“They compared each participant’s brain activity on two separate nights — one when they consumed caffeine capsules three hours and then one hour before bedtime, and another when they took a placebo at the same times.”
As someone who consumes lots of coffee I worry a little about that and always read caffeine articles but in this case doesn’t everyone already know caffeine right before bed is a bad idea?
I wonder if there’s a tolerance that builds over time which would also lead to the middle aged / older cohort being less affected than the younger one.
Not really. Caffeine tolerance builds over a period of days and dissipates over a similar period, roughly 72 hours. The article actually touches on the effect, and it has to do with a reduction of adenosine receptors in middle-aged participants.
> “Adenosine receptors naturally decrease with age, reducing caffeine’s ability to block them and improve brain complexity, which may partly explain the reduced effect of caffeine observed in middle-aged participants,” Carrier said.
As someone who consumes lots of coffee I worry a little about that and always read caffeine articles but in this case doesn’t everyone already know caffeine right before bed is a bad idea?
> “Adenosine receptors naturally decrease with age, reducing caffeine’s ability to block them and improve brain complexity, which may partly explain the reduced effect of caffeine observed in middle-aged participants,” Carrier said.