Drinking coffee to extend late-night cramming may be a boost to anyone’s grades, but it is definitely not beneficial to a person’s health.
A study published in the January issue of Pediatrics showed caffeine intake may have an effect on the sleeping habits of teenage students, said Dr. Charles Pollak, a neurologist in the Ohio State University Medical Center’s Division of Sleep Medicine.
The study started when a student named David Bright came to Pollak and asked him for suggestions for a research project in one of his honors classes. Pollak said he was interested in how teenagers’ sleep patterns varied and if caffeine intake had an effect on their amount of sleep.
To Pollak’s knowledge, this study has never been conducted before.
The study was done in Upper Arlington in 1998 and involved 191 students ranging from seventh to ninth grade.
Students were given a questionnaire each day for two consecutive weeks asking them questions about their sleeping habits and how much caffeine was consumed.
“Our main objective was to see whether their consumption of caffeine affected their sleep,” Pollak said.
The study showed teenagers are more likely to consume caffeine on certain days of the week, Pollak said.
Students will tend to delay their sleep on the weekends by going to bed later and waking up later. This may be because caffeine is more available during the weekends, Pollak said.
“When they go to school, they cut their sleep short, which causes them to become increasingly sleepy as the week goes on,” Pollak said.
Pollak said soda machines are too available to teenagers, as they are located in schools.
“The main point that was not expected was that there was a strong correlation of caffeine intake with sleep. The days when they had more caffeine they slept less well,” Pollak said.
Pollak said he looked for foods the participants may have eaten that contained caffeine.
He discovered the normal consumption of caffeine intake for a teenager is about 62.7 milligrams a day, or equivalent to one cup of strong coffee, Pollak said.
Jenny Mastro, 16, explained that sometimes she feels dependent on her caffeine intake from drinking soda.
“I normally drink about two cans of pop a day. It depends on how tired I am,” Mastro said.
Mastro explained she would drink caffeine in order to stay awake to study for her classes.
“I used to drink a lot of it, but now I’ve been trying to get off of it by drinking lots of water instead,” Mastro said.
Although Pollak’s study did not involve college students, he said the ideal form of caffeine for a college student is coffee.
Brandon Taylor, a freshman in business management, agreed with Pollak’s statement.
“I always drink around four cups of coffee a day,” Taylor said.
Taylor said he not only drinks coffee because he like it, but also because he feels coffee relaxes him and helps him sleep better.
“I used to be on Ritalin when I was in the fifth grade. Ritalin is a stimulant, and so is coffee, so it helps me to calm down,” Taylor said.
Pollak’s study did not notice a difference in caffeine intake with different ages. He said other studies would be necessary to supplement his study and learn about age differences and other factors.
Pollak’s study also did not review caffeine’s effect on the students’ performance in the classroom. However, he said he suspected it would cause the student to lose focus, but there is no evidence of this.
“Caffeine is a substance or drug that loses it effect as you continue to use it. It tends to be habit-forming,” Pollak said. “When you stop, you tend to get withdrawal effects like headaches.”
