Physical performance
Caffeine is a proven ergogenic aid in humans. Caffeine improves athletic performance in aerobic (especially endurance sports) and anaerobic conditions. Moderate doses of caffeine (around 5 mg/kg) can improve sprint performance, cycling and running time trial performance, endurance (i.e., it delays the onset of muscle fatigue and central fatigue), and cycling power output. Caffeine increases basal metabolic rate in adults. Caffeine ingestion prior to aerobic exercise increases fat oxidation, particularly in persons with low physical fitness.Caffeine improves muscular strength and power, and may enhance muscular endurance. Caffeine also enhances performance on anaerobic tests. Caffeine consumption before constant load exercise is associated with reduced perceived exertion. While this effect is not present during exercise-to-exhaustion exercise, performance is significantly enhanced. This is congruent with caffeine reducing perceived exertion, because exercise-to-exhaustion should end at the same point of fatigue. Caffeine also improves power output and reduces time to completion in aerobic time trials, an effect positively (but not exclusively) associated with longer duration exercise. Specific populations
Adults
For the general population of healthy adults, Health Canada advises a daily intake of no more than 400 mg. This limit was found to be safe by a 2017 systematic review on caffeine toxicology. Children
In healthy children, moderate caffeine intake under 400 mg produces effects that are "modest and typically innocuous". As early as 6 months old, infants can metabolize caffeine at the same rate as that of adults. Higher doses of caffeine (>400 mg) can cause physiological, psychological and behavioral harm, particularly for children with psychiatric or cardiac conditions.
We do not know why Mr. Robiquet has not published the analysis of coffee which he read to the Pharmacy Society. Its publication would have allowed us to make caffeine better known and give us accurate ideas of coffees composition ...
Robiquet was one of the first to isolate and describe the properties of pure caffeine, whereas Pelletier was the first to perform an elemental analysis.In 1827, M. Oudry isolated "théine" from tea, but in 1838 it was proved by Mulder and by Carl Jobst that theine was actually the same as caffeine. In 1895, German chemist Hermann Emil Fischer (1852–1919) first synthesized caffeine from its chemical components (i.e. a "total synthesis"), and two years later, he also derived the structural formula of the compound. This was part of the work for which Fischer was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1902. Historic regulations
Because it was recognized that coffee contained some compound that acted as a stimulant, first coffee and later also caffeine has sometimes been subject to regulation. For example, in the 16th century Islamists in Mecca and in the Ottoman Empire made coffee illegal for some classes. Charles II of England tried to ban it in 1676, Frederick II of Prussia banned it in 1777, and coffee was banned in Sweden at various times between 1756 and 1823.