Photo Courtesy - Getty Images(BUFFALO, N.Y.) -- Boys are stimulated more by caffeine than girls, according to new research, and both genders have a preference for junk food after being primed with caffeine, leaving scientists with tantalizing questions that they can't yet answer.



Does early exposure to caffeine predispose a person toward drug abuse? Is caffeine a contributor to the current obesity epidemic?



Scientists at the University at Buffalo are exploring an area that has not been studied much, probably because caffeine is the most widely used drug in the world, and it is thought to be largely benign. Various studies show that, but those studies involved adults, not children.



And it turns out that lots of kids consume prodigious amounts of caffeine, mostly in sodas, but even very young children are drinking coffee.



That began worrying neurobiologist Jennifer Temple six years ago when she switched from animal research to human studies.



There's a fair amount more now because of a four-year research project by Temple and her colleagues at Buffalo. The research is supported by the National Institute of Drug Abuse.



The latest study to come out of that work was published in December's issue of Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacolgy. In that carefully controlled study, boys experienced a greater rush and more energy from caffeine than girls.



Boys, but not girls, also thought the caffeine gave them a boost on the athletic field. Diastolic blood pressure increased in boys, but not girls, and pulse dropped to offset the rising blood pressure. This is believed to be the first time a gender difference in caffeine reaction has been documented among adolescents.



The Buffalo research reinforces other studies showing that children who drink sodas tend to have poor diets, and Temple said the correlation between caffeine and a preference for junk food is convincing.



In the latest study, 26 boys and 26 girls, age 12-17, took part in a series of experiments designed to measure the effect of various levels of caffeine. The participants received a different dosage of caffeine each time, ranging from high to none, the latter serving as a placebo.



The bottom line: the more caffeine they consumed, the more calories they ate, including junk food. Of course, the sodas also had lots of sugar, so was it the caffeine or the sugar hit that caused them to turn to sweet foods?



Temple says she's confident it was the caffeine.﻿

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