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caffeine conundrums

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sydney casey

on 4 December 2013

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Transcript of caffeine conundrums

Caffeine Conundrums
List common foods/drinks that are sources of caffeine. How much caffeine is found in each?
Each is based upon per serving size
Diet Coke=39 mg
Hersey's Chocolate Bar=9 mg
5 hour energy=138 mg
Starbuck's double shot=130 mg
Brewed Tea=47 mg
What is the chemical structure of caffeine? What class of chemical molecules does caffeine belong to?
What are common physiological effects of caffeine consumption?
Where in the body does caffeine act?
Propose reasons why Alex and Jenna feel the need to consume caffeine while Sally does not. Why does Jenna feel that she needs more caffeine than Alex?
Caffeine is an alkaloid. It looks like (next slide)
Caffeine acts upon the parasympathetic nervous system essentially actly like a drug or adrenaline by increasing herat rate, eye dilation, and contracts blood vessels.
It acts upon the nervous system and other major organs in the body.
Jenna's body has built up a resistance to caffeine thus it takes more to act upon her. Alex and Sally do not have that addiction because they aren't regular users.
What are G-protein coupled receptors? Where are these receptors located in the cell? How do they work? Draw a diagram.
What is an antagonist for a receptor? What would an antagonist do? Draw a diagram to explain this.
How would caffeine binding to an adenosine receptor affect the activity inside the neuron? Refer to your diagram for Question 1.
Adenosine inhibits other neurons in the brain. Specifically, it inhibits the release of excitatory neurotransmitters and decreases the effect of dopamine. During the day, adenosine levels rise, and adenosine acts on its receptor to inhibit other neurons. Specifically, what effects would caffeine have?
How does caffeine get into the brain? Hint: Look at the chemical structure of caffeine.
G-Protein couple receptors sense chmicals outside the cell and depending chemical will allow it inside.
This is the entire reaction
An antagonist binds to the receptor to either allow or to stop all incoming chemical messages
Since Caffeine isn't a natural occuring chemical in our bodies (at least not in the portions we intake) when it binds to adenosine receptor but doesn't activate it, thus shutting it down.
Since Caffeine stops adenosine from binding this creates a increased amount of dopamine which can cause changes in cognitive perspective as well as decrease fatigue.
When soluable in water Caffeine enters the through the blood brain barrior. I wasn't able to understand the molecular binding... :(
Describe the biological basis for Parkinson’s Disease (PD). Include specific molecules and cells involved in the pathogenesis of PD. What groups of people are most affected by PD? What treatments or cures are available for PD?
What questions could Sally ask her grandfather about PD that might be useful for the students’ biology project?
Based on the graph below, what do you conclude about Parkinson’s Disease? What other information would you need to properly assess the data? Propose additional ways of performing this experiment in a more controlled environment. What variables would you need to consider in your experimental design?
Generate hypotheses to explain your conclusion(s) above. Suggest experiments to test your proposed hypotheses. Be sure to include appropriate controls in your experiments.
Would caffeine be considered an effective treatment option for Parkinson’s Disease? Why or why not?
Dopamine is the main contributing drug to Parkinson's disease. The shortage of it causes the brain to become unable to control movement which eventually leads to seizures and low movement speeds. The elderly are the most common to have Parkinson's disease. There have been to attempts to find cures through synthetically creating Dopamine however it hasn't lived up to the expectations. A Robin William movie is based off this (forgot the name).
I thoguth Sally's idea was pretty stupid because what is her senile grandfather going to tell her that online doctors can't? I guess a good question is what type of remedies/medications are the doctors doing to slow the progession?
It shows that caffeine lowers the chances of PD incidences. A possible experiment would be to have a huge case study of 1000 people in a 20 year old range, they record their weekly caffeine intake and see how many develop PD as they age. I'd start wiht 40 year olds. Possible variables would be age, sex, race, caffeine intake, current activity level, and stress.
If the patients consume over 400 mg of caffeine daily they will be at a lower risk of getting PD as opposed to the patients who don't consume any caffeine. Proper controls would be age, dietary regularities (one person doesn't only eat skittles for their entire time in the survey), daily exercise, body fat percent.
No because the data is based upon a prevention method of PD. Consuming caffeine to combat PD would have very short term results and probably end poorly.
Both Sally and Jenna record their MAP and cardiac output while resting and not under the influence of caffeine. Shortly after both take the same sample size of caffeine and in 15 minutes record the MAP and cardiac output.
Using the students as subjects, design an experiment that will help them determine the effects of caffeine on MAP over time. Predict the results for each student. Use the equations above to help explain the results.
What is vasoconstriction? If vasoconstriction is a result of caffeine signaling, describe the changes that would occur in MAP.
Vasoconstriction is the narrowing of blood vessels which increases blood pressure, thus is would increase "MAP."
What is an average MAP reading? Calculate Jenna’s and Sally’s MAP (at rest and with caffeine) using the systolic and diastolic readings provided in the tables below.

