UTHSC to study caffeine effects with $150,000 grant

Professors at University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC) plan to be the first in the country to study how rapidly caffeine gets into the body after an energy drink is consumed or a caffeine powder is inhaled using an Aeroshot device. Dr. S. Casey Laizure, Professor in the Department of Clinical Pharmacy at the UTHSC College of Pharmacy, recently received a $150,000 grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (part of the National Institutes of Health) to support the study.
 
“I saw on TV that people were getting a buzz from taking this new form of caffeine [Aeroshot],” says Laizure, who has worked at UTHSC for 26 years with an expertise in drug abuse and drug metabolism. “When I looked into it, I found out it is actually a nutrient, meaning there is no regulation by the government. The NIH is interested because they know that people abuse caffeine and alcohol together, and maybe the combination of the Aeroshot and alcohol could be bad like it is with energy drinks.”
 
Over the next two years Laizure will work alongside colleague Robert Parker, also a Professor in the Department of Clinical Pharmacy at the UTHSC College of Pharmacy.  
 
“This is basically a pharmacokinetic study looking at major blood concentrations of caffeine and how it is metabolized,” says Laizure, who explained that study subjects will ingest 100 mg doses from the Aeroshot and energy drinks and that results will then be compared. “The interesting thing about the Aeroshot is that because you take it in so quickly you can take in repeated doses much more quickly than consuming two 8-ounce energy drinks.”
 
The ultimate goal of the study is to analyze new types of caffeine-fortified supplements marketed to young adults that can potentially be abused, especially in combination with alcohol.
 
By Michael Waddell