As per the researchers of a new study, young generation today is increasingly getting hooked on to caffeine, found in tea, coffee, soft drinks, and energy drinks, and the stimulant influences boys more strongly than girls.

Interestingly, boys reported that caffeine consumption not just boosted their energy levels but also positively affected their athletic performance while girls reported no such thing.

While commenting on the study findings, lead researcher Jennifer L. Temple, neurobiologist and assistant professor of nutrition sciences at the University at Buffalo, US, said in her press statement, "Caffeine is known to increase blood pressure, but the fact that it caused an exaggerated response in high-consuming males was a surprise, since at the time of measurement the amount of caffeine consumed by boys and girls was the same."

Temple added that it was imperative for them to understand the effects of caffeine on younger generation as they are "the fastest-growing consumers of caffeine" and yet no study has been done to find out its effects on adolescents.

About research
To arrive at this conclusion, researchers studied affects of caffeine consumption on 26 boys and 26 girls, aged between 12 to 17 years.

Only those were allowed to participate in the experiment, who had some previous experience with caffeine and had no adverse reactions to it, or were on hormone-based contraceptives, smoking etc.

All the participants were told not to eat anything or drink anything, besides water two hours before the start of experiment, and to abstain from caffeinated drinks 24 hours before the experiment.

In the experiment, each participant was either given 50mg, 100mg, 200mg caffeine in their drinks or none at all. Blood pressure and heart rate was monitored after each experiment.

After analyzing the data collected, researchers found that boys who turned out to be regular/high consumers of caffeine reported greater increase in blood pressure levels.

However, no link between high blood pressure and caffeine was found in girls.

Study findings very useful
Study researchers are hopeful that with the help of findings, they might be able to determine how males and females differ in their vulnerability to drug abuse and treatment.

"Our findings from this study and from our previous study suggest that boys and girls respond differently to caffeine. We are hoping that our findings from our studies on caffeine will help us to determine why males and females differ in susceptibility to drug abuse and respond differently to treatment," concluded Temple.

The study findings recently appeared in the December 2010 issue of the journal 'Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology.'