Some areas that I think I need help with are staying on topic, and not being redundant with my vocabulary. My essay is about caffeine and its effects on children, adults and the elderly. The main question I ask is if whether or not caffeine helps the user focus or distracts them instead?
Amber Ohl
3/24/17
Gee
ENG 102
Caffeine has been used since the beginning of recorded time, in which the users mostly had their caffeine in the form of brewed teas, that would "ward off sleep"("Caffeine History"). Caffeine was not discovered as an active agent until 1819 A.D. by a German chemist Friedrich Runge ("Caffeine History"). After that caffeine was then used to deter adenosine levels in millions of people worldwide and more than 90% of adult Americans. Caffeine has many useful properties, one of them including the ability to focus when sleep deprived, but does it really help you focus or does it give you too much energy and distracts you instead? That answer will be given in three perspectives, from the child, the adult, and the elderly user.
Playing tag, catching bugs, breaking a bone or two, and only seeing concepts in black and white is what a child does, right? Well yes, but there's more. Ever wonder what fuels some of their off days, or some of their best days? One of the reasons is caffeine. Children today are now caffeine fiends, wanting soda, and their mother's coffee, or like my twelve-year-old brother, his morning coffee with milk and sugar. (Yes, with milk not cream). Although the standing joke in the house is that my brother is in fact an old man in a young boy's body, other kids do not
Ohl 2
necessarily have that excuse. Some studies have been done to see if caffeine really affects the child, mostly the ones with attention deficit disorders. These were studies done as double-blind procedures, meaning both participant and researcher do not know who got the active substance or the placebo. The results that they found were that caffeine does not necessarily calm the hyper child, but helps make them even more aroused. (Barry, Et Al). As a child, since caffeine is not always a must to wake up for the day, caffeine does more to distract the child user, rather than to help them focus.
Wake up every morning at five, can not fall asleep till ten, and do that same routine everyday for your adult life until you retire. Sounds monotonous, but that is what a lot of adults go through every day, if not, a schedule similar to that above. So what do you do to curb the sleepiness? Well, you guessed it, caffeine. As mentioned before, more than 90% of adults in the U.S. consume caffeine daily, and are in some form or another addicted to caffeine and its attributes. In the article, "Rational Addiction to Caffeine: An Analysis of Coffee Consumption," the researchers experiment on whether or not caffeine is an addictive substance by using equations based off of the Becker-Murphy model and use the information given to them per capita of caffeine consumption and the prices of the different types of caffeine products. The results of the testing were shown to be in agreement of caffeine being an addictive substance. Without caffeine, a lot of frequent users experience withdrawals with symptoms including: headaches, lethargy, fatigue, and sometimes muscle aches. The reason users experience fatigue is because their adenosine levels were blocked by caffeine levels, so when caffeine leaves the
Ohl 3
building, the adenosine receptors are left wanting an encore of their jacked up friends. (Blakeslee).
While most adult users tend to use caffeine on the daily, it is especially useful for the medical field, truck drivers, and military personnel. When working twelve hour shifts at a hospital, coffee and energy drinks are on my side fueling my day, keeping me focused, and help me simultaneously chart while answering my pager because someone needs my help. Caffeine is a needed habit for almost everyone at my workplace, no one goes through the day without some sort of caffeine fix. In the article, "Caffeine Improves Reaction Time, Vigilance and Logical Reasoning during Extended Periods with Restricted Opportunities for Sleep," it discusses the pros and cons to sleepless working and what caffeine has been able to do for the sleep deprived. Caffeine, showing no long term effects compared to some other psychoactive substances, can be given in higher doses to help the user perform better and have better cognitive function. Thus, children may get distracted due to caffeine, whereas adults have a better time focusing.
Now, let us move the spotlight over to the elderly. Yes, even grandma and grandpa need a caffeine boost, and not of the therapeutic kind. Research has been done to see if elderly people with beginning stages of Alzheimers are affected by caffeine and its attributes. In the journal article, "Time of Day and Caffeine Influence Some Neuropsychological Tests in the Elderly," they tested how caffeine and time of day either help or deter the test subjects. What they found was that time of day plays a significant role, the elderly perform better in the morning than they do in the afternoon or evening. However, when you give them caffeine in a double-blind procedure, they found that the patients given caffeine at different times of the day performed
Ohl 4
better than the patients who only got the placebo. Not a whole lot of further testing has been done to see if caffeine can truly help people with dementia or Alzheimer's, but the results of previous tests seem promising. Caffeine has not just helped those with Alzheimer's, but also the elderly without any abnormal impairments. After coming out of surgery, more than half of the patients I have admitted like to have coffee as soon as they are in the Post Surgical Unit. More often than not, they like their coffee black. What I have seen working with these patients is that coffee helps the patients focus.
