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Drinking strong coffee before exercising increases fat-burning, new study finds

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228 points curmudgeon22 | 7 comments | 28 Mar 21 17:14 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source | bottom
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PragmaticPulp ◴[28 Mar 21 17:42 UTC] No.26612365[source]▶
> Subjects ingested 3 mg/kg of caffeine or a placebo at 8am and 5pm

3mg/kg is over 250mg of caffeine for an average weight man. Twice a day makes that 500mg.

An 8.4oz can of Red Bull contains 80mg of caffeine. They were giving these people an amount of caffeine equivalent to 6 cans of Red Bull. Not a perfect comparison because Red Bull contains other ingredients, but that's still a lot of caffeine. For another point of reference, that's 2.5 shots of 5 hour energy (200mg caffeine per bottle).

To top it off, the subjects were caffeine-naive, so they had no caffeine tolerance. They must have been feeling extremely energetic.

No wonder they burned more fat. I'm not sure this is going to translate to your casual coffee drinker or someone with a high caffeine tolerance.

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lmilcin ◴[28 Mar 21 17:54 UTC] No.26612494[source]▶
I am pretty sure that not sleeping at all also increases fat burning as body uses less energy when asleep

The fat burning might be from reaction of organism that is not used to a lot of daily caffeine ingestion. For example, when I don't use caffeine for a long time my heart rate increases when I increase amount of coffee I drink. But then goes back after some time (presumably when my body gets accustomed to it again).

Also, this kind of research must be read with a little bit of scientific background.

It is easy to get an impression author wanted to establish causation, but in reality this research only shows correlation, and correlation does not prove causation.

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sjg007 ◴[28 Mar 21 18:04 UTC] No.26612594[source]▶
Poor sleep is associated with weight gain.
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1. umanwizard ◴[28 Mar 21 18:05 UTC] No.26612608[source]▶
I wonder if that’s because sleepiness is associated with poor impulse control. I know when I’m super tired I tend to eat whatever I want the next day.
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2. luxuryballs ◴[28 Mar 21 18:13 UTC] No.26612703[source]▶
That and you may be having an extra meal whereas you otherwise would have been asleep.
3. toyg ◴[28 Mar 21 18:14 UTC] No.26612711[source]▶
There is that and there is the “enforced fasting interval” that sleep is.
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4. readme ◴[28 Mar 21 18:24 UTC] No.26612804[source]▶
it's because sleep regulates the hormones that control your appetite

if you mean poor control of your body's natural drive to eat which is imperative to our survival, then sure

very few people can consistently control this "impulse" -- the best way to control it is to get adequate sleep and regulate your hormones

5. DoreenMichele ◴[28 Mar 21 18:37 UTC] No.26612921[source]▶
One means to keep functioning while sleep deprived is to eat more. I don't think it's really poor impulse control per se. It's a coping mechanism, sort of like the body shunting waste gas through the kidneys at high altitude because you can't offload them all via breathing out and they have to go somewhere, but that's not really the optimal way to do that and it has knock on effects because urinating to remove them also drags salt and other stuff with it, thus the need to drink more and get more electrolytes at altitude. (Edit: implicitly, weight gain us the equivalent knock on effect for eating more while sleep deprived.)
6. sjg007 ◴[28 Mar 21 19:11 UTC] No.26613226[source]▶
The sleep deprived body directs calories to fat storage.
7. moron4hire ◴[28 Mar 21 19:38 UTC] No.26613557[source]▶
The first meal after sleeping through the night is called "break-fast", after all.