More Research Is Necessary to Establish the Ergogenic Effect of Caffeine in Female Athletes

Abstract

Dear Editor-in-Chief, Today, there is a significant gap in research on the ergogenicity of caffeine, and on sports nutrition in general: the benefits/drawbacks for a given substance are typically assumed for the whole population of athletes when most of the evidence is supported by investigations with only male samples. As a result of this assumption, acute pre-exercise ingestion of 3–9 mg/kg of caffeine is considered an effective strategy to increase sports performance [1], while data on urine caffeine concentration indicates that the use of caffeine in sport is similar in both sexes [2]. A few recent investigations using women as study samples, have also found that caffeine increases sports performance [3–6]. However, evidence regarding the overall ergogenicity of caffeine in women is much scarcer than in men, and it seems unsafe to conclude that the ergogenic effect of a moderate dose of caffeine is of similar magnitude in men and women.