Coffee, tea, energy drinks, and even chocolate have one thing in common: caffeine. Caffeine has had many different names but it still has the same purpose, to ultimately help the user focus. What has been found is that there are three different perspectives to the question, and two of the three have been noted to help focus. The only perspective to be distracted and hyper is of course the child who should not be having a regular intake of caffeine substances higher than that of what is in chocolate. Even then they are pushing the limits to how much caffeine they should be eating or drinking. The adults and elderly were able to have better cognitive function when using caffeine, and even in high amounts they were not as distracted as they were focused. So, in short, caffeine helps the user focus.
Ohl 5
Works Cited
Barry, Robert J., Adam R. Clarke, Stuart J. Johnstone, Christopher R. Brown, Jason M. Bruggemann, and Irene Van Rijbroek. "Caffeine Effects on Resting-state Arousal in Children." International Journal of Psychophysiology 73.3 (2009): 355-61. Web. 21 Feb. 2017.
Blakeslee, Sandra. "The Secrets of Caffeine, America's Favorite Drug." New York Times, 7 Aug. 1991. Academic OneFile, Accessed 21 Feb. 2017.
"Caffeine History." Caffeine History. MyAddiction, 28 Apr. 2010. Web. 24 Mar. 2017.
Kamimori, Gary H., Tom M. Mclellan, Charmaine M. Tate, David M. Voss, Phil Niro, and Harris R. Lieberman. "Caffeine Improves Reaction Time, Vigilance and Logical Reasoning during Extended Periods with Restricted Opportunities for Sleep." Psychopharmacology 232.12 (2015;2014;): 2031-042. Web. 16 Feb. 2017.
Walters, Elizabeth R., and Valerie E. Lesk. "Time of Day and Caffeine Influence Some Neuropsychological Tests in the Elderly." Psychological Assessment 27.1 (2015): 161-68.Academic OneFile [Gale]. Web. 25 Mar. 2017.
Amber Ohl
3/24/17
Gee
ENG 102
Caffeine: Friend or Foe?
Caffeine has been used since the beginning of recorded time, in which the users mostly had their caffeine in the form of brewed teas, that would "ward off sleep"("Caffeine History"). Caffeine was not discovered as an active agent until 1819 A.D. by a German chemist Friedrich Runge ("Caffeine History"). After that caffeine was then used to deter adenosine levels in millions of people worldwide and more than 90% of adult Americans. Caffeine has many useful properties, one of them including the ability to focus when sleep deprived, but does it really help you focus or does it give you too much energy and distracts you instead? That answer will be given in three perspectives, from the child, the adult, and the elderly user.
Playing tag, catching bugs, breaking a bone or two, and only seeing concepts in black and white is what a child does, right? Well yes, but there's more. Ever wonder what fuels some of their off days, or some of their best days? One of the reasons is caffeine. Children today are now caffeine fiends, wanting soda, and their mother's coffee, or like my twelve-year-old brother, his morning coffee with milk and sugar. (Yes, with milk not cream). Although the standing joke in the house is that my brother is in fact an old man in a young boy's body, other kids do not
Ohl 2
necessarily have that excuse. Some studies have been done to see if caffeine really affects the child, mostly the ones with attention deficit disorders. These were studies done as double-blind procedures, meaning both participant and researcher do not know who got the active substance or the placebo. The results that they found were that caffeine does not necessarily calm the hyper child, but helps make them even more aroused. (Barry, Et Al). As a child, since caffeine is not always a must to wake up for the day, caffeine does more to distract the child user, rather than to help them focus.
