The amount of caffeine in seemingly similar high-street coffees can vary significantly. Can it really boost athletic performance? While your body adapts to caffeine’s effects after a while, different people can have very different responses to the same amount of it. This makes it a mood-booster for many people, but can also lead to anxiety after high doses. This promotes increased alertness, while also allowing the brain’s stimulating neurotransmitters (such as dopamine) to run wild. When adenosine – an organic compound that occurs naturally in your body – binds to these receptors, it triggers physiological responses that lead to a decrease in cellular activity, often promoting drowsiness and sleep.Ĭaffeine can fool your nerve cells and bind to these instead, preventing adenosine from doing its thing. It’s all to do with your body’s adenosine receptors, which help to regulate your heart rate, blood flow and sleep-wake cycles. How does coffee wake you up?Ĭaffeine acts as a central nervous system stimulant – making you more alert and focused, but potentially also more irritable and anxious. While a 2008 study found that the effects of a cup of coffee can occur just 10 minutes after ingestion, it said peak caffeine concentration in the blood occurred after 45 minutes. This is why the effects really kick in some time after you start drinking. And if you look at some of the higher-dose caffeine studies and when they have been compared with a placebo, we still see a performance-enhancing effect of caffeine.” “Many researchers use randomised, double-blinded, placebo-controlled trials to try to ferret that out. What about when you actually drink it? “There’s a chance that the use of any supplement will carry a placebo effect,” says Dr Mike T Nelson, a researcher and performance specialist who recently co-wrote the International Society of Sports Nutrition’s position on coffee. They’re at 1,000-1,500mg before lunchtime Nick Littlehales A lot of people have three coffees back to back in the morning. That said, the researchers in the 2018 study suggested that the effect probably had a placebo element, with the expectation of improved performance proving at least partly responsible. Another study, from 2018, found that subjects did better in tests of analytical reasoning after a whiff of the good stuff. Just inhaling the scent of coffee can improve memory and stimulate alertness, according to a 2019 study of 80 18- to 22-year-olds. The effects may start before you even take a sip. But what does it actually do to you? You might have a vague idea that caffeine wakes you up, wrecks your sleep and can aid sporting performance, but do you know how much you can drink safely? Considering that a typical americano contains more than 100 biologically active ingredients other than caffeine, what do you know about the drug you are glugging two or three times a day? What is happening inside your body when you have a double espresso in the morning? How quickly does it act?
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