1:24

a car crash that took his life. Instead,

1:27

it was an energy drink. She

1:29

drank two 24-ounce energy drinks in

1:31

less than 24 hours. And

1:35

it took her life. So

1:38

today on the show, what is this drug

1:40

doing to our brains and our bodies? Is

1:43

it ruining our sleep, turning us into

1:46

caffeine addicts, and potentially even killing us?

1:49

When it comes to caffeine, there's a lot

1:51

of, My heart was racing. But then there's

1:54

science. Science

1:57

vs. Caffeine is coming up just after the break.

2:00

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subject to Ohio laws and commission regulations.

2:35

Play responsibly. Welcome

2:42

back. Today on the show, we

2:44

are taking on caffeine and energy

2:47

drinks to find out once

2:49

and for all, how bad is

2:51

this stuff? What is it doing to our bodies

2:53

and brains? To tell us

2:55

all about it, we're seeing your producer, Rose

2:57

Rimmler. Hey, Rose. Hi, Wendy. So

3:00

over the summer in the U.S., there was

3:02

a lot of hubbub about this energy drink

3:04

prime. I guess this was a bit of

3:06

your inspiration for wanting to tackle this episode.

3:09

Yeah, a lot of the talk was about how it's

3:11

got a crazy amount of caffeine. It's bad for us,

3:13

and energy drinks are bad for us, and sort of

3:16

just this feeling that caffeine is bad for us.

3:19

And I don't know about you, but I have caffeine every

3:21

day when I have my coffee. So

3:23

maybe wonder, like, is my caffeine

3:26

habit something I should take a

3:28

second look at? Or is

3:30

caffeine just all hunky dory? Yes,

3:32

I love this question because

3:35

caffeine has been a thing that I

3:37

have actively said, you know what? I'm

3:39

not into meth, but I'm going to

3:41

be fine with my caffeine use. You

3:43

know, I felt guilty about it, and

3:45

I do want to know whether I

3:47

need to. So

3:49

where do we begin? Let's start with

3:51

Astrid Neelig. She's a caffeine researcher, and

3:53

she says she hears this idea about

3:56

people feeling guilty about their

3:58

caffeine intake all the time. I

4:01

meet somebody and

4:03

they ask me on what I work and

4:05

I say, oh, I work on caffeine and

4:07

people are very shy

4:09

all the sudden and withdrawing

4:12

a bit and telling me, oh,

4:14

it's very bad. I should probably

4:16

not think. Astrid

4:19

is an emeritus research director at

4:21

France's National Institute of Health and

4:23

Medical Research and she has studied

4:25

caffeine for decades. So

4:27

with her help, I'm going to walk

4:30

you through what caffeine is doing to

4:32

your brain and to your body. Okay.

4:35

So Wendy, I asked you to come prepared

4:37

with your favorite caffeinated beverage. That's bad. So

4:40

what did you bring today? I have an

4:42

cappuccino. Okay, take a sip. Should

4:44

I do it like ASMR or if I

4:46

guess if you have misophonia, just shoot out.

4:50

Okay, so I'm going to tell you what it's

4:53

doing right now. Okay. So scientists

4:55

think that once the coffee gets to

4:57

your stomach, it's basically going to wake

4:59

up your guts. It's going to get

5:01

your stomach to make more acid. It's

5:04

going to get your liver to start making bile. So

5:07

it's really an activator of digestion.

5:09

Is that why, not to be

5:11

crude, but sometimes you have to

5:13

go number two after you drink

5:16

coffee? Yeah, please

5:18

think some especially sensitive

5:20

individuals. Yeah, it's like that.

