Start Me Up

As I sit here thinking I'm kinda edgy, I realize I've just finished my second bottle of Celsius today and it got me to thinking about caffeine.

First off, Celsius is a new bottled "super-water," sold not as a food but as an "energy supplement." On the front of the very cool bottle it says "Celsius: Enjoy the Great Taste of Burning Calories!" It also has a big "No High Fructose Corn Syrup" label on it and you gotta love that.

Ever one to sacrifice myself for blogdom, I bought a case of the stuff to try it out. There's ginger ale, lemon-lime, orange, wild berry, and cola flavors. I had ginger ale and lemon-lime this morning, 16 oz bottle of each. I absolutely adore the taste of ginger, so the fact that both of these flavors are very ginger-heavy is a good thing with me and I love 'em.

Celsius is basically carbonated water sweetened with Splenda and jazzed up with vitamins and a "thermogenic blend" of caffeine, ginger root, green tea extract, guarana extract and taurine...They don't say how much is in their "proprietary blend" (which reads: trade secret), but, boy do I feel GOOD.

Anyhow, I started thinking about caffeine. Coca Cola recently announced that they will begin listing caffeine content labels on all their products, including their much-debated Enviga line. And now Pepsi has announced its own Enviga-like product, Pepsi Max, also laced with caffeine, along with ginseng.

It's all a part of the new buzz, functional foods.

And if that's not enough caffeine for you, sip this through your straw: a recent study has shown that senior adults can benefit from taking in more caffeine. In older adults (over 65), properties in caffeine appear to offer protection against heart disease. The theory is, according to the SUNY researchers, that the older patients' blood pressure is enhanced by the caffeine--the "proactive effect" was only found in patients who didn't have severe high blood pressure.

Interestingly, the protective effect of caffeine was not experienced by people below age 65.

I'm really jiggling my foot now and typing really fast. Wonder if I should save the rest of my Celsius till I turn 65?