Caffeine - Nursing Research (Chapter 1 of 5)

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Some researchers speculate that a similar restorative effect on cognitive activity might take place in the interaction between caffeine and alcohol, but no one yet knows. Remember, though, that the question is whether caffeine can help you think more clearly after you have drunk alcohol - not whether it will improve your reflexes. No one imagines that coffee can make you a safer driver after you’ve been drinking.
Besides being a self-prescribed antidepressant and alertness drug, caffeine has been shown to be useful to people with asthma, since it works as a bronchodilator, meaning that it widens the air passages in the lungs and eases breathing. It might even be something of an aphrodisiac, if the results of a University of Michigan study can be generally applied: the study showed that older subjects were more likely to be sexually active if they were coffee drinkers than if they were not.

The second theory focuses on caffeine’s ability to cause the body to burn more fat and fewer carbohydrates.  Glycogen is the principle fuel for muscles, but fat is the most abundant resource that the body uses for energy.  Caffeine enters the body and forces the working muscles to utilize as much fat as possible.  This delays the immediate depletion of glycogen.  Studies show that in the first fifteen minutes of exercise caffeine has the potential to reduce the loss of glycogen by fifty percent.  When this happens, the saved glycogen can be used for the remainder of the workout where normally it would be entirely depleted.
The last theory about caffeine is presented by Barry Spencer which states that caffeine withdrawal causes headache and migraine. Caffeine’s ability to potentiate severe headache and nausea/vomiting, combined with its near-universal use, should make caffeine the prime suspect in the hunt for the mysterious cause of migraine without aura. Yet neither caffeine nor caffeine withdrawal is considered a major cause of headache or migraine. Instead, the prevailing view is that caffeine is merely one among many factors that influence primary headache.

The lack of focus on caffeine is not due to any experimental evidence that rules out caffeine as a major cause of migraine without aura. Surprisingly, no such experimental evidence exists; primary headache has never been demonstrated to exist separately from caffeine withdrawal. The failure to focus on caffeine is due not to demonstrated evidence but to error.

One such error is the collective failure to control for caffeine withdrawal, a demonstrated cause of headache, in studies of primary headache or primary headache treatments. The reason for this error may simply be the near-ubiquity of caffeine, which makes the effects of caffeine blend into the background of human existence; because nearly everyone uses caffeine, in other words, the effects of caffeine have become confounded with the condition of being human.
Another error that may obscure the importance of caffeine in headache is the collective tendency to underestimate the prevalence of caffeine use. Many headache researchers and physicians may assume, for example, that infants and children are generally not exposed to caffeine. In fact more than 75 percent of infants have been exposed to caffeine in the womb, and some infants suffer caffeine withdrawal symptoms soon after birth. Many nursing infants are exposed to caffeine in mother’s milk. Nearly all children are regularly exposed to caffeine: a study in which food diaries were kept for one week found 98 percent of subjects’ ages five to 15 regularly consumed caffeine. Caffeine is no doubt just as popular, if not more popular, among adults. Phone survey studies, however, find a lower prevalence of caffeine use: in one phone survey only 61 percent of subjects said they use caffeine every day. In another phone survey 96 percent of subjects said they had ever used caffeine, 83 percent said they drink a caffeine-containing beverage at least once a week, and 14 percent said they had ceased all caffeine intake. It may be subjects tend to underestimate their own caffeine intake, and therefore studies that depend on self-reported information about personal caffeine intake tend to underestimate the prevalence of caffeine use. Those 14 percent of interviewees who believe they have ceased all caffeine intakes, for example, may be mistaken. Many migrainers insist they ingest no caffeine whatsoever, so there is plenty of anecdotal evidence that primary headaches such as migraine without aura can occur separately from caffeine withdrawal. Yet because caffeine is present in many foods, drinks, and medicines, and is often occult, it is all too easy to ingest caffeine without being aware of it, so testimony regarding personal caffeine intake is unreliable. Because primary headache has never been demonstrated to exist separately from caffeine withdrawal, all migrainers who believe they consume no caffeine may be mistaken.

