Saturday, March 28, 2009

No Thanks, Hold the Java, There's a Mountain Ahead

Well, it didn't take long to come across an opposing study about the effects of caffeine on athletes:
"We now have good evidence that, at the level of myocardial blood flow, caffeine is not a useful stimulant. It may be a stimulant at the cerebral level in terms of being more awake and alert, which may subjectively give the feeling of having better physical performance. But I now would not recommend that any athlete drink caffeine before sports. It may not be a physical stimulant, and may even adversely affect physical performance," Dr. Kaufmann said. "It may not be as harmless as we thought before, particularly if you suffer from coronary artery disease or if you are in the mountains."


Full article.

Off to make the first double latte of the day.

1 comment:

dean furbish said...

Thanks for the article, Mike. It's interesting that the negative effects of caffeine on heart blood flow appear during exercise and not prior to exercise. Something I'll take to heart.