Obsession (Food groups with Tighty Part Deux)

Have you been there?

I was the other night. It was 3am in my local casino cash game. I’ve just gone all in by betting into a dry side pot. I smiled and turned my cards over content in the knowledge that I have the nuts. The dealer then points forcefully at the other two cards lying untouched by my elbow. I’m playing Omaha. Unfortunately I’ve played as if playing hold-em. Two hours previously I was table captain, now I am the captain’s bell-boy. I slink off, vowing to be better prepared next time. Either that or even more dosed up than I was three hours previously.

If this has ever been you too, perhaps the problem is that you didn’t have enough stimulants in your system? Or maybe you had too many. Unless your table line up consists of rich action addicts, newbies and Mad Turk you need to be playing at your optimal level every hand. The alternative is to consider a decline into penury and £5 rebuy comps. One and the same thing really.

Which product is right for you? Well we have to start with the granddad of them all, a stimulant which if it were introduced today would be immediately put on a restricted list by regulatory agencies worldwide. Caffeine.

Caffeine belongs to a class of chemical compounds called alkaloids. Its brothers and sisters in this family include nicotine, cocaine, morphine and heroin. They all work on the brain in similar ways, caffeine and nicotine being the most visible members of this dysfunctional family. Ninety per cent of us use Caffeine every day. Most of us use it in the form of coffee, helping coffee beans become the second most traded commodity by value on the international exchanges, behind only crude oil. Were I to keel over tomorrow, it would immediately drop to third behind wheat.

Sleep, which some of us occasionally need in between online poker sessions, comes when adenosine, a chemical bi-product of energy production, binds with the adenosine receptors in your brain. A liquid alkaloid like caffeine tricks these receptors and binds with them instead. It takes the receptors to the local nightclub and makes them want to party. Sleep is averted. It also constricts your blood vessels. This is why heavy coffee drinkers get headaches when they stop; your blood vessels dilate. It’s also why some pain relievers contain caffeine to help ease headaches.

Along with the constricted blood vessels comes increased neuron firing. This alerts your pituitary gland which then faxes the adrenal gland to trigger the fight-or-flight response, releasing adrenaline into your blood stream. The adrenaline in your bloodstream then affects the level of dopamine in your brain. It's the dopamine that turned you into a caffeine addict in the first place. So, there you have it: tricky compounds, constricted blood vessels, rapid heartbeat, adrenaline, and dopamine. Sounds good doesn’t it? You don't just love that coffee and cigarette, you need it, which is fine. You're an alkaloidaholic. Just be a functional alkaloidaholic.

If you never seem to win and you think pot odds refer to drug paraphernalia, I have to say that no amount of caffeine will help you, and you should come to my casino quick. One 12-ounce cup of coffee contains 200 mg of caffeine; the same amount of tea has 140 mg. A 12-ounce can of Coke has 50 mg, and 1 ounce of chocolate has 6 mg. Keep in mind that caffeine has a half-life of six hours. So, let's examine a typical healthy snack of two mugs of coffee, a cup of tea, a can of coke and a pound of chocolate. That's 826 mg of caffeine in your system! Six hours later you're still going to have 413 mg coursing through your bloodstream. So when you start to wane, be sensible about your caffeine intake and don't have an entire snack again. Have only half a snack the second time around. Or skip the tea. If, at 826 mg, you've still got those neurons firing like a Peugeot Chief Executive trimming middle management, you don't need another 826 mg six hours later; 413 mg will suffice.

For some people, caffeine alone just won't do. Not to worry. In 1987, an Austrian named Dietrich Mateschitz had this great idea for a tiny can dressed up with a blue and silver coat of arms. Dietrich was dying to sell it to the public. Someone said, "You should put something in the can first." So, after searching the world over, he chose a variation on a popular Thai elixir. He called it Red Bull. And while I can think of six million reasons not to trust an Austrian, I must say this stuff works.

With 80 mg of caffeine and 27 grams of sugar, it's no wonder Red Bull is effective. But, in addition to loads of B-complex vitamins, it also has 1,000 mg of taurine and 600 mg of glucuronolactone. I don't mind 80 mg of caffeine and 27 grams of sugar. I don't even mind a fifth of tequila to go with it, but 1,000 mg of taurine and 600 mg of glucur-, glucuronol-, of that other stuff? Red Bull may work, but is it safe? No one knows for sure. However, several rumours surrounding Red Bull prove not to be true.

The first rumour is that it's made from bull testicles. This is false. One sip can tell you that. It tastes nothing like bull's testicles. It tastes much worse.

The second is that glucu-rono-lactone is a derivative of bing bang a bong. It is not. And while it can be used as a substitute for bing bang a bong and has met with some success filling for wing wang a wong it is a carbohydrate and therefore wholly independent of all novelty song choruses.

The most pervasive rumour surrounding glucuronolactone is pure hoax. It has the US Army in the early 1960s secretly synthesizing this stimulant and then using it on soldiers to boost morale in Vietnam. The suggestion was that its use was discontinued after soldiers developed brain tumours or found it too difficult to pronounce. Either way, the U.S. government supposedly banned it. This rumour is easy to debunk. Anyone who knows anything about American foreign policy during the Cold War knows that American GIs used heroin, opium, and prostitutes to boost morale.

The second ingredient in Red Bull that warrants a head-scratch and a "Huh?" is taurine. It turns out that taurine is a conditionally essential amino acid. It's so called because we need it and our bodies can't produce it. Now the other amino acids pick on taurine because it isn't used in protein synthesis. Shame on them! Taurine plays an essential role in bile acid metabolism! It emulsifies dietary lipids in the intestine! It promotes digestion and aids in detoxification! Take that, you other amino acids. Apparently, it's really important.

Now, don't panic that you're suffering from taurine deficiency. You're not. You're suffering from something else. Even if you are, you can find products rich in taurine in special stores. Stores that sell food. Taurine-rich substances like meat and fish are often at such stores. Ask around, there may be one in your town or city. Just don’t forget your clubcard.

The really good news about taurine is that it has met with some success in treating cardiovascular disease, epilepsy, muscular degeneration, Alzheimer's, and alcoholism. So if you're prone to forgetting about spasmodic fits of blind drunkenness, there's hope. At least a there might be a clinical trial for you somewhere.

There's not a lot of information on how exactly Red Bull works. It's not a substitute for your morning pot of coffee. I tried it, but at 11 am the body craves caffeine, and 80 mg just won't do. But as an early-evening pick-me-up it's quite effective. My guess is that the caffeine gives you a quick boost, which keeps you up until the sugar kicks in, which then helps ignite the carbohydrate glucuronolactone as a longer-lasting energy source. All of this while the taurine is amping up your digestion. The net result is that you get a burst of energy that is sustained over several hours, without the caffeine crash.

If only it tasted like bull's testicles.