5:23

We know this because thankfully

5:25

some scientists in the 80s

5:27

got permission to stick probes

5:30

at people's buttholes and then give

5:33

them coffee to see what happens. And

5:36

the reason they wanted to test it this way

5:38

is because they had given these people a survey

5:40

and said, does

5:42

any beverages make you have to poop? And

5:44

a third of the people on this 100

5:47

person survey said, yeah, actually coffee makes me

5:49

have to poop. So they got

5:51

some of these people and some other

5:53

non-responders into the lab and they put

5:55

this probe up in

5:57

their upper part of their rectum. So

6:00

what they were looking for was to see

6:02

is there an actual physical change in

6:05

your lower intestine? When you've

6:07

had coffee and what and what did

6:09

they find in the people who said

6:12

yes coffee does this to me? They

6:14

could actually measure Increased rectal

6:16

activity. Oh, so that I'm

6:18

clenching. I'm clenching. Have you been clenching as

6:20

you've been breathing this recent? No,

6:22

I'm quite relaxed. Oh, okay As

6:25

soon as he's adding creams for rectal activity. I was

6:27

like I

6:29

like kind of I like thinking about like these sort of Parastalsis

6:32

of your butthole, you know, yeah, that's

6:34

great. Well how food gets down It's

6:36

something else has to make it come

6:38

up come out and that increased right

6:41

in response to coffee for some people Interesting

6:44

Okay, I have a very important

6:46

question. Yeah, how quickly how

6:49

quickly does this activation happen?

6:52

Because it can happen within minutes.

6:55

Oh my god. I feel so validated Wow

6:59

because I like I Will

7:02

sometimes just take a few sips of coffee

7:04

and just like need to do a shit

7:07

Sorry for the kids out there need to

7:09

do a big crap And

7:12

I have come to believe that oh, it's just

7:14

placebo at this point like surely it can't be

7:16

working that quickly But it can it can

7:19

like just so, you know Rose Because

7:21

it's my first coffee for the day Yeah,

7:24

if you have to if you have to run

7:26

off on the way Cuz I took

7:28

a couple of sips before our chat and

7:30

I'm also gonna take care of business Appreciate

7:38

that level of planning always come prepared

7:40

that is me. Okay, so

7:43

that's how coffee can affect the gut and From

7:46

there caffeine starts getting absorbed in

7:48

your bloodstream. Okay depends on your

7:50

body But this takes about half an hour

7:52

to an hour to peak so caffeine's in

7:54

your blood It gets

7:56

the blood-brain barrier and it just sails

7:59

right past it I talked

8:01

to Astrid about this. When I

8:03

think of coffee entering our brain,

8:05

I just imagine my brain is

8:07

a sponge that just soaks up

8:09

the coffee. Is that

8:11

kind of right? Yeah, why not? Yes,

8:13

because you know you drink your coffee

8:16

and all of a sudden your

8:18

whole body, including your brain,

8:21

gets invaded by these caffeine

8:23

molecules. In the brain

8:25

it stimulates some neurotransmitters, including dopamine, and

8:27

that gives us a bit of a

8:29

mood boost. But the big

8:31

thing that caffeine does in our brain is, of

8:34

course, that it wakes you up. Yes,

8:37

it's plain to fame. And

8:39

this happens because caffeine basically

8:41

barges into the brain and

8:43

elbows out this molecule called

8:45

adenosine from these special

8:47

receptors. And what

8:49

adenosine is, it's like the sleepy

8:52

molecule. So

8:54

it binds the receptors in your

8:56

brain that basically turn on

8:58

the feeling of sleepiness. So

9:00

caffeine's like, out of my way, I'm

9:02

coming in, I'm going to bind to

9:04

those adenosine receptors. And that

9:06

means you don't feel as sleepy. So just to get

9:09

real nerdy here, it's not that

9:11

caffeine is binding onto

9:13

these receptors and going, let's go! Brain

9:17

get excited! It's rather the lack of

9:20

adenosine, the lack of sleepiness that wakes

9:22

you up. Yeah, and that's what we

9:24

like about caffeine, right? That is the

9:26

whole point that it wakes us up.

9:29

And it's not just about being awake. We

9:31

actually have a lot of evidence that caffeine

9:33

helps us be more alert, more focused,

9:36

and helps us to react to stuff

9:38

faster. This has been quite

9:40

extensively studied. It's clear. So

9:44

if I take a

9:46

stupid example, but you

9:48

are facing a lion.

9:51

If you have been drinking

9:54

caffeine, you will react faster

9:56

and you will run away before.

10:00

Yeah, of course, absolutely. Could make

10:02

a difference and save your life. And

10:04

scientists have actually tested this. They gave free

10:07

coffee to people who were visiting the zoo

10:09

that day, and then they opened the lion

10:11

cage. Amazing.

10:14

And they got away? They got away? Some

10:16

got away, some didn't. That's

10:18

right. They were in the full SIVA group. We're less likely to

10:20

get away. We are joking.

