Mood enhancement trivia...

[helen99]

I just received the Thinkgeek catalog, which has a line of teeshirts with caffeine molecules printed on them (I have one). Recently they've added a chocolate molecule to their line of shirts. The two molecules looked so much alike that at first I thought they were identical. There is a difference, though. The first image is caffeine, and the second one is chocolate.

Comments

[dogemperor.livejournal.com]

So technically caffeine is methyltheobromine? Nifty :D (And it does explain why they have similar, if not identical, effects.)

(And yes, Wikipedia does at least seem to confirm the chemical structure of caffeine as methyltheobromine, of a sort; caffeine article notes specifically that most plants that naturally contain caffeine also contain the related xanthine alkaloids theobromine (which not only is the stuff that makes chocolate Happy Stuff but is also a mild bronchodilator--you can give it to rats with respiratory problems, and I've found if I'm feeling particularly bronchial-cruddy some 90-100 percent cacao stuff does quite the trick to clear my chest out) and theophylline (which is typically used for asthma and is much stronger than either caffeine or theobromine).

[helen99.livejournal.com]

I just found a couple of scientific studies about the anti-tussive effects. For some reason, even though I usually don't eat candy, I always have my 87% Dagoba... It always felt more like food than candy.

[sheekayt.livejournal.com]

There is a distinctive difference between chocolate and candy. I only very rarely eat chocolate flavored candy (usually when I'm low-blood-sugar desperate and it's the only thing on hand)

[helen99.livejournal.com]

I had a little bit of "chocolate" candy on Friday (someone brought in a big brick of what amounted to dove-bar-like substance). It was pretty gross...

This is da stuff: Chocosphere...
Noir Infini 99%
Dagoba 87%