Question

A typical cup of tea contains about 25 milligrams (mg) of caffeine. Every hour, approximately 3% of the amount of caffeine in the body is metabolized and eliminated.

Answers

GPT-4o mini
To understand how caffeine is metabolized in the body after consuming a cup of tea, we can set up a basic model that outlines the amount of caffeine remaining over time.

Let's break it down step by step:

1. **Initial Caffeine Amount**: You start with 25 mg of caffeine in your body from the cup of tea.

2. **Metabolism Rate**: Every hour, about 3% of the current caffeine in your body is eliminated. This means that 97% remains.

3. **Caffeine Remaining Over Time**: The amount of caffeine remaining after \( t \) hours can be described by the equation:

\[
C(t) = C_0 \cdot (1 - r)^t
\]

where:
- \( C(t) \) is the amount of caffeine remaining after \( t \) hours,
- \( C_0 \) is the initial amount of caffeine (25 mg),
- \( r \) is the rate of elimination (0.03),
- \( t \) is the time in hours.

Plugging in the values, we get:

\[
C(t) = 25 \cdot (0.97)^t
\]

4. **Calculating Caffeine Levels Over Time**:
Let's calculate the caffeine remaining after several hours:

- **After 1 hour**:
\[
C(1) = 25 \cdot (0.97)^1 = 25 \cdot 0.97 \approx 24.25 \text{ mg}
\]

- **After 2 hours**:
\[
C(2) = 25 \cdot (0.97)^2 = 25 \cdot 0.9409 \approx 23.52 \text{ mg}
\]

- **After 3 hours**:
\[
C(3) = 25 \cdot (0.97)^3 = 25 \cdot 0.9127 \approx 22.82 \text{ mg}
\]

- **After 4 hours**:
\[
C(4) = 25 \cdot (0.97)^4 = 25 \cdot 0.8858 \approx 22.15 \text{ mg}
\]

- **After 5 hours**:
\[
C(5) = 25 \cdot (0.97)^5 = 25 \cdot 0.8601 \approx 21.50 \text{ mg}
\]

5. **Longer Term Effects**: This pattern continues, and you can continue calculating caffeine levels for as many hours as you'd like using the formula provided. The amount of caffeine decreases gradually, but will never reach zero in a finite number of hours due to the nature of exponential decay.

Feel free to ask if you have any specific time frames you want to calculate or other questions related to this topic!