10:23

No, there are no lions. But there

10:25

is one small study that suggests that

10:28

caffeine really could save your life. So

10:30

this study, researchers had people stay up really late

10:33

and then drive a car on the highway in

10:35

the middle of the night. This is a real

10:37

car at a real highway. Oh my God. They

10:40

had a driving instructor in the next seat who

10:43

could take over control, so things were getting bad.

10:45

Thank goodness. So the scientists were

10:47

counting how many times people veered out of

10:49

their lane when they had placebo

10:51

versus when they had coffee. And

10:54

it turns out the coffee made a big difference. The

10:57

number of times people veered over the

10:59

lane went way down after people had

11:01

coffee. Okay. The powers of

11:03

caffeine. Yes, right. And then I found

11:05

this study that just made me laugh

11:07

because it's just such a funny concept.

11:10

The scientists really wanted to find out

11:12

if coffee can make us

11:14

appreciate humor more. When

11:18

we are sleep deprived, we kind of lose our

11:20

sense of humor. It takes a hit. So

11:23

the researchers were wondering, would caffeine give us

11:25

back our sense of humor or improve that?

11:28

And I don't know if you know this, Wendy, but there

11:30

is a scientific test

11:32

of sense of humor. Oh my gosh. That was

11:35

entirely my next question. What

11:37

is the joke that scientists ask

11:39

that they're like, if you find

11:41

this funny, you have a good

11:43

sense of humor? And you're operating on full cylinders.

11:46

Yes. So they would show them two

11:48

different pictures and ask which picture is funnier

11:50

or more podcast appropriate. They

11:53

would have them read two different

11:55

headlines, fake news headlines, and ask which is funnier.

11:57

So here's an example. I'm curious if you're

11:59

going to answer that. to get it right. I feel

12:01

very cocky about my sense of humor. Okay,

12:03

so here's the here's example. Which

12:05

of these two headlines is funnier? Veterinarian

12:09

investigates failed panda mating.

12:11

Headline one. Or panda

12:14

mating fails, veterinarian takes over.

12:16

That's headline two. Which is

12:19

funnier? Headline two is funnier

12:21

because it suggests. I

12:23

mean headline one isn't funny

12:25

at all, right? Headline two

12:27

suggests just something really, really

12:30

disturbing actually. And

12:33

the third headline is veterinarian f***

12:36

panda. You're

12:41

right, it is the second headline. Yes.

12:44

According to science that is objectively funnier. Which I

12:46

guess it is. Although I'm so proud of them

12:48

for being a little bit naughty.

12:51

Well it turns out that the caffeine in

12:53

this case did not help people. So bottom

12:55

line caffeine may not improve your humor but

12:57

we have lots of

13:04

evidence to show that it's not a

13:06

myth or a placebo effect. Like caffeine

13:08

does help us wake up,

13:10

stay up, stay alert. So that

13:12

brings us to something that

13:15

people actually worry about with caffeine. That

13:17

it's keeping you too awake.

13:19

That it's messing with your sleep. Yes.

13:23

I have worried about this too and

13:25

in fact cut down on caffeine because

13:27

I've been worried about this. So let's

13:29

meet Gregory Marcus. I'm just gonna move

13:31

my dog. He's a cardiologist

13:33

and a professor of medicine at UCSF.

13:36

If you could be any caffeinated

13:38

product which caffeinated product would you be?

13:41

Oh cappuccino no doubt. I

13:43

guess he says himself as serious on the bottom

13:45

but like a little bit frothy and sweet on

13:47

the top. You know he didn't refer

13:50

to himself that way but based on my conversation

13:52

with Greg I would say that's an accurate description

13:55

of him. Buttercup has been removed

13:57

for the moment. So,

14:02

Gret did this pretty unique study

14:05

where he got people to either drink

14:07

coffee or not drink coffee at random,

14:10

and then he was able

14:12

to precisely measure exactly how

14:14

that affected their sleep. Ooh,

14:16

okay. So, they recruited about 100

14:19

coffee drinkers in San Francisco. They

14:21

put a bunch of stuff on them. They wore

14:23

a Fitbit, which measured how well they slept and

14:26

their steps, and they wore a portable

14:28

heart monitor. So it's essentially

14:30

like a very big band-aid, and

14:33

it goes on the chest

14:35

to the left of the sternum, essentially.

14:38

And interestingly, in the middle of the sticker,

14:40

there's this big button. We instructed them

14:42

to just push that button whenever you have a

14:45

cup of coffee or a caffeinated drink.

