Eric Katz
4/4/15
Bio 33 Sec 6
Dr. Marie McGovern
Assignment 3
Caffeine and the Heart Rate

I see people every morning getting their caffeine fix from coffee. I know that this is done to keep them energized and moving for the day ahead, like they say “America runs on Dunkin”. Sitting on the train I seen an advertisement sponsored by Sci Show it said “Did you know? The average person would need about 300 cups of coffee to over dose on caffeine.” I was honestly amazed at this fact. Sitting there I started thinking what effect caffeine (specifically coffee) has on your heart rate? Is it faster than a body without the routinely consumption of caffeine? If so how faster is it with caffeine? To really find out what happens to the heart rate with the consumption of caffeine I will conduct an experiment. This experiment will hopefully tell how caffeine effects the heart rate. From my observation of caffeine consumers, caffeine would have a drastic effect on the heart rate of a non – caffeine drinker than compared to the everyday caffeine consumer. A non-caffeine drinker like myself, heart rate would increase drastically higher and faster than an everyday caffeine consumer. In this experiment my independent variable would be the caffeine in the beverages I serve. My dependent variable would be how the caffeine from the beverages effect the heart rate. The control group in my experiment would be the caffeine consumers and the experimental group would be the non-caffeine consumers. The materials needed to test my hypothesis are five adults that consume caffeine (specifically coffee), Five adults that do not consume caffeine on an everyday basis, a box of joe from Dunkin Donuts, 10 medium sized Dunkin Donut cups, relaxing music so the test subject can stay relaxed (we need the heart to be as relaxed as possible). Also a clock and stopwatch, eye mask to blind fold the test subject, and last a notebook to record your data. Now on to the procedure of the experiment, the first thing I will need to do before I go on to conducting the actual experiment is learn how to read a pulse. I will learn how to accurately take a person’s pulse. After I learn how to successfully read a person’s pulse I am ready to move on to the actual experiment. Step one I will make sure that I record each subjects name and label the non-caffeine consumers and the caffeine consumers. After I am done labeling their info, I will have to ask and record the test subject’s caffeine consumption habits. Step two I will arrange a time to test each adult. The testing will approximately take three hours split into two days. Day one I will test the caffeinated group and in day two I will test the non-caffeinated group. I will test all subject at around the same time of day which will be morning time be before they have had any caffeinated drinks. I will also ask of them not to consume and foods or liquids. I want their bodies to be empty from foods and liquids so the