Caffeine in sport

Pill popping in sport has again been bought into the spotlight with the recent hospitalisation of AFL star Ben Cousins. This time it wasn't for his illegal drug taking but instead his legal concoction of caffeine and sleeping pills. I'm not going to talk about the sleeping pills he used to wind down after the game, but what I will focus on is the use of caffeine in sport.

This is not the first time the issue of caffeine use in athletes has been a hot topic of discussion. In 1988, pentathlete Alex Watson was thrown out of the Olympics for caffeine use. Although caffeine has never been a banned substance, it has appeared on the restricted list with a positive test recorded when caffeine in the urine was above a certain level. The reason for this classification related to the fact it is impossible to ban caffeine completely without banning coffee and other beverages and foodstuffs that contain caffeine. In 2004 however, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) removed caffeine from the prohibited list allowing full use of it in sport. Despite its removal from the prohibited list, caffeine use in sport has continued to be scrutinised.

In 2005, WADA reconsidered placing caffeine tablets back on the prohibited list when reports that our very own rugby players, including George Gregan, were taking caffeine tablets for performance benefits. After this, WADA placed caffeine on a monitoring program for its use in competition. Now after the latest caffeine issues to hit our footballers, WADA will reconsider placing caffeine back on the prohibited list when they meet in September this year.

So why the big uproar with athletes using caffeine in sport? The answer is simple - caffeine is an ergogenic aid, which means using it can improve an athlete's performance. Caffeine is known to stimulate the central nervous system, reducing an athlete's perceived effort and increasing their time to fatigue. This means they can train and compete for harder and for longer. New research is also showing that caffeine can increase muscle contractility and subsequently increase power and endurance in relatively low-intensity activities.

To get these benefits, research shows athletes need to consume low-to-moderate levels of caffeine which is equivalent to 3mg of caffeine or less per kilogram of body weight, in order to receive the performance benefits from caffeine. This amount of caffeine can be taken before and during endurance exercise and research shows that more gains in performance are not seen with caffeine doses above 3mg/kg of body weight. Despite this, research has seen some studies use caffeine amounts as high as 13mg of caffeine per kilogram of body weight, which increases the likelihood of side effects.

Like the general population, caffeine affects athletes differently. However, research shows high levels of caffeine consumption (classified as intakes above 500mg/day) can increase heart rate, impair or alter fine motor control and technique and result in over-arousal. Impairments in fine motor control and technique can lead to poor ball skills in sports such as rugby, AFL and netball, while over-arousal can interfere with recovery and sleep patterns, causing athletes to look for other pills and portions to help them sleep. The long-term consumption of high doses of caffeine are discouraged by health authorities.

Athletes rarely turn to coffee for their caffeine hit because coffee has a variable caffeine content - an Australian study in 2008 found that caffeine content in a single shot of coffee varied from 25-214mg of caffeine. It also contains other compounds that may negate the ergogenic effects of caffeine. This is why athletes turn to No-Doz (caffeine tablets) for their caffeine hit. No-Doz contains 100mg of caffeine per tablet making them perfect way to take a measurable amount of caffeine, free from other compounds. Even if caffeine is considered legal, ethically the idea of popping a pill to improve performance is something athletes need to consider.

At the AIS, athletes are educated about caffeine, including the potential situations of performance enhancement, the benefits of using low doses of caffeine to achieve these effects and the risk of side effects. However, the AIS does not stock concentrated forms of caffeine and does not provide caffeine to athletes for performance enhancement, which quietly suggests, ethically there may not be as much of a place for caffeine in sport as athlete would like to believe.

Like the AIS, athletes of all sports need to be educated about the positive and negative effects of caffeine consumption. Sport is competitive and there's no doubt athletes are looking for the competitive edge over their rivals, but even if caffeine is considered a legal substance by WADA, ethically idea of popping a pill to improve performance needs to be considered by all athletes. It's through education athletes can make a better choice for themselves.