14:47

So you have your coffee, and you hit your button. And

14:52

one way they made sure that people were doing

14:54

what they were supposed to do, you know, not

14:56

drinking coffee if they weren't supposed to that day.

14:59

They had everyone in the study get this app

15:01

on their phone that allowed

15:03

the team to monitor their location.

15:07

So the team could see if

15:09

they visited coffee shops. So

15:11

if they went to a coffee shop on a

15:13

day they weren't supposed to have caffeine, that would

15:15

be highly suspicious. Would

15:18

there be like a button that goes off in

15:20

your office, like a flashing red light? Would they

15:22

get an electric shock? Yeah, that's

15:24

a good idea. That's

15:28

exactly what I was thinking. Well

15:31

luckily for the people in the study, we

15:33

didn't design it. We did not get

15:35

shocked. Oh, okay, okay. So I'm

15:39

gonna go out of a lib here, Rose, and

15:41

say that on average coffee

15:44

did affect people's sleep. Yes,

15:46

but the key question here is how much? Because

15:48

there is this idea that coffee just really

15:50

robs you of your sleep. Well,

15:53

in reality, Greg found... On

15:56

days where people were randomly

15:58

assigned to consume coffee... saying

18:00

like actually what the science says is

18:03

this is very dependent on your genetics

18:06

and and and those

18:08

blanket statements are kind of bollocks yeah

18:10

okay so that's sleep the great study

18:12

looked at something else that people

18:15

don't necessarily associate with

18:18

having a cup of coffee and

18:20

that is exercise so

18:22

on top of measuring sleep he

18:24

also measured how many steps they took every day

18:26

and on days

18:29

randomly assigned to coffee participants

18:32

on average exhibited

18:34

a thousand more steps on

18:37

those days what that's a lot it

18:39

is a lot and in fact there's

18:41

other evidence that that

18:44

magnitude of a difference

18:46

may be meaningful in the

18:48

long run in enhancing longevity

18:50

oh wow yeah for example

18:52

one study found that older women who take

18:54

five thousand steps a day live

18:56

longer than similar women who took four thousand

18:58

steps a day oh that's cool and it's

19:02

not just step count we actually have a lot

19:04

of data showing that caffeine can

19:06

help us athletically so when people

19:08

have caffeine before they exercise they

19:10

tend to go a little harder

19:12

so like people will

19:14

be able to run for longer or for

19:17

example do more squats go there's a

19:19

study that looked at swimmers doing a

19:22

1500 meter race so that's a

19:24

almost a mile and I

19:27

found that having some caffeine beforehand

19:29

shaved 23 seconds after turn

19:32

compared to a placebo and having

19:34

caffeine before exercise is considered

19:37

safe as long as you don't overdo it

19:39

like the equivalent of one or two coffees

19:41

before exercising Wow and

19:46

so why is that happening well you know

19:48

how caffeine can boost your dopamine so that

19:51

might be like putting us in a better

19:53

mood so we can work harder and we

19:56

also know that caffeine can kind of turn

19:58

the dial down on feelings of Pain.

20:00

It's why some painkillers have caffeine

20:02

and them. So. Maybe athletes

20:04

aren't feeling the bern quite as

20:06

much. And then finally,

20:08

there's some evidence that caffeine can

20:11

actually increase the amount of calcium

20:13

getting released by ourselves, which could

20:15

make your muscles work better. Wow!

20:17

So. Any the still feel guilty about

20:19

your talk about the coffee. Oh.

20:24

No. Thus

20:26

far know but at the same time.

20:29

We. Haven't really talked about risks

20:31

yet. Good point. So next

20:33

we're going to talk about. His

20:36

caffeine addict is. And what's

20:38

going on with the scary stories we

20:40

hear about people dying after drinking energy

20:43

drinks and that's coming up to south

20:45

The this quick. Coffee.

20:47

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Basket A on the so we

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are asking said you Quincy caffeine

21:28

suggest spit out your coffee, spill

21:30

your t on the floor, Say

21:32

goodbye the energy drinks. Rage.

21:35

Unless you producer it's advises is telling

21:37

us all about it. Heroes A Windy.

