The Coffee File

1. DEAD

In very large doses, caffeine is a potent poison. Just 10 grams (about 70 – 100 cups of coffee) can be fatal to humans. Here are some examples

In 2001, 3 people in Sweden died after taking Red Bull, a high-caffeine energy drink popular with partygoers and the overworked. Two of them had mixed the drink with vodka while a third consumed several cans after working out in a gym. Malaysia subsequently banned Austrian-manufactured (“blue-can”) Red Bull and the import of Thai-manufactured (“blue-brand”) Red Bull.

About 20 people have died in Australia from caffeine toxicity. One of them was a 25 year old woman with a heart condition who had a heart attack after drinking a herbal tonic (guarana), unaware that it contained high levels of caffeine.

The great French novelist Balzec’s (1799-1850) addiction to caffeine is said to have driven him to drink excessive coffee (as some schizophrenic patients are observed to do today) and may have killed him.

2. INSANE

A woman prescribed 45 mg of pure caffeine tablets to overcome long-term fatigue became nervous, restless and could not sleep at night. She increased the dose to pep herself up for a party. Shortly afterward she became “silly, elated and euphoric”.

She continued to increase the dose to 1,800mg. She became “confused, disoriented, excited, restless, violent and exceedingly profane”. Finally she collapsed and was hospitalised.

Five weeks later, she again took the same excessive dose and was hospitalised when she became “wild”, with “manic screaming, kicking and biting”. She had to be transferred to a psychiatric hospital where she had to be kept tied to a bed.

It took almost 2 months before she recovered mildly. When coffee (and tea) were kept away from her, she soon became entirely normal and was dismissed from hospital.

- Actual case reported in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1936

3. INTOXICATED

Just 1 gram of caffeine (about 7-10cups of coffee) can produce acute toxic effects, from insomnia and restlessness to delirium.

A 17 year old Australian student with no police record robbed a supermarket at gunpoint in May 2001 – a day after drinking up to 11 cans of caffeine-laced energy drinks.

                He was convicted of armed robbery and sentenced to a 4-year suspended jail term. Psychiatric and medical evidence tendered to the court suggested that he could have been suffering from “caffeinism” or caffeine intoxication, a psychosis triggered by too much caffeine.

                Professor of nervous and mental diseases at the New York School of Clinical Medicine T.D. Crothers cited a case of coffee psychosis in his 1902 book, Morphinism and Narcomanias from Other Drugs.

                The case concerned “a prominent general in a noted battled in the Civil War; after drinking several cups of coffee he appeared on the front of the line, exposing himself with great recklessness, shouting and waving his hat as if in a delirium, giving orders and swearing in the most extraordinary manner. He was supposed to be intoxicated. Afterward it was found that he had used nothing but coffee.