Many primary headache patients insist they can readily distinguish between their caffeine withdrawal headaches and their migraines or other types of primary headache. Such testimonial evidence, however, amounts to conclusions drawn by patients based on their interpretation of subjective symptoms. Patients who believe they have multiple distinct headache conditions may be mistaking one highly variable condition for multiple distinct conditions.
Unquestioning faith in the prevailing multiple disease theory of primary headache may be the biggest reason for the failure to focus on caffeine. According to prevailing theory, primary headache consists of multiple distinct disease entities (tension headache, migraine with aura, migraine without aura, cluster headache, etc.), each of which may have multiple causes and multiple precipitating factors, called triggers. The theory that primary headache is heterogeneous is so firmly entrenched that evidence to the contrary is ignored. For example: visual aura accompanying cluster headache is not considered compelling evidence of kinship between cluster headache and migraine with aura. This suggests caffeine withdrawal and migraine might still be considered separate conditions even if caffeine withdrawal was demonstrated to cause visual aura. (Caffeine withdrawal has not been demonstrated to cause visual aura, but this negative result may be due to the relative rarity of visual aura.)
The multiple disease theory has a possibly fatal weakness: it utterly rests and depends on the assumption that primary headache can occur in the absence of caffeine withdrawal. This fact has important implications: it means caffeine withdrawal might cause the entire phenomenon of primary headache. For that reason it makes sense to examine the relationship between our most popular neuroactive drug and our most prevalent neurological malady.

Caffeine is related beyond dispute to primary headache in three ways:

1.    Heavy caffeine intake is associated with migraine and cluster headache.
2.    Caffeine has been demonstrated to have a withdrawal syndrome often featuring severe headache and nausea/vomiting.
3.    Caffeine is used as a medicine to relieve various primary headaches including migraine.

Statement of the Problem

This study is intended to determine the physiological and psychological effects of caffeine in the human system of the thirty (30) 3rd year Nursing students of Perpetual Help of Manila.

Specifically it sought to answer the following questions:
1.    What is the profile of the Nursing student’s respondent in terms of the following variables?

1.1     Age
1.2     Gender
1.3     Civil Status

2.    What is physiological and psychological status of nursing student’s respondent in Perpetual Help College of Manila?

Hypothesis

There is no significant difference between the profile variables and the physiological and psychological status of nursing students in Perpetual College of Manila.

Scope and Limitation

This study is limited only to the thirty (30)3rd year Nursing students of Perpetual Help College of Manila as the respondents on the survey done on August 12, 2006. It focus on the effects of caffeine on physiological and psychological well-being of the respondents. The variables would include the respondent’s body mass index (BMI), 24-hour diet recall, vices other than caffeine intake, rest and sleep pattern, elimination pattern and environment. This study is applicable only to the thirty (30) 3rd year Nursing students of Perpetual Help College of Manila. Other situation may avail of findings relevant to their needs.

Significance of the Study

The purpose of this study was to review the effects of caffeine on the physiological and psychological aspects of the human system. It also aims to show the findings and values from the corresponding method used to obtain such.

It is hoped that the findings of this study will further enhance the knowledge of consumers and researchers on caffeine’s effect.
Specifically, this study will benefit  the following:
Nursing students. It would know the potential     physiological and psychological effects of caffeine intake in the human system.    Researchers. For supplemental referenceConsumers. To know the actual findings and values of caffeine’s effectCaffeine Addicts. To learn about its effect on the human body
Other Individual

Definition of Terms

For a better understanding of the study, the following terms are defined below:
Caffeine. In this study it is a drug that is naturally produced in the leaves and seeds of many plants
Caffeinism. Caffeine abuse
Body Mass Index (BMI). Indicates whether weight is appropriate for height
24-hour Diet Recall. Client recall of all the food & beverages consumed during a typical 24-hour period

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