The Effect of Caffeine and Nicotine on Heart Rate

Abstract

The use of caffeine and nicotine raises the heart rate of individuals who use the chemicals. Many statistics have shown that the use of the chemicals on college campuses is at a high percentage, we want to test how which one of these chemicals raises the heart rate the most. We tested these chemicals on a daphnia heart because it is very similar to the human heart in structure and the daphnia is transparent making it easy to see the heart through the microscope. We conducted six trials for each of the chemicals, comparing 1 mM of nicotine and 1% of caffeine. We came to the conclusion that nicotine affects the heart rate the most. We expect these findings to be in the interest of those college students who use nicotine on a daily basis, to show how dangerous it is.