How long the caffeine from your morning cup of tea affects the organism? The answer got Olav Spigset, a professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology’s (NTNU). According to his explanations, the caffeine can disturb a night of sleep in intricate ways.
The caffeine is very interesting substance, and chemistry for studying it uses the common term like half-life. The leading author professor Spigset explains this term in application to the caffeine.The time it takes for a concentration of a substance to be converted a digested/released from the body by 50 percent. But that half-life of caffeine varies as well.
“THE TIME IT TAKES FOR THE CAFFEINE LEVEL TO DROP BY HALF IS AN AVERAGE OF FIVE HOURS. AFTER TEN TO 15 HOURS THERE IS NO LONGER ENOUGH LEFT TO HAVE AN IMPACT.”
According to the lab tests in NTNU, the effect of caffeine as a stimulant is still there after it is halved. Every human body has its own pace of metabolism, and that’s very important criteria for the stimulating effect of the caffeine.
An average for the population is a half-life of 5 hours, say scientists. Amongst those whose bodies are slower, it can take up to 10 hours. These people won’t be able asleep at 10 P.M. after a cup of coffee they had at noon.
Professor Spigset noted. that the caffeine works on receptors in the brain. If receptors used to ‘feel’ caffeine often and much, they lose their sensitivity, consequently, the person gets a higher tolerance.
