FDA To Review Inhalable Caffeine

First time accepted submitter RenderSeven writes "Manufacturing.net reports that U.S. Food and Drug Administration officials plan to investigate whether inhalable caffeine sold in lipstick-sized canisters is safe for consumers and if its manufacturer was right to brand it as a dietary supplement. AeroShot went on the market late last month in Massachusetts and New York, and it's also available in France. Consumers put one end of the canister in their mouths and breathe in, releasing a fine powder that dissolves almost instantly."

not inhaled

[greghodg]

It's not "inhaled." You puff the powder into your mouth, it dissolves in the saliva in your mouth, then you essentially swallow the saliva+caffeine and it's absorbed in your digestive system. No better or faster than any other caffeine that you swallow, and I guarantee a bottle of Vivarin is going to cost a HELL of a lot less than this gimmick.

Re:FDA review means little

[causality]

Are you aware that ancient Egyptian tombs have been unsealed and were found to contain honey thousands of years old that was still edible? It's an excellent preservative.

I'm aware that this fact is repeated often on the internet but nobody's ever been able to provide a citation that doesn't cite another, that cites another, that leads on in a circle forever. Regardless, such practices are unregulated and there is no tracking or auditing, so if something that wasn't honey made it into production, or if it contained botulism (yes, honey can indeed become infected with pathogens, le gasp)... there would be no way to trace it back to its source. That was my point. If the Egyptians happened to be really good at preserving things, you know, like people and honey, well all the more power to them. However, this is not Egypt during the time of the Parohs.

The statements of the obvious ("this isn't ancient Egypt" etc.) reveal a slight impatient hostility on your part. It's not my fault you chose a weak example.

The principle here is that honey has such a high concentration of varous sugars and such a low concentration of water relative to those, that it provides an environment quite hostile for microbes. Osmosis across their cell membranes would tend to dehydrate them. It's similar to what happens when food (or whatever) is packed in salt. For this reason honey was once used to dress wounds in order to help prevent infection.

Knowing something about its nature is an alternative to dealing with any circular citations you might encounter. At least if your sole concern is whether you are likely to be harmed by eating "expired" honey. I for one am not worried about this at all, but as I am not a doctor, nutritionist, or other such practitioner I'm not telling anyone else what they should do. I simply consider it more than coincidence that such a widespread practice of selling expired honey (assuming I accept that at face value) hasn't resulted in reported cases of food poisoning like we saw with tainted spinach, cantaloupe, et al in recent years.