Comment Guanine isn't Caffeine (Score 2) 215
According to a fabulous book called Buzz, which is about alchohol and cafeine, here's how caffeine works.
When your neurons fire, they excrete, seemingly as a by-product, a chemical which has an inhibitory neuro-transmitter effect. There are receptors on your neurons which uptake this by-product and it makes it less likely for the neuron to fire. Caffeine resembles this by-product enough for it to lodge in the receptors, but not enough for it to WORK as a signal. So the by-product is less likely to be a signal to inhibit the neuron, and thus the neurons keep firing longer, until the concentration of the by-product is high enough in relation to the caffeine to have the slowing effect. The more caffeine you drink, the more of the by-product you need before your brain stops cycling madly on conections.
But if you test performance (in some way) of non-caffeine drinking people before a dose of caffeine and after, then give them the same dose for two weeks, and test them again, you find that the second test of the second set is identical to the first test of the first set. That is, they've completely adjusted to the caffeine.
So after two weeks of constant dosage, you're not getting anything out of it. You're only suffering the effects of not getting it. So the way to get a buzz out of caffeine is to not drink it when you don't need it. OR DRINK A LOT WHEN YOU DO.
But guanine (the active ingredient in guarana) isn't caffeine. It resembles it a great deal, just as the caffeine-like substances in chocolate do (there's also honest-to-goodness caffeine in chocolate). One caffeine-like substance in chocolate is much less potent than caffeine (7 times less?) -- but that's made up for by the fact that there's many times more of it in chocolate than there is caffeine.
So here are a few questions I don't know the answer for: how potent is guanine compared to caffeine per miligram? Is bawls quoting by effect or weight?
And, since guanine is related to caffeine and cocaine (this is a general description I've seen) does it have an addictive quality?
When your neurons fire, they excrete, seemingly as a by-product, a chemical which has an inhibitory neuro-transmitter effect. There are receptors on your neurons which uptake this by-product and it makes it less likely for the neuron to fire. Caffeine resembles this by-product enough for it to lodge in the receptors, but not enough for it to WORK as a signal. So the by-product is less likely to be a signal to inhibit the neuron, and thus the neurons keep firing longer, until the concentration of the by-product is high enough in relation to the caffeine to have the slowing effect. The more caffeine you drink, the more of the by-product you need before your brain stops cycling madly on conections.
But if you test performance (in some way) of non-caffeine drinking people before a dose of caffeine and after, then give them the same dose for two weeks, and test them again, you find that the second test of the second set is identical to the first test of the first set. That is, they've completely adjusted to the caffeine.
So after two weeks of constant dosage, you're not getting anything out of it. You're only suffering the effects of not getting it. So the way to get a buzz out of caffeine is to not drink it when you don't need it. OR DRINK A LOT WHEN YOU DO.
But guanine (the active ingredient in guarana) isn't caffeine. It resembles it a great deal, just as the caffeine-like substances in chocolate do (there's also honest-to-goodness caffeine in chocolate). One caffeine-like substance in chocolate is much less potent than caffeine (7 times less?) -- but that's made up for by the fact that there's many times more of it in chocolate than there is caffeine.
So here are a few questions I don't know the answer for: how potent is guanine compared to caffeine per miligram? Is bawls quoting by effect or weight?
And, since guanine is related to caffeine and cocaine (this is a general description I've seen) does it have an addictive quality?
