14 DAY TRIAL // Scientists working with the Swiss National Science Foundation say that children and young adults would to best to keep their intake of caffeine to a minimum.
This is because said chemical compound has a negative impact on the brain. More precisely, it slows its development.
The researchers explain that, as several previous studies have shown, it is during puberty that the brain matures the fastest. Hence the fact that it is precisely during this time of their life that people should avoid consuming caffeine.
The researchers base their claims on the outcome of a series of experiments carried out on rats.
Thus, the scientists gave moderate amounts of caffeine to several rodents that were all going through puberty, and closely monitored their brains to see how said compound affected them.
The rats were all 30 days old at the time when the experiments began, and they were given caffeine for a total of five days in a row.
Apparently, the brains of all the mice that had been administered caffeine had a rather difficult time developing, meaning that maturing processes got delayed. The researchers suspect this happened because the caffeine disrupted the animals' sleeping patterns.
“Humans and other mammals show particularly intensive sleeping patterns during puberty. The brain also matures fastest in this period. But when pubescent rats are administered caffeine, the maturing processes in their brains are delayed,” the Swiss National Science Foundation tells us.
Furthermore, “The brain goes through a delicate maturing phase in puberty, during which many mental diseases can break out. And even if the rat brain differs clearly from that of humans, the many parallels in how the brains develop raise the question as to whether children’s and young adults’ caffeine intake really is harmless or whether it might be wiser to abstain from consuming the pick-me-up.”
What's interesting is that, unlike rats that weren't administered any caffeine, these ones remained rather timid and cautious once their reached adulthood.
Since rats are supposed to grow ever more curious as they age, the scientists who carried out these experiments say caffeine must have been the cause of this behavioral change.