21:40

So. The next thing I want to

21:42

dive into is this idea that you can

21:44

get addicted to caffeine. Mean

21:46

out and I think a lot that

21:48

comes from the site. Terrible drawl that

21:50

some people have when they stop it

21:52

now. caffeine withdrawal. it. Is. A real

21:55

thing. And people who quit coffee

21:57

all the sun and totally feel safe.

21:59

Like about. So

24:00

you can kind of easily tip yourself over

24:02

when you've had more caffeine

24:05

into that anxious feeling. And

24:07

if you're starting to feel that way, you know,

24:09

many people would probably put down their third venti

24:12

frappuccino of the day at that point. Yes.

24:14

So this kind of a natural cap for

24:17

most people on how much caffeine we're going

24:19

to drink every day. Yeah.

24:21

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, because

24:24

recently I did, I guess we're in the middle of the

24:26

season. It's a hard, it's a hard place

24:28

to be. And I was, I

24:31

did start drinking, I was like, I'm just going to

24:33

drink more coffee. And it did make me feel anxious.

24:35

And so I was like, no, no, no, just go back to

24:37

one of the cups. Like just, yeah, this isn't

24:40

go for a run instead or whatever. Yeah, it's

24:42

not like worth it to

24:45

most people. Yeah. At a certain point.

24:47

And you know, this just can be

24:50

different if you're mixing caffeine with other

24:52

drugs, that's more dangerous. But bottom

24:54

line, caffeine is not considered a

24:56

drug of abuse. There

24:58

is no caffeine use disorder in the

25:00

DSM, you know, the big manual for

25:03

psychiatric disorders. It's been proposed,

25:06

but right now it's not officially in there.

25:09

Okay. So, so

25:11

for now we could say the science

25:13

says caffeine isn't really that addictive. Is

25:16

that where we're at? I think so. I think

25:18

so. I think yeah. Yeah, I think

25:20

so. So that's far. All right. It

25:23

doesn't. It's

25:25

really not seeming like caffeine is that bad. And

25:27

I'm trying to think why I thought caffeine

25:30

was bad for you. I actually might have an

25:32

answer. In

25:34

the 90s, there was

25:36

news that coffee was associated

25:39

with bladder cancer. Oh, really?

25:42

But that has been debunked in more

25:44

recent years. Turns out it was

25:46

not a real association. But

25:49

even if you don't remember that stuff about

25:51

bladder cancer, I think that sort of percolated

25:53

so to speak in the culture and we

25:55

haven't quite gotten over it. Plus

25:58

there's a lot of fears.

26:00

around pregnancy and caffeine. Right.

26:03

And that is something to think about because we know

26:05

that caffeine can cross the placenta and get to the

26:07

fetus. And so drinking a lot of

26:09

caffeine when you're pregnant isn't recommended.

26:12

But you know, health guidelines from around the world,

26:15

they say you can have one or two cups

26:17

of coffee a day if you're pregnant. Right.

26:19

You know, overall, just putting aside pregnancy, I

26:22

walked away feeling pretty reassured about

26:25

caffeine because here's

26:27

something that I thought was like really

26:29

kind of great. So it turns

26:31

out that people who drink coffee

26:33

have a lower risk of Parkinson's

26:35

disease, depression, type 2

26:38

diabetes, and heart disease.

26:40

Really? And although we once thought coffee

26:42

was carcinogenic, more recent studies have found

26:44

that it actually might reduce your risk

26:46

of some cancers. What? Like liver and

26:49

breast cancer. Are you kidding me? Are

26:51

you sick? Like, yeah, and

26:53

even drinking coffee is associated with being less

26:55

likely to die earlier. So

26:58

the biggest benefits are seen in people who drink two

27:00

to three cups a day. But

27:03

even at higher amounts, we still have people

27:05

apparently getting some benefit. Like

27:08

one study looked at people drinking as much as

27:10

eight cups of coffee a day and found they

27:12

still lived a little longer than people who didn't

27:14

drink any coffee. Wow. Yeah, I mean, there aren't

27:16

that many people that drink eight cups of coffee

27:18

a day, so that's kind of a smaller sample

27:20

size. But I think the

27:23

point stands that the science suggests like

27:25

coffee is not actively harming you. And

27:27

caffeinated tea also seems to be good

27:29

for us. I mean, are we sure?

