Athletics: Caffeine the Drug of Choice

You can keep your designer drugs, growth hormones and the like. What most athletes want these days is an extra shot in their latte . Hard to swallow it may be, but on the merry-go-round of doping trends, it seems caffeine is once again the drug of choice across many sports - and apparently with good reason.

After years of debating its pros and cons, sport scientists have finally proven what most of us who rely on a java jolt to start the day have long suspected - that it does enhance performance. And not just through its stimulant effects on the brain. Trials at the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) in Canberra reveal that caffeine also boosts endurance. Researchers there found that cyclists who ingested it while riding could pedal longer and faster than those who took plain water.

Their investigations suggest that substances in caffeine immediately trigger the release of fats into the blood. As a result, the body is able to use fat as its primary energy source before reverting to its limited stores of carbohydrate to keep going. Fatigue is delayed and times improved by a small but crucial margin of up to 3%. Whatever the underlying chemical interactions, though, the findings mean a storm in a coffee cup is brewing.

Caffeine was a banned substance until early last year when it was removed from the world anti-doping code because evidence against it was considered inconclusive. Just over 12 months later and the World Anti-Doping Agency is reportedly considering reinstating that ban following the Australian researchers' discovery. Caffeine is now on Wada's monitoring list and will be investigated in September.

With several high-profile Australian athletes admitting they take more than the occasional espresso to give themselves a lift, the Australian government has been asked to hand over any information on caffeine's performance-enhancing effects to Wada. Several AFL players and the Wallabies captain George Gregan have confessed to taking caffeine before important matches, Gregan believing it raised his game by 7%.

But if the effects are so pronounced, one cannot help wondering why the caffeine ban was lifted in the first place. Although the AIS research is groundbreaking in some respects, it merely confirms what other researchers have strongly suggested in the past. Outside of sport, caffeine's potency is widely acknowledged. It is considered so addictive that US experts are pressing for caffeine withdrawal to be included in the next edition of the Diagnostics and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), the bible for mental health practitioners published by the American Psychiatric Association (APA).

Sport's growing number of caffeine-fuelled sponsors will undoubtedly be less than pleased about the emerging adverse publicity. By giving caffeine a clean bill of health last year, the doping authorities opened the floodgates for manufacturers of caffeine-laced products to benefit from sport's publicity machine. Coca-Cola has long led the way with its Olympic and other sponsorship deals. But until last year, Olympians could be banned for having too much caffeine in their system.

UK Athletics, for example, now has an official sponsor in Red Bull, the fizzy drink that is banned in France after a scientific committee on human nutrition found its levels of caffeine and other stimulants to be excessive. In 2004 the European Court of Justice upheld the French ban. Other toxicology experts say Red Bull is safe and it could provide Britain's athletes which a much-needed lift this summer. But, should Wada reinstate a ban, it could take effect from next January. What would then become of such lucrative financial backing from caffeine companies remains to be seen.

At least those who get the jitters about going cold turkey from their drug of choice can be thankful that the world now has its first rehab clinic for caffeine junkies. Based at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, the centre runs a programme to help those who rely too heavily on caffeinated drinks or tablets to wean themselves off their habit. To date, it is students and business high flyers who have flocked to use the service. Come early 2006, the clinic could be inundated with an altogether more athletic clientele.