January 21, 2021 – New study suggests coffee helps temporarily counteract the impact of repeated sleep loss on attention and cognitive function
The study simulated sleep restriction (five hours per night) across a simulated busy five-day working week and found that regularly drinking coffee helps reduce impacts to people’s vigilance, alertness, reaction time, accuracy, and working memory.1
A new study exploring the impact of repeated sleep loss during a simulated working week has found that consuming caffeinated coffee during the day helps to minimize reductions in attention and cognitive function, compared to decaffeinated coffee1.
While this effect occurred in the first three-to-four days of restricted sleep, by the fifth and final day, no difference was seen between caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee drinkers. This therefore suggests that the beneficial effects of coffee for people with restricted sleep are temporary1.
It is estimated that over 30% of adult Western populations sleep less than the recommended seven to eight hours on weekday nights and 15% regularly sleep less than six hours2,3. This can have a considerable impact on people’s health and wellbeing, including causing sleepiness and impairing vigilance and attention4.
Denise Lange, study co-author, commented: “Previous research suggests that acute consumption of caffeinated coffee can reduce the impact of sleep deprivation on deficits of attention and cognitive function in a short-term setting. This study is among the first to examine whether this effect can be translated into a real-world situation, where caffeinated drinks are commonly consumed every day by people who experience chronic sleep restriction. Our study indicates that moderate coffee intake can mitigate some repercussions of reduced sleep over a few days, however, this is not a substitute for a good night’s sleep in the long term.”
The study was conducted at the state-of-the-art Institute of Aerospace Medicine, in Cologne Germany. 26 participants carrying a distinct genotype of the gene encoding the adenosine A2A receptor were randomly assigned to groups either drinking caffeinated coffee (containing 300 mg caffeine) or decaffeinated coffee under double-blind conditions. During five days, the sleep of all participants was restricted to five hours per night, and each day they rated their subjective sleepiness and were tested on levels of vigilance, alertness, reaction time, accuracy, and memory1.
VIDEO – Denise Lange, from the :envihab, Institute of Aerospace Medicine in Germany, discusses the relationship between coffee and sleep in day-to-day life. Denise is part of a research team conducting a study to assess the potential role of coffee in improving attention and cognitive functions in the face of prevailing sleep restrictions.
Study authors
Diego M. Baur, Denise Lange, Eva-Maria Elmenhorst, David Elmenhorst, Andreas Bauer, Daniel Aeschbach, and Hans-Peter Landolt
Primary affiliations: Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland & German Aerospace Center, Institute of Aerospace Medicine, Cologne, Germany
References
Ja tak, jeg vil gerne modtage nyhedsbrev, når der er noget nyt om kaffe og helbred.