27:32

Are we sure about this? Like, why would

27:35

caffeine, why would coffee and tea have these

27:37

benefits? And nobody totally

27:39

knows. It could have something to do

27:41

with the exercise boosts you get from

27:43

caffeine, because like you said earlier, like

27:45

walking more steps a day. But

27:48

also, it could be that it's not really about

27:50

the caffeine, it's about the other stuff that's in

27:52

the plant. So the coffee bean,

27:55

the tea leaf, there's a lot of stuff

27:57

in there that's really good for us and

27:59

is anti-inflammatory. and it has

28:01

antioxidant potential. Wow, I feel

28:03

like very good about

28:06

my coffees. I was not expecting this

28:08

from science, but thank you. Anytime. So

28:10

then what, I don't

28:12

want to, I don't want to crap

28:14

all over this party. Is that how

28:16

that phrase goes? Yes. Rain

28:22

on your parade. Yes. Is that what? That's

28:29

a very, it's a visceral expression.

28:35

I don't know if I have a good sense of humor.

28:37

I just laugh so much at my own jokes. I

28:40

know Tess, you can take. Great.

28:43

Okay. But, but,

28:46

but, but, but what does this all

28:48

mean about the

28:50

energy drinks issue?

28:52

Because to

28:55

change the tune, to get quite

28:57

serious, like there are these stories about

29:00

energy drinks killing people. So what is, what does

29:02

this mean? Which is the opposite

29:04

of what I just told you about coffee,

29:06

right? Yeah. Well, a lot of

29:08

times what people say is the problem is that

29:11

energy drinks are dangerous because they are packed

29:14

way too full of caffeine. Right. Right.

29:16

But the funny thing is when you look

29:19

at the labels, many of them really don't

29:21

have that much caffeine in them. Oh,

29:23

how much caffeine is in your average energy

29:25

drink? Well, okay. So like this summer, Chuck

29:28

Schumer said that prime energy had an eye

29:30

popping amount of caffeine. So

29:33

I looked at the label of prime. It

29:35

contains 200 milligrams of caffeine.

29:37

What? What?

29:40

Like two, two shots of espresso. That's it?

29:42

That's it. Yeah. Two, two or three, depending

29:44

on how you make them. I

29:46

love that you were like, so I went

29:49

deep undercover. I

29:51

bought a prime and I turned

29:53

it around and I looked at the

29:55

label. And of course you can overdose on

29:58

caffeine. Uh, the toxic. effects

30:00

are thought to start at 1200 milligrams,

30:02

which is about six

30:04

cans of prime. And there

30:07

are case reports of people drinking a

30:09

bunch of energy drinks and being hospitalized.

30:12

But here's where things get mysterious. There

30:16

are reports of people, often

30:18

younger people, dying after drinking less

30:21

than that, which suggests

30:23

this isn't just about caffeine.

30:27

And Professor Sachin Shah saw

30:29

reports like that in the news and

30:31

thought, hey, there's something going on

30:34

here. You

30:37

know, it was actually a little bit sad at

30:39

points talking to Sachin because he's actually been

30:41

in touch with the parents of kids who have

30:43

died after drinking energy drinks. We've had

30:45

emails from other countries, one

30:48

where somebody's like, I've kept the

30:51

drink that my kid drank

30:53

from the time when they drank

30:55

it just in case it helps

30:57

future scientists. I'm happy

30:59

to give you that drink. The

31:02

top breaking. Yes. So

31:04

Sachin, who's a professor of pharmacy at

31:07

the University of the Pacific in California,

31:10

he wanted to know why would

31:12

anyone die after drinking a couple

31:14

of energy drinks. Yeah. So to

31:16

get to the bottom of it, he did the

31:19

study where he got people to drink a

31:21

couple of energy drinks and then looked at

31:23

what their heart was doing. Because typically what

31:25

we see in these cases is that someone's

31:27

heart stops beating shortly after drinking

31:30

energy drinks. So he got

31:32

these volunteers to come into the lab. He hooked

31:34

them up to an EKG. Many people

31:36

see this on TV shows when they have somebody

31:38

in the hospital. They're connected to this screen.

31:41

They're lying in the hospital and they

31:43

show this squiggly line. Yes. That's looking

31:45

at your heart's rhythm. Yes.

