A new study published in Science and Translational Medicine and conducted by scientists at the University of Colorado Boulder and the Medical Research Council's Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England found that consuming caffeine in the evening delays the internal human circadian clock, according to Medical Xpress.
The team of scientists showed that consuming caffeine equivalent to a double espresso three hours prior to sleeping stimulated a 40-minute phase delay in the 24-hour human biological clock.
The circadian clock is a biological mechanism that regulates our sleep patterns and tells us when its time to get ready for bed and when its time to get up. Although everybody knows that drinking coffee at night is not a good idea if you want to get a decent sleep, these results are the first to show its effects on our circadian patterns.
"This is the first study to show that caffeine, the mostly widely used psychoactive drug in the world, has an influence on the human circadian clock," said Kenneth Wright, who co-wrote the paper. "It also provides new and exciting insights into the effects of caffeine on human physiology."
One of the most interesting implications of the study is the ability of caffeine to combat jet lag - properly timing caffeine intake could potentially help shift the circadian clocks of individuals travelling west over multiple time zones, according to The Telegraph.
"Our findings suggest that if you take caffeine at the wrong time, it could make your jet lag on an eastward trip worse," said Wright. " It is also possible that caffeine at other times of day could help with eastward jet lag, something that needs to be tested."
The new findings could also help scientists help those with sleep-cycle disorders, which currently cost employers thousands of dollars a year due to lost productivity, according to Citylab.
