How Does Caffeine Affect Us Physiologically?

 Considering a large population around the world drinks coffee or some kind of caffeinated drink, I decided to do some research looking into the effects and what's going on physiologically when we consume these products. 

What I found was that caffeine generally has three effects on the central nervous system. One of them is its ability to stimulate antagonism at the adenosine receptor level. Methylxanthine, a naturally occurring molecule in coffee, teas, and energy drinks triggers a stimulatory effect on these receptors which are important releasing neurotransmitters for sleep regulation, arousal, cognition, memory, and learning (Fiani, 2021).  The second mechanism affects how methylxanthine promotes the movement of calcium through the sarcoplasmic reticulum and plasma membrane. Then, the calcium is released by the synaptic into the peripheral and central nervous systems. It once again affects the neurotransmitters that are dependent on the calcium entering the nerve endings. Research said that with a low concentration/ low dosage of caffeine, the calcium uptake is greater than normal. It also said that a large dosage inhibits this calcium uptake which is probably due to too much calcium flooding the system. The final mechanism mention was methylxanthines ability to inhibit phosphodiesterases which prevents cAMP from being broken down. cAMPs function is to release hormones like dopamine, epinephrine, and norepinephrine when there is an accumulation of it. This affects your mood, memory, alertness, and cognitive function. It's some really interesting stuff and the conclusion that this study came to was that caffeine had the biggest effects on mood, specifically anxiety, enhancing processing speed, short term and long term memory in adults (Lieberman, 2002). Children were not well research in this study and called for more attention and research to be done in the pediatric population. 

Fiani, B., Zhu, L., Musch, B. L., Briceno, S., Andel, R., Sadeq, N., & Ansari, A. Z. (2021). The Neurophysiology of Caffeine as a Central Nervous System Stimulant and the Resultant Effects on Cognitive Function. Cureus, 13(5), e15032. https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.15032

Lieberman, H. R., Tharion, W. J., Shukitt-Hale, B., Speckman, K. L., & Tulley, R. (2002). Effects of caffeine, sleep loss, and stress on cognitive performance and mood during U.S. Navy SEAL training. Sea-Air-Land. Psychopharmacology, 164(3), 250–261. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00213-002-1217-9