31:49

Just to avoid us putting the sound effect in. Oh,

31:51

it's thinking ahead. Okay. So they've drunk

31:54

the energy drinks and then he monitored

31:56

them. And one hour, two

31:58

hours, four hours, six hours. and

32:00

24 hours. And he was

32:02

looking at this particular part of our

32:04

heart's rhythm that's called the QT interval,

32:08

which is basically looking at how long

32:10

it takes your ventricles to contract after

32:12

every beat. And if

32:14

this takes longer than normal, it can

32:16

throw your heart into something that's called fibrillation,

32:20

which is like instead of going squeeze,

32:22

squeeze, squeeze, your heart starts

32:25

quivering like a

32:27

nervous chihuahua. And the

32:29

problem with that is that your heart isn't

32:32

actually pumping out any blood and you

32:34

can die. Oh man. Okay,

32:37

so did the energy

32:39

drinks mock up

32:41

the QT interval? So yeah,

32:44

so you know what was interesting is

32:46

in that first study we found that

32:48

energy drinks were prolonging the QT interval

32:50

by 10 milliseconds. A follow-up

32:52

study he did found this again. That

32:55

the energy drinks extended the QT interval

32:57

by this time six

32:59

milliseconds. And Sachin

33:01

points out that several drugs have been pulled from

33:03

the market for prolonging the

33:05

QT interval by six milliseconds. Wow.

33:09

Okay, so if I were to drink the

33:11

equivalent caffeine from what

33:13

he gave them, but in

33:15

coffee, would my QT interval

33:18

be extended like that? No. Studies

33:21

have also looked at this for caffeine or

33:23

for coffee and they don't find the same

33:25

thing. And actually in Sachin's

33:27

study and one of his studies,

33:29

they included a caffeinated control and

33:32

it didn't do the same thing

33:34

to people's hearts. So if energy

33:36

drinks are doing this, why

33:39

aren't heaps of people like

33:42

getting heart attacks and dying after drinking

33:44

energy drinks? I mean millions of people

33:46

must be guzzling this stuff and only

33:49

a handful have died or so? Yeah,

33:52

I mean it's not like anyone in Sachin's study had

33:54

to be rushed to the hospital. Right, right. But the

33:57

thinking here is that there are some people who could

33:59

be really vulnerable. interval to this. Like

34:01

people who have heartbeats that are already

34:04

have kind of a long QT interval

34:07

and then the energy drink might extend it

34:09

even more. That could tip you over into

34:11

Chihuahua territory. Right. Right.

34:14

Once they actually found this, it gave energy

34:16

drinks to people with a heart condition like

34:19

that and found that the drinks

34:21

extended their QT interval in such a way it

34:23

was actually dangerous. And

34:26

it's worth pointing out that the woman

34:28

who died after drinking caffeinated lemonade at

34:30

Panera reportedly she had

34:32

a heart condition like this. And

34:35

we did reach out to Panera for comment, but they didn't

34:37

respond. Aha. So then,

34:40

so then can we go back to that point?

34:42

Like if it wasn't the caffeine, if

34:44

it's not the caffeine doing this, then

34:47

what is it in energy drinks that's

34:50

causing this? Yeah. I

34:53

mean, in session study, they tested a couple of

34:55

different brands. They both had caffeine,

34:57

taurine, which is an amino acid and

35:00

a supplement called glucuronoelectone, which

35:02

is found in a lot of energy drinks, like

35:05

Red Bull. So this is the ingredient. This is

35:07

how we get wings. Is that right? This

35:10

is the wing recipe. Yes.

35:12

Okay. So all this

35:14

stuff together seemed to extend the

35:16

QT interval. But then I found this one study

35:19

that tried to really get to the bottom of

35:21

which ingredient is the bad guy here. So they

35:24

basically deconstructed a Red Bull and had people

35:26

drink a few of the components one at

35:28

a time while they were hooked up to

35:30

an EKG, just like Sachin. And

35:33

after drinking the Red Bull volunteers

35:35

had a prolonged QT interval, but

35:39

none of the individual

35:41

components did this. What?

