Night shift workers should avoid coffee: study

BANGALORE: A particapant sipping Coffee at a stall in the India International Coffee Festival 2007, in Bangalore on February 23, 2007. Around 100 delegates from around the world and oevr 400 participants from across the country taking part in the three day event, organised by Coffee Board in association with industry stakeholders' including growers, roasters and exporters. The World Coffee Expo, in addition to showcasing Coffees of India, will also have manufactures of roasting, grinding, vending and brewing machinery, large and small, displaying their products. Photo: K_Murali Kumar. NICAID:111864549

Night shift workers, if they wish to improve their sleep, need to lay off the coffee, according to new research.

In a study, Julie Carrier, a University of Montreal psychology professor has found that caffeine interferes with sleep and this side-effect worsens as people age, the website Science Daily reported.

"Caffeine is the most widely used stimulant to counteract sleepiness, yet it has detrimental effects on the sleep of night-shift workers who must slumber during the day, just as their biological clock sends a strong wake-up signal," says Ms. Carrier.

"The older you get, the more affected your sleep will be by coffee."

Twenty-four men and women participated in the study: one group was aged 20 to 30, while a second group was aged 45 to 60. Everyone spent two sleepless nights in lab rooms before being allowed to sleep. "We all know someone who claims to sleep like a baby after drinking an espresso. Although they may not notice it, their sleep will not be as deep and will likely be more perturbed," says Ms. Carrier.

Both participant groups had to take a pill three hours before sleeping; either 200 milligrams of caffeine or a lactose-based placebo. All subjects who consumed caffeine pills had their sleep affected, especially older participants who slept 50 per cent less than usual. In both age groups, caffeine decreased sleep efficiency, sleep duration, slow-wave sleep (SWS) and REM sleep.

The combined influence of age and caffeine made the sleep of middle-aged subjects particularly vulnerable to the circadian waking signal. Ms. Carrier suggests that lower brain synchronization, caused by age and caffeine, produces greater difficulty in overriding circadian waking signals during daytime and that leads to fragmented sleep.

These results have implications for the high proportion of the population using caffeine to cope with night work and jetlag, particularly the middle-aged. Ms. Carrier recommends that everyone over 40 reduce their coffee consumption, especially if they work at night. Her study builds on recent findings that reducing coffee consumption is the best way to improve sleep for the middle-aged.