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Food'n'drink Health

Medicinal reasons

I’d been meaning to write about this anyway, but one of Richard’s Twitter posts reminded me: If only more medical problems could be solved by simply ingesting more caffeine. The world would be a better place.

Indeed.

The cluster headaches I suffered from last summer did return this year, but happily the medication has been very effective at curbing them.

When there is a twinge over and above what the medication can handle, as the Wikipedia article notes, caffeine can make a difference.

I don’t normally drink Coke — overall it’s not a very healthy thing to consume — but have found slurping down a can provides of enough of a burst of caffeine to help a lot.

So as my sister commented (when she gave me some unwanted cans), I drink Coke for medicinal reasons.

PS. It appears that Coke Zero contains the same amount of caffeine, but no sugar, which might be a better option when one requires a medicinal caffeine infusion, though in fact a cup of tea appears to be an even better option.

By Daniel Bowen

Transport blogger / campaigner and spokesperson for the Public Transport Users Association / professional geek.
Bunurong land, Melbourne, Australia.
Opinions on this blog are all mine.

2 replies on “Medicinal reasons”

Coke does not have as much caffeine as a cup of coffee or tea. Strongly brewed tea can have more of a jolt than strong coffee. Chocolate also contains some caffeine too. I drink Coke Zero to avoid the excess sugar in regular Coke and it tasts practically the same. Diet Coke has a different taste to me. I believe Coke Zero uses Splenda and Diet Coke uses Equal (aspertame)as the sweetener. Caffeine can also be taken in a pill form such as No Doz. I don’t know if No Doz (a stay awake pill) is sold in Australia. Perhaps a Chemist would have an Australian version.
I find ibuprofen works best when I have a headache. I realize ibuprofen is not much of a help for cluster headaches. When my grandmother had these headaches NOTHING worked to end them. Only asprin helped slighty.

One of the reasons I don’t like drinking colas is the inclusion of Phosphoric acid, this gives the coke a nice tang but is also the main ingredient in alloy wheel cleaner and other products to disolve oxides.
If you see an ingredient “food acid E338” that’s it and is in most colas as natural food acid like citric acid is more expensive to produce. Even Wiki has some warnings about consuming this chemical:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosphoric_acid

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