What is the Most Consumed Drug in America?
By Aya Ighneim
By Aya Ighneim
Caffeine, but if you said cocaine or heroin you are not entirely wrong as caffeine shares many of the same addictive traits as these two drugs. More than 100 million people in the United States consume caffeine a day. Caffeine helps relieve tiredness and improve concentration and focus, so what makes it so bad for our bodies? Like any other drug, caffeine is addictive. There is a reason, with the exception of water, why coffee is the most bought drink not just in America, but the entire world. You drink a cup of coffee one morning, the next morning your body is craving for it and that’s not accidental. Look of course there are positives for caffeine. Such as staying awake and alert when you are sleep deprived as it helps improve your physical performance. Plus, if you just so happen to be bald, caffeine can in fact help stimulate hair growth and even increase semen volume in men, but hopefully these two things are irrelevant to people reading this article. The true issue is that small doses of caffeine are not going to hurt you, but having it constantly that it is integrated into your diet will.
 Caffeine and Adenosine have a very similar molecular structure, which can cause the brain receptors to mistaken the two.
Most Americans do not see the harmful impacts of caffeine because unlike a characterized “drug” caffeine does not have an immediate effect. However, the truth is long lasting effects are far more harmful. Statistics prove that people that consume caffeine have a 21% higher chance of early death than those who don’t. Also, when looking at young people, whose brains are developing, the consumption of caffeine is even more harmful. It interferes with sleep and an importance of being able to learn is to simply have enough sleep. So why does caffeine keep us awake? Well in our brain there is this chemical called Adenosine, when this binds to a certain receptor it causes the nerve cell level activity to slow down so a person can sleep. When caffeine enters the body, it has a similar structure to Adenosine and mistakenly binds to these receptors in the brain. Then when it’s time for the Adenosine to bind to the receptors and signal it is time for sleep, it’s too late as caffeine has already taken its place. So instead of the brain activity slowing down, it’s sped up resulting in very little sleep and a not so functioning day at school or work the next day. So, what exactly is caffeine and why has chemistry helped us identify it? Well caffeine is a chemical compound, C8H10N4O2 (now, quick, what is the empirical formula?) to be exact. It is an alkaloid, which means a chemical compound that contains Nitrogen and occurs especially in seed plants. This molecule was first extracted from cocoa beans, (doesn’t that explain why we love chocolate so some much) in 1819 by a German chemist named Friedrich Ferdinand Runge. The extractions of caffeine are quite interesting and guess what’s involved, none other than chemistry of course. Caffeine can be extracted from natural sources like plants or the use of synthesis from uric acid, as seen in the image below. But a much more fun and manual way to extract the caffeine from items like coffee beans is through water extractions. Here are the steps scientists take to create decaf coffee through water extraction: 1. First, soak raw coffee beans in distilled water over a long period of time 2. Next, use a charcoal filter, which will help filter out the caffeine from the water and all the other compounds, leaving only the flavor compounds. 3. Lastly, the solution with the caffeine taken out is placed back into the original coffee beans and evaporated. Congrats now you know how to create a healthy and non-drug like coffee. 
The creation of Caffeine through synthesis of Uric Acid.
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