Overdose nation

Ah, caffeine - stimulating, legal, and for many, an absolute requirement to get through the day. But as a recent Topix.net article points out, it's pretty easy to overdose on the stuff:

"If you're brewing your own coffee, the average is about anywhere between 130 to about 200 milligrams of caffeine in a cup of coffee," University of Colorado Health Sciences Center dietitian Bonnie Jortberg said.

About 200 milligrams a day is OK if you're not sensitive to caffeine, according to Jortberg. Lots of people intake a lot more milligrams than that, though.

"If you get a grande Starbucks, for instance, that's about 550 milligrams of caffeine in one of those," Jortberg said.

Hey, that's a lot!

I recently gave up caffeine altogether, since my primary form of caffeine intake was mochas (or what my friend Roz calls "wussiccinos") and I was looking to shave some calories from my diet. Every now and then it occurs to me that I could just try popping caffeine pills in the morning, but so far I haven't killed anyone at work, so it hasn't seemed necessary just yet. I think that thought comes from the same part of my brain that periodically tries to convince me that if I'm not going to smoke (I quit in 1998), I could at least buy nicotine patches...