SuppVersity - Nutrition and Exercise Science for Everyone

Tea will naturally contain both theanine and caffeine, but will it work, as well as supplemental theanine and caffeine? While everybody knows caffeine (see last SV article comparing caffeine to coffee ), theanine aka L-γ-glutamylethylamide or N5-ethyl-L-glutamine, an amino acid analogue of the proteinogenic amino acids L-glutamate and L-glutamine, is less well known, but as a recent study shows not less potent when it comes to its effects on cognition and neurophysiological measures of selective attention aka "focus" on a task / object (Kahathuduwa. 2016). You want to know why the researchers from the Universities of Peradeniya, Kelaniya  and the Texas Tech University  know that? Let's take a look at what the researchers did and why they conclude that the effects of caffeine & theanine add up. You can learn more about caffeine at the SuppVersity For Caffeine, Timing Matters! 45 Min or More? Coffee - The Good, Bad & Interesting Three Cups of C...

Caffeinated soft drink, coffee or tea, caffeine alone or caffeine + l-theanine what's going to yield the desired afterburner effect for your brain? The answer to this question came out probably less straight forward than you'd expected. "L-theanine, coffee or both? What's going to get your brain going?" That's the question form the title of today's SuppVersity article and it's a question with an astonishingly simple answer:  Both ! I guess you will be well aware that both caffeine and l-theanine have scientific evidence to support their usefulness as cognitive enhancers (Quinlan. 2000; Hindmarch. 2000; Nathan. 2006). Their interactions however have not been studied that extensively. It's thus worth to take a closer look at the data Hira Zameer et al. collected for their most recent paper in the International Journal of Endorsing Health Science Research - data on the effects these agents can have on the cognitive performance and reaction ...