- Explain to patients who ask that this study suggests that continual caffeine appears to maintain performance during extended wakefulness.
- Advise interested patients that extended periods of wakefulness are hazardous to their health and can pose a danger to others, especially if they are performing difficult tasks.
- These studies were published as abstracts and were presented orally at a conference. These data and conclusions should be considered to be preliminary as they have not yet been reviewed and published in a peer-reviewed publication.
SALT LAKE CITY, June 21 — A 200-mg jolt of caffeine every two hours can keep sleepless people functioning at about 100% of normal for 48 hours, according to army researchers here. But that doesn't mean a cup of coffee is enough.
This caffeine-enhanced endurance, induced by 100-mg chewing gum sticks, kept participants in a study going at 75% of normal for up to 70 hours. It contrasted with caffeine-deprived people who become stuporous after 40 hours without sleep and are a menace behind a steering wheel, said a U.S. Army investigator.
"They become non-responsive," Gary Kamimori, Ph.D., of Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Silver Spring, Md., reported at Sleep 2006, the joint meeting of the Sleep Research Society and the American Academy of Sleep Medicine.
Dr. Kamimori said the caffeine-sleep finding has implications not only for soldiers on a battlefield, but for civilians in jobs that may keep them awake for long periods, while forcing them to focus on relatively monotonous work.
