Beverages>
Captain James T Kirk
...compressed...
Mary Stark
we all want you to die too
Dimwit Flathead
But he just WON'T. He refuses to, even knowing that people think he's terminally annoying.
Flying Wombat
Date: 5 Oct 1994 05:47:27 -0400
Caffeine Craving Gets Official Name
'Dependence Syndrome' Parallels Psychoactive Substance Addictions
By John Schwartz, Washington Post Staff Writer
Kathy Rossiter just has to have her diet Mountain Dew. The pediatric endocrinology nurse freely admits that her cravings for caffeine amount to dependence, and she knows how far she'll go for a fix. As she was going into labor with her second child, she ran out of soda and drove to the supermarket to replenish her stockpile.
"It dawned on me when I'm standing in the checkout line with two six-packs, one in each arm, that this was not a wise thing to do," she recalled. Her baby was delivered safely the next day. Rossiter's condition now has a name, thanks to an article published in today's issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. Roland R. Griffiths and colleagues of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine report on their study that describes "caffeine dependence syndrome."
In findings that will shock no one who gropes for the coffee pot first thing in the morning, the researchers found that "caffeine exhibits the features of a typical psychoactive substance of dependence."
The fact that caffeine can create a physiological dependence has been known for some time. For regular caffeine users - and that includes 80 percent of adult Americans - even a day without caffeine can lead to headache, lethargy and depression, as the same group of researchers found in an earlier study. But the new research puts those physical symptoms in the broader context of the diagnostic framework used by
the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (DSM-IV), which sets criteria for diagnosing substance dependence.
Along with physical withdrawal symptoms, the researchers used three other criteria for dependence under the DSM-IV guidelines, including persistent desire, dose tolerance and unsuccessful efforts to control use - in some cases, despite recurrent physical problems that might be made worse by caffeine use.
Of the 27 people in the study (all of whom identified themselves as being dependent on caffeine), 94 percent experienced withdrawal when taken off caffeine, and the same percentage continued to use the substance despite physical or psychological problems that they associated with the use of the drug. Eighty-one percent had been unsuccessful in efforts to cut use. The researchers found that 16 of the volunteers fulfilled all four of the DSM-IV criteria for a diagnosis of substance dependence.
Griffiths, a behavioral pharmacologist, said his work in no way constitutes an attack on coffee or other caffeine-containing beverages. "This paper doesn't say that you should stop caffeine" if it does not appear to be causing you problems, he said. The researchers suggested further study to establish the prevalence of the condition, and they concluded that "further characterization of the dependence syndrome of the most widely
used psychoactive drug in the world may also serve as a useful model for understanding the dependence syndromes of other drugs."
The study raises broader issues in the arena of federal regulation. The Food and Drug Administration is considering regulating tobacco products based on the addictive nature of nicotine. Opponents of regulation have often tried to show parallels between tobacco and other widely used substances, such as caffeine. FDA officials and medical experts have objected to the comparison, and continued to do so in light of the new study. Jack E. Henningfield, a
scientist at the National Institute on Drug Abuse, called caffeine dependence "a benign drug addiction," and said he disagreed with the logic that says, "if you regulate nicotine you have to regulate caffeine - it's two different animals."
FDA spokesman Jim O'Hara said the agency's authority to regulate caffeine is well established. "The FDA has regulated caffeine as both a food and a drug for many years," O'Hara said. He added that the FDA has the power to restrict levels of caffeine that might be "ordinarily injurious to health," a line that even a double espresso does not cross.
In an editorial, Richard M. Glass, the journal's deputy editor, noted the distinction between "substance dependence" and "substance abuse," a more severe condition in which dependence impairs functioning or interferes with work or relationships. He added that doctors should advise patients who suffer side effects from caffeine - such as anxiety, sleep disturbances, palpitations or stomach irritation - to reduce their intake or quit. 02:14 10-05C9999-----
Megamol
hmm...time for another CocaCola....
Just-George
FW, like was stated in the article, us that grope have known that for years! :)
dragon
yup, yup, yup....
john hinkley
then why dont you kill me stupidass?
Flying Wombat
and on the camping trip this weekend (which I just got back from) all we had was decaf and herbal (mint) tea. my girlfriend is normally hooked on coffee, whereas I never had learned to drink it until we met. but somehow we managed to stay awake. I still don't make any effort to drink coffee or even tea.. unless it's offered. oh well.
Pun master
by the way, sysops who carry this room (and all the other well-established food and drink rooms) are asked to ensure that their callers respect the topics. there are plenty of 'twit' rooms elsewhere on the network, so there is no reason to impose abuse upon the rest of us. thank you.
Flying Wombat
Date: 23 Oct 1994 10:43:57 -0400
India's Battered Tea Industry Seeks New Leaves, Markets
By Molly Moore, Washington Post Foreign Service
RANGAPARA, India - D.K. Subba took a long, loud slurp, rolled the orange pekoe over his tongue and promptly spit a stream of coppery brown liquid into a metal can.
