WORCESTER TECH SCIENCE CLASS
What seems to be a problem
 Teenagers caffeine addiction is a rising issue.
 More teenagers are consuming caffeine dealing with
stress and sleep prevention.
 Caffeine may cause short or long term
hypertension (high blood pressure) that can damage
of blood vessels.
 There are some unproven concerns regarding caffeine
causing DNA mutation???
Hypothesis
Objectives
 I wanted
if caffeine has any effect on
teenagers’ blood pressure.
 The Chemical molecule of caffeine is very similar to
DNA and caffeine may replace DNA causing mutations
Materials
 Blood pressure kit
 Stethoscope
 Coca Cola cans
 Alcohol wipes
 Camera
 Participants (volunteers)
 Clock
 Images of DNA molecule
 Images of caffeine molecules
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Caffeine
Hypertension
Hypotension
Diastolic
Systolic
DNA Deoxyribonucleic Acid
Nucleotides( A= T; G=C )
Adenine A
Guanine G
Cytosine C
Thymine T
Procedures
 Parents’ permission slips for student participants.
 Measure student’s blood pressure before
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consumption of a single Coca Cola can.
Participants consume only one Coca Cola can per day.
Measure the blood pressure after 30 minutes and 60
minutes of consumption of all fifty participants.
Do analysis with gathered data
Compare DNA molecule and caffeine molecule.
Draw a conclusion.
Measuring blood pressure before
Measuring blood pressure after
Name of
Participates
Before
Drinks
After 30
Minutes
After
60
Minut
es
Participant #1
95/70
100/80
100/76
Participant #2
100/70
110/75
100/50
Participant #3
110/60
120/75
106/82
Participant #4
110/60
110/80
120/90
Participant #5
110/70
110/65
100/76
Participant #6
110/70
110/70
100/60
Participant #7
110/80
120/60
120/70
Participant #8
120/60
108/68
120/70
Participant #9
120/77
118/70
110/50
Participant #10
120/78
123/70
110/80
 Data of blood pressure of 10 most affected participants
G
Diastolic
140
120
100
80
Before Drinks
60
30 minutes after
40
60 minutes after
20
0
Systolic
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
Series 1
30
Series 2
20
Series 3
10
0
Observation
 Overall, ten students out of 47 or 21 % of participants resulted in a
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increase of blood pressure by ten degrees after consuming a single
coca cola within 30 or 60 minutes.
Two out of 47 participants or 4% resulted in a increase of blood
pressure after 30 minutes drinking a single can of Coca Cola.
After 60 minutes 2 out of 47 or 4% of participants had anther
increase of blood pressure compared with 30 minutes ago.
Some participates blood pressure after 30 minutes would go up and
after 60 minutes it would actually go back down.
For some participants, there was a very small fluctuation of blood
pressure resulting in either increase or decrease of blood pressure.
Four out 47 or 8.5 % of participants resulted to have no effect on
caffeine in blood pressure after they drank the Coca Cola can.
Three out of 47 0r 6.4% participants acted as control (no
consumption of coca cola) and there was no changes on blood
pressure after 30 and 60 minutes.
Expected Conclusion
 Everybody’s organism works in a different way dealing
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with caffeine.
Overall, at least 25 % of participants had a short term
increase of blood pressure after 30 – 60 minutes of
consumption of a single coca cola can.
More tests are required to determine if caffeine has a long
term effect in hypertension.
8.5 % of tested students can actually handle caffeine
and their blood pressure did not fluctuate.
More research is needed to determine if caffeine can
replace DNA nucleotides because of similarities of both
molecules.(future research)
Acknowledgment
 We are thankful to my science advisor, Mr. Guri Dura,
for helping throughout of this project providing
science materials, time, and problem solving.
 We are appreciative to all my classmates who
volunteered in completion of this project and their
parents who granted permissions for tested
participants.
 We are graceful to my family for their encouragement
and support in completion of this project.