It was obvious all along. But the caffeine paranoia lobby has been lying and spouting nonsense to such an extent that many people had become confused. Inaccurate, unscientific rulings by the bureaucrats posturing in the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), to the effect that it is unsafe to combine alcohol and caffeine, made the waters even murkier. Now the journal Addiction has published a definitive study by researchers at Brown University proving that combining alcohol with caffeine in no way confuses the consumer of these beverages and does not make the consumer falsely believe that he is less affected by alcohol than he actually is. Further, these studies demonstrate that combining caffeine with alcohol does not alter the degree or quality of alcohol intoxiation. In other words, there is no reason to be charry of downing an Irish coffee (a shot of Irish whisky mixed in a cup of coffee), much less to worry about less potent beer and caffeine mixtures, such as Four Loko.
Dr. Damaris Rohsenow, professor of community health and the associate director at Brown’s Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies, said that her study began in response to widely held beliefs that caffeine would undo the sedating effects of alcohol, impair your ability to judge how drunk you were, and stimulate you into doing alcholically impaired and dangerous things.
This study, conducted at Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies, compared the effects of alcohol and of alcohol combined with caffeine on impaired driving performance, shortened attention span, and slowed reaction times. In the simulated driving study, Dr. Rohsenow said that alcohol caused participants to weave and go over the center-line or off the road. But the addition of caffeine had no effect.
“More surprising,” said Dr. Rohsenow, “was that participants did not think they were any less intoxicated with caffeine than they felt without caffeine.”
Jumping on the caffeine paranoia bandwagon, the Federal Drug Administration had told the four biggest manufacturers of alcoholic “energy drinks” that the caffeine in their beverages was not a safe additive and the companies were forced to reformulate. Obviously, despite the FDA’s misdirected efforts, it is clear that well informed people are not going to stop mixing these ingredients on their own.
CAFFEINE MUGS GALORE!!!!
