Time to Recover From Daily Caffeine Intake

Yu Shiuan Lin, Janine Weibel, Hans Peter Landolt, Francesco Santini, Corrado Garbazza, Joshua Kistler, Sophia Rehm, Katharina Rentsch, Stefan Borgwardt, Christian Cajochen*, Carolin F. Reichert

*Corresponding author for this work

Abstract

Caffeine elicits widespread effects in the central nervous system and is the most frequently consumed psychostimulant worldwide. First evidence indicates that, during daily intake, the elimination of caffeine may slow down, and the primary metabolite, paraxanthine, may accumulate. The neural impact of such adaptions is virtually unexplored. In this report, we leveraged the data of a laboratory study with N = 20 participants and three within-subject conditions: caffeine (150 mg caffeine × 3/day × 10 days), placebo (150 mg mannitol × 3/day × 10 days), and acute caffeine deprivation (caffeine × 9 days, afterward placebo × 1 day). On day 10, we determined the course of salivary caffeine and paraxanthine using liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry coupled with tandem mass spectrometry. We assessed gray matter (GM) intensity and cerebral blood flow (CBF) after acute caffeine deprivation as compared to changes in the caffeine condition from our previous report. The results indicated that levels of paraxanthine and caffeine remained high and were carried overnight during daily intake, and that the levels of paraxanthine remained elevated after 24 h of caffeine deprivation compared to placebo. After 36 h of caffeine deprivation, the previously reported caffeine-induced GM reduction was partially mitigated, while CBF was elevated compared to placebo. Our findings unveil that conventional daily caffeine intake does not provide sufficient time to clear up psychoactive compounds and restore cerebral responses, even after 36 h of abstinence. They also suggest investigating the consequences of a paraxanthine accumulation during daily caffeine intake.

Original languageEnglish
Article number787225
JournalFrontiers in Nutrition
Volume8
Pages (from-to)787225
ISSN2296-861X
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 02.02.2022

Funding

This study was supported by Swiss National Science Foundation (grant 320030-163058). We express our sincere appreciation to our interns Andrea Schumacher and Laura Tincknell, M.Sc. student Sven Leach, as well as all the study helpers for their assistance in the experiment and data processing. We also thank Drs. Helen Slawik and Martin Meyer for the health check during the screening process. We especially appreciate all our participants for their volunteering and cooperation. This manuscript has been published as a preprint on bioRxiv and included in the doctoral thesis of Y-SL, entitled The Influence of Daily Caffeine Consumption on Human Brain Morphometry and Neurocognition at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Basel.

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

  1. SDG 3 - Good Health and Well-being
    SDG 3 Good Health and Well-being
  2. SDG 10 - Reduced Inequalities
    SDG 10 Reduced Inequalities

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Time to Recover From Daily Caffeine Intake'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this