When I saw this contraption that says “Coffee + Hit = You are FIT!!” at Le Musee de Fumeur, I did not know whether to be shocked or humored. In our previous NBB402 class, we read an article about the beneficial cognitive effects cocoa flavanols (found in coffee) can have (Karabay et al., 2018). However, we did not discuss any of the ways taking a hit (quickly smoking something) could benefit one. The idea that coffee and smoking could somehow have a synergistically beneficial effect to enhance one’s fitness seems counterintuitive since smoking is known to have many detrimental effects on one’s lung health. This makes me wonder how caffeine and nicotine taken together at a high dosage could affect one’s cognitive function (whether it is beneficial or detrimental).
Citation:
Karabay, A., Saija, J. D., Field, D. T., & Akyürek, E. G. (2018). The acute effects of cocoa flavanols on temporal and spatial attention. Psychopharmacology, 235(5), 1497-1511. doi:10.1007/s00213-018-4861-4