A large study shows that energy drinks are associated with insomnia and poor sleep quality, and drinking just one drink a month can increase your risk of sleep problems.
Millions of people consume this product, which has an average caffeine content of 150 mg per liter, as well as sugar, vitamins, minerals and amino acids. It is marketed as improving mental health and physical performance and is particularly popular with young people.
There is already evidence to suggest that they reduce sleep quality, but until now it is unclear exactly which aspects of sleep are more or less affected, or whether there are gender-specific differences in these effects. was unknown.
A study of more than 53,000 people aged 18 to 35 in Norway has shed new light on the potential negative effects of energy drinks.
Researchers found that people who took them daily slept about 30 minutes less than those who took them occasionally or never.
And the more frequently you consume it, the less time you sleep each night. However, researchers found that even just once in a while, one to three times a month, increases the risk of sleep problems. Their discovery is BMJ Open Journal.
Men who drink two or three drinks a week are 35% more likely to go to bed after midnight and 52% more likely to sleep less than 6 hours compared to men who don't drink or rarely drink. They were 60% more likely to wake up during the night. .
Women were 20% more likely to go to bed after midnight, 58% more likely to sleep less than 6 hours, and 24% more likely to wake up during the night.
Those who consumed the drink daily had more problems waking up after falling asleep, took longer to fall asleep, and slept for less time overall than those who did not drink the drink. The study also found that the more alcohol you drank, the less time you slept.
Among women who drank energy drinks daily, 51% reported suffering from insomnia, compared to 33% of women who drank energy drinks occasionally or never.
Among men, 37% of daily drinkers suffered from insomnia, compared with 22% of rarely or never drinkers.
Men who drank alcohol daily were more than twice as likely to report getting less than six hours of sleep than men who drank less frequently, and women were 87% more likely to do so.
However, research suggests that even people who drink one to three energy drinks a month have more severe sleep problems than those who don't drink at all.
Because this is an observational study, no firm conclusions can be drawn about the cause. The researchers believe that a reverse causality, where energy drink consumption may be a result of sleep deprivation rather than the other way around, could explain the association they found. I acknowledged that it was a possibility.
Nevertheless, researchers from the University of Bergen and the University of Oslo concluded: [energy drink] Consumption was a strong determinant of negative sleep outcomes.
“Even small amounts of ED are associated with poorer sleep outcomes, and more attention needs to be paid to the effects of ED consumption in college and university students.”
