In accordance with medical psychologist and board-certified sleep specialist Michael J. Breus, Ph.D., aka “the sleep physician,” caffeine has a half-life of six to eight hours. That means in case you cease ingesting it at 2:00 p.m., solely 50% of it’s out of your physique by 10:00 p.m. This is the reason Breus recommends reducing off caffeine early within the afternoon if potential.
Nevertheless, Breus defined throughout a latest roundtable dialogue on the science of sleep, “in case you occur to have caffeine late at night time, broccoli could assist you to digest it sooner.”
It sounds absurd, however stick with me right here! In accordance with a 2007 examine printed within the peer-reviewed journal Present Drug Metabolism, broccoli induced the liver’s cytochrome P4501 enzymes, which helped to metabolize caffeine in members. To place issues in context, they ate 500 grams of broccoli (about 5 and a half cups of chopped broccoli) and 100 milligrams of caffeine in pill type (i.e., the approximate caffeine content material in a single cup of espresso).
A newer meta-analysis of 23 dietary intervention trials exhibits that cruciferous veggies, together with broccoli, in addition to Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, radish, and watercress additionally assist the metabolism of sure substances2. (Plus, these cruciferous veggies are nutrient-dense and thus, stellar for different causes, too). Apparently, the P450 enzyme particularly affected by these greens was CYP1A2, which additionally occurs to be the major metabolizing enzyme for caffeine!
“So in case you do have a late-night latte, simply order some steamed broccoli,” Breus suggests. Consuming these cruciferous veggies steamed limits the probability of bloat—one thing you definitely additionally wish to be aware of earlier than mattress!