"Prices are disastrous this year," said the manager of India's Empire Tea Plantations, returning the white china cup to the tasting table. "I keep telling my people, 'Quality is now the word. It's the survival of the fittest.'"
The tea industry in the world's largest tea-producing country is facing its worst crisis in modern times. Stripped of its biggest customer with the collapse of the Soviet Union and battered by mounting international pressures from the United States and Europe over child labor, harmful pesticides and inferior teas, India has watched its tea prices and exports plummet to record low levels.
The nose dive in the Indian tea market, the country's largest generator of foreign exchange, is forcing major changes in the 150-year-old, tradition-bound industry. Many industry experts say those changes eventually could mean better tasting, less toxic but more expensive teas on the breakfast tables of the United States and Europe, as well as in the roadside tea stalls of India.
Savvy growers already have begun concentrating on developing higher quality bushes and better yields. Earlier this year, one grower saw the first results of several years' work: a first-flush Darjeeling sold for a record $164 a pound. The average price for Indian tea this year, however, has been about 58 cents a pound, down 18 percent from last year.
For a nation that has used tea to bolster its foreign exchange, pay its weapons debts and help maintain its image as a world leader in the international tea markets, the decline of its tea industry could be devastating. Indian tea officials have watched with dismay as Sri Lanka has stolen the title of the world's largest tea exporter from its giant neighbor for the last three years.
"We had become too complacent," said H. P. Baruah, recent past chairman of the Indian Tea Association. "The market is very competitive. We should be on our guard." Subba, a perfectionist after 31 years in the tea business, patrols his lush green plantations in central Assam State in India's far northeast with an even more critical eye than usual these days. His pluckers, mostly women, seem to float through a waist-high
emerald sea of leaves, fingers snapping the fresh young leaves at the top of the plants. If they are too big, the leaves are too tough; if too small, they are not economical.
"You have to maintain the tops like a billiard table," said Subba, pointing across row after perfectly even row of tea plants. In his nursery, Subba is placing high hopes on a new strain of tea, clinically dubbed TV29, that, if it lives up to its billing, could produce twice the amount of quality leaves as the 25- to 90-year-old bushes now in his gardens.
Inside the processing factories, where freshly cured tea leaves are taste-tested every hour, Subba and his managers pore over the color, liquor and taste of his tea varieties with the same fervor as French wine tasters.
But the Indian tea industry is also under assault from socially and environmentally correct lobbying groups in some of its most promising new markets. Germany, a nation that pays top dollar for high-quality teas and buys an average of 4,400 tons of Indian tea each year, recently began rejecting Indian teas when German tests indicated Indian growers were using too many lethal pesticides.
"Germans are very finicky," said P. K. Bhattacharjee, secretary of the Assam Branch of the Indian Tea Association, which represents about 270 gardens in Assam, India's biggest tea-producing state. "Now we have to be very careful of pesticides." The United States, where surveys indicate tea drinking is on the rise, threatened last year to ban Indian tea imports if the Indian government did not begin taking steps to curtail the
use of child labor on tea plantations. Children traditionally have been used to help pluck leaves and collect harmful insects from the gardens during the dormant winter season. Although tea owners have been ordered to use no one under age 15, child welfare groups estimate as many as 64,000 children work in Assam's tea gardens.
But the single greatest blow to the Indian tea industry has been the loss of its biggest customer and the world's largest tea importing nation, the former Soviet Union, which bought 50 percent of all the tea exported from India. As India's biggest commercial and military trading partner, the Soviet government bought massive quantities of tea in exchange for Indian debts on arms and other purchases. When the Soviet Union disintegrated, India's tea
sales to Russia and other former Soviet states plunged 70 percent.
Upheavals in other parts of the world also have had a severe impact, notably the U.N. trade embargo against Iraq, which had been another major Indian customer.
Thus far, India has been able to offset some of its export losses with an increase in domestic consumption of tea.
"Now people have more money," said Bhattacharjee. "Even rickshaw wallahs (drivers) who would never buy tea before can now buy it."
And at the upper end of the market, the tea tasting palate of India's growing middle class is becoming more sophisticated with consumers willing to pay more for higher-quality teas.
Even so, the Guwahati Tea Auction Center in Assam's capital is struggling to maintain its title as the world's largest tea auction center. The shrinkage of the Indian tea market is evident at every auction.
In the cavernous auditorium where huge air conditioners pump cold air over tiers of desks and buyers sip heavily sugared tea, 60 percent of all sales are made to a single Indian company. On some days no Russian buyers, who used to dominate the auction hall, show up.
"The Russian trade representatives are still vital at the auction," said Dhirendra Bezboruah, editor of the English-language daily newspaper the Sentinel. "The moment the Russian agent is not there, prices come down."
Bezboruah apologized to guests as his servant poured tea: "Would you like some bad Assam tea? All the good tea is exported." <02:41 10-23C9999-----
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