Perhaps it’s better to drink coffee after breakfast and not before. Recent research looked into the effects of sleep deprivation and coffee consumption on human metabolism, and the results were surprising.
According to a new study, consuming strong black coffee may affect blood sugar management. The University of Bath’s Centre for Nutrition, Exercise, and Metabolism studied the impact of disturbed sleep and morning coffee on metabolic indicators.
While a single night of lousy sleep has little influence on our metabolism, drinking coffee to get up can be detrimental to blood glucose management. They claim that these findings might have “extensive” health consequences, especially given coffee’s global popularity. Here’s a closer look into the relationship between coffee consumption and sleep:
The Study
For their study, three separate overnight tests were conducted at the University of Bath by physiologists. The 29 healthy men and women participants were chosen at random.
- Case #1: Participants were instructed to consume a sweet beverage after a regular night’s sleep.
- Case #2: Participants were awakened for five minutes every hour and given the same sugary drink.
- Case #3: Participants were given the sugary beverage 30 minutes before drinking a cup of strong black coffee.
Each of these trials involved drawing blood from individuals after they consumed a glucose beverage with the same calorie content as breakfast.
The Findings
Sleep deprivation did not affect participants’ blood glucose or insulin reactions at breakfast compared to a regular night’s sleep. Consuming strong black coffee before breakfast, on the other hand, increased the blood glucose response by almost 50%.
While population-level polls associate coffee with good health, past research has demonstrated that caffeine can contribute to insulin resistance. This new research indicates that while drinking coffee following a poor night’s sleep may make you feel more alert, it may also impair your body’s ability to absorb the sugar in your breakfast.
Simply put, when we take coffee first thing in the morning, especially after a restless night, it impairs our blood sugar management. This can be improved by eating first and then drinking coffee if necessary—understanding this can benefit our health.
One night of interrupted sleep did not influence participants’ blood glucose/insulin reaction to the sugary beverage, which is good news for many of us. However, starting the day with a strong cup of coffee reduced glucose metabolism by almost 50%. As a result, individuals should drink caffeinated coffee after breakfast rather than before to achieve a balance between the energizing benefits of caffeine and the risk of increased blood glucose levels.
Conclusion
While coffee is a global beverage favorite, it’s still important to know how caffeine may affect our bodies. In as simple as changing up routines and switching up coffee choices in the morning, one may avoid the adverse health effects of rapid shifts in glucose levels and sleep deprivation.
Moreover, we need to understand more about how sleep affects our metabolism, how much sleep disturbance is required to alter metabolism, the long-term repercussions, and how to adapt better sleep habits through the proper diet. Coffee gets us going—but drink it in moderation!
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