Thirty billion cups of coffee are consumed annually in France alone.

Coffee procures the same effect as a number of other foods and drinks containing caffeine. This explains the popularity of tea and cola drinks, as well as of cacao and chocolate, whose main active agent is closely related to caffeine's.

In this book, two eminent physicians who are also pharmacologists reveal the chemical secrets behind these pleasure-inducing products, which all contain xanthines.

What is the impact of these products on our health? Besides procuring pleasure, how do they affect the brain, sleep, moods, etc.?

• What should we drink? How? When? How much? What is to be feared? What are the benefits? The authors reveal the latest scientific truths on some common light drugs.

Jean Costentin is a member of the French National Pharmacy Academy. He directs a research unit on neuro-psycho-pharmacology, in association with the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS).

Pierre Delaveau is an honorary professor at the University René Descartes-Paris-V, a member of the National Academy of Medicine and a former president of the National Pharmacy Academy.

Costentin and Delaveau are the authors of Les Médicaments du cerveau (1993) and Halte au cannabis ! (2006).