Caffein: It's Benefits, Side-Effects, & Withdrawal Symptoms

Assalamualaikum...

This is a summary of my mini research project for my English for Academic Writing course. Why Caffeine? Yeah just because aku Pencinta Kopi! So aku feel interesting to search a bit more about it. May it give some benefits for all! Konon2 nak relate dengan Health Psychology la. Tapi x relate sangat at the end. More to nutrition study. HAHA!

Harus diingat: THIS IS FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY. No serious research was done and it involves only small sample of the population.

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Nature of research:

               Caffeine is increasingly consumed by student when prior to deadline of assignments and examination period. Caffeine consumed usually because of its benefits, but has to remember that caffeine also has its side-effects and withdrawal symptoms. This study investigated IIUM Human Sciences students’ consumption of caffeine and their knowledge of caffeine’s benefits, side effects and withdrawal symptoms. Participants were selected using simple random sampling method (n=10). A set of questionnaire were given to the participants. The data was gathered and the average score for the test were identified and compared. The result indicates that majority of students consumed caffeine-containing product. However, the total score of caffeine-knowledge test was just 9.6 over 24. This can clearly shows us that students have very minimum knowledge of caffeine. This happened probably because the withdrawal symptoms and side-effects of caffeine were commonly experienced than its benefits, since many of the benefits are associated with the long-term consumed of caffeine. Therefore, recommendations should be made to the students’ health and counseling service on campus or any club or society to implement actions, such as displaying posters in strategic locations or distribution of information brochures, in an attempt to improve students’ knowledge of caffeine. 

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So the findings? 

               The average score for the caffeine knowledge test was 9.6 out of 24 for the total group of participants. From the results obtained, participants had the most knowledge on the withdrawal of the caffeine (average score of 4.8 out of 8), less knowledge on the side effects (average score of 3.1 out of 8), and least knowledge on is benefits (average score of 1.7 out of 8). These findings harmonized with previous study by Lee et. al. (2009). According to them, this situation was happened probably because the withdrawal symptoms and side-effects of caffeine were commonly experienced than its benefits, since many of the benefits are associated with the long-term consumed of caffeine. With regard to common myths concerning caffeine, many students believed caffeine as a substitute for sleep (40%), causes of acne (30%) and causes hot flushes (20%).

            The results of the caffeine awareness test could be influenced by the fact that all the participants were caffeine consumers. They could probably have experienced the side-effects personally and therefore knew more about caffeine than non-consumers.

            In addition, the results obtained in this study clearly showed that students have consumed caffeine while have less knowledge in its side-effects, benefits and withdrawal symptoms. The majority of participants were using caffeine without sufficient knowledge of its side-effects, benefits and withdrawal symptoms. Hence, recommendations should be made to the students’ health and counseling service on campus or any club or society to implement actions, such as displaying posters in strategic locations or distribution of information brochures, in an attempt to improve students’ knowledge of caffeine so that students consume caffeine-containing product with aware of its side-effects. This is very important to help them avoid over-consumption of caffeine since it could results negative consequences on their health. By following the beautiful teaching of Islam, people have to take care of their diet that must also be balanced, in order to maintain the balance that God has established in all things, this is addressed in the Quran when God says:

“And He enforced the balance. That you exceed not the bounds; but observe the balance strictly; and fall not short thereof.”

(Ar- Rahman 55:7-9)  

        Last but not least, future research can be done to further the study by looking at students’ attitude on over-consumption of caffeine, whether they are aware of its negative effects on health or they are not really care about their health even though the negative effects have been exposed to them. This recommendation study would be interesting as we can investigate students’ awareness regarding their own health and whether the youth nowadays eager to practice healthy lifestyle or vice versa.

In short, based on previous study by Lee et. al. (2009):

The facts of caffeine benefits, side-effects & withdrawal symptoms are:

There are also some common misconceptions of people towards caffeine such as causes acne, dry eyes, aggression, hallucinations, skin itching and many more. AND REMEMBER THAT THEY ARE ALL MISCONCEPTIONS UNTIL FUTURE RESEARCH HAS PROVED THE OPPOSITES, YA!

So...till we not take it without the awareness of over-consumption's side-effects, Drink coffee is Ohsem !

Akhir kalam, may this post has benefits you. Wallahua'lam. Peace.