35:43

Neither did the combination of caffeine and taurine

35:46

together. So I asked Sachin about this. What

35:48

do you think is in these energy drinks that causes these

35:51

changes? That's the million dollar question. You

35:57

know, I was having coffee with my brother the

35:59

other day and he said that There is always

36:01

a point in the sides versus episode where the

36:03

side just says, yeah, we don't really know what's

36:05

going on. And I

36:07

guess this is that point. Yeah, we've arrived at

36:09

that point in the episode. And

36:12

of course, it's also really hard to say what's

36:14

going on when this is probably very, very rare,

36:16

you know, people drink

36:18

energy drinks all the time and very few people

36:20

in a hospital. Okay,

36:23

so here is what

36:26

I think I have learned from this episode, Rose

36:28

Rimla. Tell me how I

36:30

did. Let's hear it. And if I pass

36:32

the test, I have

36:34

a good sense of humour. Is that

36:37

what we learned? Yeah. Yes.

36:39

Keith Claus. Caffeine truly does

36:42

make me poo very

36:44

quickly. It

36:46

got a bit to sleep, but very

36:48

much dependent on genetics. So dare I

36:51

say, listen to your body and

36:53

not what people online

36:55

might be telling you about what you should and

36:57

should not do with caffeine. And

36:59

meanwhile, it might reduce your risk

37:02

of depression if you're drinking coffee

37:04

and tea. What

37:06

did you say? He has Parkinson's

37:08

diabetes, diabetes and energy drinks. There

37:10

is something weird about them. So

37:12

if you are looking for a

37:15

boost, it's safer to go

37:17

with tea or coffee. How'd

37:20

I do? A plus people.

37:22

I'm not surprised. And

37:25

you as a prize, I sent

37:28

a case of prime to your house. So

37:33

don't drink it all at once. Excellent.

37:36

Cheers. Rose. Cheers.

37:38

But before you go, Rose. Rose.

37:40

Rose. I'm here. I'm

37:43

still here. Okay. Okay. How

37:46

many citations are in this week's episode? This episode was the

37:48

first time I've ever opened so many tabs that

37:50

my browser stopped displaying

37:52

them. Like I reached the limit

37:54

of how many times I can have a.

38:00

getting to the end of your Instagram feed, you're like, oh, no.

38:02

Um, but, uh,

38:05

what is in the script is that we have 118 citations. A

38:09

hundred and 18. Okay. Yes. And,

38:11

um, if people want to see these citations,

38:13

find out where we got all of our

38:15

info from, where should they go? They

38:18

can click the link in the show notes that will

38:20

send them to the transcript. Excellent. And,

38:22

um, I guess while people are scrolling

38:25

through Instagram, um,

38:27

and hitting the end, if you have hit the end of

38:29

your Instagram, you could just come over to science versus

38:31

what you think was that a segue? It was like, yeah.

38:35

Um, we are

38:38

at science, our disco VS. I'm on

38:40

TikTok at Wendy's Zuckerman and we

38:42

will see you next week. Thanks.

38:46

Rose. Thank you. This

38:52

episode we produce five words, remember, we help from

38:55

me, Wendy Zuckerman, as well as Nick Delver, Del

38:57

Rana and Michelle. We're edited

38:59

by Blythe Terrell, fact-checking by Sarah Baum,

39:01

mix and sound design by Boomi Hidaka.

39:03

Music written by Bobby Lord, Boomi Hidaka,

39:05

Emma Munger and Peter Leonard. Special

39:08

thanks to all of the researchers

39:10

that we spoke to for this

39:12

episode, including Dr. Brian Saunders, Dr.

39:14

Sergey Feret, Professor Andreas Hines, Professor

39:17

Christine Curran, Dr. Erica Lufffield, Dr.

39:19

Felix Oberhoffer, Dr. Alan Wayne Jones

39:22

and Dr. Vijay Yadav. Extra

39:24

special thanks to Jason Bitler-Sill and the

39:27

Zuckerman family. Science versus is a Spotify

39:29

Studios original. You can listen to us

39:31

for free on Spotify or wherever you

39:33

get your podcast. So we are everywhere

39:35

that podcasts are, I guess, for

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a lot of places. If you

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are listening on Spotify, follow us and tap

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whenever we put out a new episode. And

39:46

if you like us, wherever you are listening,

39:48

please give us a five-star review. I'm

39:51

Wendy Zuckerman, back to you next time. Yeah.

40:00

Now, it's not all fun

40:02

stuff like rectal probes. The same of your sex

40:04

tape. It's not all fun and rectal probes. No,

40:08

the sex tape is called all fun

40:10

and rectal probes. Right. We

40:17

can't only talk about rectal probes on this

40:19

episode. We also, unfortunately, have to talk about

40:21

some unpleasant stuff.