theo|digital

I had missed this when it happened. Back in November, the HealthSaver Caffeinated Cities Survey (a phone poll conducted by Prince Market Research) declared that the most caffeinated city in America is: Chicago.

Yeah. Bring it on.

The Top Ten – Most Caffeinated to Least:

1. Chicago
2. Tampa
3. Miami
4. Phoenix
5. Atlanta
6. Houston
7. Boston
8. St. Louis
9. Seattle
10. Los Angeles (sorry JR)

I noticed because of a poorly researched health column in Sunday’s Chicago Trib. Kelly James-Enger repeated the general folk wisdom that coffee is bad for you (you can get shakes!). The study she cited? One that reviewed cases of caffeine overdose from caffeine pills. It looked at 265 total cases. Compare to the significant studies released in 2006, one of which followed 27,000 women for 15 years showing reduced heart risk. Or the AMA certifying that you can substantially reduce risk of type 2 diabetes with coffee. And discovery that it has much more antioxidants than tea.

Ms. James-Enger, please do better homework.

Okay, okay. This might be a soapbox issue for me. Tough to tell, you know. I’m calming down.

Back to the point, my favorite stat from the HealthSaver survey:

Over one-half of Seattle respondents (58%) stated that coffee would
be the most difficult caffeine food or drink to give up…

Even though so many indicated that coffee would be difficult to give up, 71% of Seattle respondents said they are not addicted to caffeine.

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(ps – texas, ohio, rhode island, vermont vote today.)