Sunday, December 17, 2006

Now what am I supposed to do?

About an hour ago, right before I was about to crack open my first coke of the day, Phil sent me a link to a website that was going to tell me about what happens to my body when I drink a coke. Without thinking ahead to what potential implications this information could have for my paper-writing mission, I went ahead and read it:
  • In The First 10 minutes: 10 teaspoons of sugar hit your system. (100% of your recommended daily intake.) You don’t immediately vomit from the overwhelming sweetness because phosphoric acid cuts the flavor allowing you to keep it down.
  • 20 minutes: Your blood sugar spikes, causing an insulin burst. Your liver responds to this by turning any sugar it can get its hands on into fat. (There’s plenty of that at this particular moment)
  • 40 minutes: Caffeine absorption is complete. Your pupils dialate, your blood pressure rises, as a response your livers dumps more sugar into your bloodstream. The adenosine receptors in your brain are now blocked preventing drowsiness.
  • 45 minutes: Your body ups your dopamine production stimulating the pleasure centers of your brain. This is physically the same way heroin works, by the way.
  • >60 minutes: The phosphoric acid binds calcium, magnesium and zinc in your lower intestine, providing a further boost in metabolism. This is compounded by high doses of sugar and artificial sweeteners also increasing the urinary excretion of calcium.
  • >60 Minutes: The caffeine’s diuretic properties come into play. (It makes you have to pee.) It is now assured that you’ll evacuate the bonded calcium, magnesium and zinc that was headed to your bones as well as sodium, electrolyte and water.
  • >60 minutes: As the rave inside of you dies down you’ll start to have a sugar crash. You may become irritable and/or sluggish. You’ve also now, literally, pissed away all the water that was in the Coke. But not before infusing it with valuable nutrients your body could have used for things like even having the ability to hydrate your system or build strong bones and teeth.
Normally I read this sort of stuff while I am drinking a coke and have no problems at all, but, perhaps due to mild sleep deprivation, I am a little more vulnerable than usual right now to these kinds of scare tactics. Given that I have gone through a case of 12 in the past two days, I fully expect that all the calcium has been leached out of my bones, and that the next time I get up, my legs will be all mushy and structureless. Needless to say, the coke is still in my bag unopened.
Until my goldfish-like memory kicks in, and all I remember is that I have a coke in my bag.