A systematic review of epidemiological studies and randomized controlled trials’, Ian Clark and Hans Peter Landolt reviewed multiple sources of data in an effort to enlighten their readers around the investigations and studies done on the correlation between both caffeine and sleep. This review acknowledged the benefits of caffeine intake, especially around mitigating sleepiness, performance enhancements, and even successfully treating infants who suffered from apnea.
However, it focused not on the benefits, but instead aimed to systematically explore how caffeine intake could negatively affect sleep. This focus of study is important to understand and examine to pursue healthy sleep patterns and general well being and functioning. By opening up more discussion on this topic and reviewing other studies, the authors are bringing attention and awareness to caffeine and its affects on sleep.
lt pursued a more comprehensive approach to their research.
Many jump into case studies and pursue studying actual examples by gathering volunteers for clinical trials, cross sectional data, etc. , however these authors instead used previously done studies and data collections from other articles and databases. They collected different literatures and were able to gather 232 different resources using the key words ‘coffee’, ‘caffeine’, and ‘sleep’ as their search parameters. They then cut down the large amount of data using different pre-determined criteria and doing full-text examinations. They ended up with 58 studies to use. This critically gathered data and research offered a very comprehensive review; it sets up their findings to be well backed and supported. This article did not shy away from clearly stating where they thought their research went and what it proved. Suffice to say though, one yes-or-no answer was not given on if caffeine causes sleep latency or not, because of the multiple factors and variable. They touched on the affects of different ages: infants, adolescents, and adults. Their initial research showed that infants are not as influenced by caffeine, but also stated that this was one of the smallest population groups researched and one that needs more attention.
Adolescents showed that with caffeine intake they were almost twice as likely to experience sleepiness during the day, yet none of these studies investigated adolescents in controlled setting. For adults this article looked into different sleep quality variables. It touched on quality of sleep, duration of, delayed sleep, wake time, caffeine sensitivity, melatonin secretion effects, etc. This review pointed to caffeine negatively affecting adults depending on influences and variables in the different participants. It showed that caffeine intake does sometimes lead to daytime sleepiness (although it is meant to do the opposite), and even lead to negative affects on general health among other outcomes. This article clearly went into how this data was affected by different people, uses, genetics, etc. , and it also touched on the health risks that might occur with poor sleep practices.
lt presented an interesting review on the topic of sleep and caffeine, and touched on the multiple different resources well. Their desire to compile and review other sources of data brought a more cohesive understanding to this topic. It also felt more purposeful and credible, because of the data pulled from multiple sources. However, this also posed some limitations on the information they presented. Because of the multiple different sources reviewed, some had to be prioritized over others. The ranges of focus were broad and expansive, so the info they gathered did not perfectly line up with focus and variables considered. This means some data points were brought in more selectively.
In some ways, some of the researched gathered would benefit from individual reviews rather than trying to fit it all into one article. The data gathered though still helped the authors come to their conclusions, and presented the findings well. Although, these findings, in many ways, do go either way on the negative and positive affects of caffeine it still brings a comprehensive understanding of this relationship and sets up other research and any other inquiries to further pursue.