Wake up every morning at five, can not fall asleep till ten, and do that same routine everyday for your adult life until you retire. Sounds monotonous, but that is what a lot of adults go through every day, if not, a schedule similar to that above. So what do you do to curb the sleepiness? Well, you guessed it, caffeine. As mentioned before, more than 90% of adults in the U.S. consume caffeine daily, and are in some form or another addicted to caffeine and its attributes. In the article, "Rational Addiction to Caffeine: An Analysis of Coffee Consumption," the researchers experiment on whether or not caffeine is an addictive substance by using equations based off of the Becker-Murphy model and use the information given to them per capita of caffeine consumption and the prices of the different types of caffeine products. The results of the testing were shown to be in agreement of caffeine being an addictive substance. Without caffeine, a lot of frequent users experience withdrawals with symptoms including: headaches, lethargy, fatigue, and sometimes muscle aches. The reason users experience fatigue is because their adenosine levels were blocked by caffeine levels, so when caffeine leaves the
Ohl 3
building, the adenosine receptors are left wanting an encore of their jacked up friends. (Blakeslee).
While most adult users tend to use caffeine on the daily, it is especially useful for the medical field, truck drivers, and military personnel. When working twelve hour shifts at a hospital, coffee and energy drinks are on my side fueling my day, keeping me focused, and help me simultaneously chart while answering my pager because someone needs my help. Caffeine is a needed habit for almost everyone at my workplace, no one goes through the day without some sort of caffeine fix. In the article, "Caffeine Improves Reaction Time, Vigilance and Logical Reasoning during Extended Periods with Restricted Opportunities for Sleep," it discusses the pros and cons to sleepless working and what caffeine has been able to do for the sleep deprived. Caffeine, showing no long term effects compared to some other psychoactive substances, can be given in higher doses to help the user perform better and have better cognitive function. Thus, children may get distracted due to caffeine, whereas adults have a better time focusing.
Now, let us move the spotlight over to the elderly. Yes, even grandma and grandpa need a caffeine boost, and not of the therapeutic kind. Research has been done to see if elderly people with beginning stages of Alzheimers are affected by caffeine and its attributes. In the journal article, "Time of Day and Caffeine Influence Some Neuropsychological Tests in the Elderly," they tested how caffeine and time of day either help or deter the test subjects. What they found was that time of day plays a significant role, the elderly perform better in the morning than they do in the afternoon or evening. However, when you give them caffeine in a double-blind procedure, they found that the patients given caffeine at different times of the day performed
Ohl 4
better than the patients who only got the placebo. Not a whole lot of further testing has been done to see if caffeine can truly help people with dementia or Alzheimer's, but the results of previous tests seem promising. Caffeine has not just helped those with Alzheimer's, but also the elderly without any abnormal impairments. After coming out of surgery, more than half of the patients I have admitted like to have coffee as soon as they are in the Post Surgical Unit. More often than not, they like their coffee black. What I have seen working with these patients is that coffee helps the patients focus.
Coffee, tea, energy drinks, and even chocolate have one thing in common: caffeine. Caffeine has had many different names but it still has the same purpose, to ultimately help the user focus. What has been found is that there are three different perspectives to the question, and two of the three have been noted to help focus. The only perspective to be distracted and hyper is of course the child who should not be having a regular intake of caffeine substances higher than that of what is in chocolate. Even then they are pushing the limits to how much caffeine they should be eating or drinking. The adults and elderly were able to have better cognitive function when using caffeine, and even in high amounts they were not as distracted as they were focused. So, in short, caffeine helps the user focus.
Ohl 5
Works Cited
Barry, Robert J., Adam R. Clarke, Stuart J. Johnstone, Christopher R. Brown, Jason M. Bruggemann, and Irene Van Rijbroek. "Caffeine Effects on Resting-state Arousal in Children." International Journal of Psychophysiology 73.3 (2009): 355-61. Web. 21 Feb. 2017.
Blakeslee, Sandra. "The Secrets of Caffeine, America's Favorite Drug." New York Times, 7 Aug. 1991. Academic OneFile, Accessed 21 Feb. 2017.
"Caffeine History." Caffeine History. MyAddiction, 28 Apr. 2010. Web. 24 Mar. 2017.
Kamimori, Gary H., Tom M. Mclellan, Charmaine M. Tate, David M. Voss, Phil Niro, and Harris R. Lieberman. "Caffeine Improves Reaction Time, Vigilance and Logical Reasoning during Extended Periods with Restricted Opportunities for Sleep." Psychopharmacology 232.12 (2015;2014;): 2031-042. Web. 16 Feb. 2017.
Walters, Elizabeth R., and Valerie E. Lesk. "Time of Day and Caffeine Influence Some Neuropsychological Tests in the Elderly." Psychological Assessment 27.1 (2015): 161-68.Academic OneFile [Gale]. Web. 25 Mar. 2017.