Jenna epinephrine levels blood pressure
resting 290 pg/mL 120/80
with caffeine 291 pg/mL 120/81

Sally epinephrine levels blood pressure
resting 292 pg/mL 113/75
with caffeine 290 pg/mL 130/95
The average for Jenna's resting MAP is 70, with caffeine it's 70.5.
Sally's average resting Map is 87.66, with caffeine it's 106.66.
Propose biological and physiological differences between Jenna’s heart rate and Sally’s to help explain the data above.
Since Jenna is used to the effect of caffeine in her body she displays a much smaller change in the rate of her heart. Sally on the otherhand is not used to the affect and changes dramatically because of it.
Give examples of common catecholamines and describe how they work. If Sally was given a beta-blocker, what would you predict would happen to her heart rate? Why? What about for Jenna?
An example of a common catecholamines would be epinephrine, it acts by binding to adrenergic receptors. If Sally was given a beta blocker is wouldn't lower her heart rate to the exstent that it would lower Jenna's. This is because beta blockers act upon the body almost the complete of how caffeine would. Since Sally's heart is calm due to regular circumstances and Jenna's isn't, more would happen to Jenna's body.
If catecholamines are involved in increasing heart rate, how do you explain the data in the chart provided? What alternative biological/molecular/cellular explanations can you provide to explain the data?
I believe that catecholamine are released when caffeine is digested by the body, thus the increase in heart isn't exactly the direct response to caffeine.
If hypertension is characterized by beta-receptor down-regulation, what will happen if someone who has hypertension consumes caffeine?
There will be an increased amount of blood pressure in their body which can heart disease, hardening of the arteries, and strokes.
Although she is unaware, Jenna is suffering from caffeine withdrawal. List common symptoms of caffeine withdrawal.
Caffeine withdrawal symptoms include Irritable
Muscle stiffness
Difficulty concentrating
Headaches, moderate to severe
Chills and/or hot spells
What is the timeframe for the onset of these symptoms? How long can they last?
The symptoms will start 12 hours after taking the last dose of caffeine, the worst will be between 24-48 hours. Symptoms can last for 1 week. I almost want to try this, I've never experienced withdrawal and at least this drug is legal :D
Sally offers Jenna some medication to try to alleviate her headache, which is caused by dilation of blood vessels in the brain. Explain why you think many headache medications contain caffeine.
Caffeine is a fast acting drug that makes you feel better better all around. It's similar to the joke that coca cola adds cocaine in their soda to get people addicted.
Compare and contrast “drug dependence” and “drug addiction.” Based on this comparison, justify under which category you would place caffeine consumption.
The connotation I get from drug dependence is that you need the drug to survive. Type 1 diabetes are drug dependent, cocaine addicts aren't. Caffeine would defiantly fall under drug addiction because you don't need it to live. However heroin addicts would be under both until they are weened off the drug.
Explain the mechanism by which adenosine contributes to caffeine dependence or addiction.
I'm going off of what I learned in biology becauase I couldn't find anything specifically for caffeine. Due to caffeine blocking the chemical receptors of adenosine after binding, adenosine will stop firing as frequently. Thus when caffeine is no longer there adenosine will take several day to start firing at the frequency it was previously at (I looked up other people's response to this question and it seems like they didn't know it either, I felt like I had to include that because I wasn't sure if I was allowed too...)
Explain how dopamine can contribute to caffeine dependence or addiction.
When the body digests caffeine, dopamine levels increase, thus the addict gets used to feeling the extra affects of dopamine in their system. When caffeine is withdrawn, dopamine levels plummet. This makes the addiction further reinforced.
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