#ukbiobank — Public Fediverse posts
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DATE: September 2, 2026 at 02:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Heavy caffeine drinkers sleep less but have deeper sleep, study finds
URL: https://www.psypost.org/heavy-caffeine-drinkers-sleep-less-but-have-deeper-sleep-study-finds/
A recent study using UK Biobank and HypnoLaus cohort data found that individuals drinking four or more caffeinated beverages per day tend to have shorter total sleep time compared to those drinking three or fewer caffeinated drinks per day. While statistical models estimated reductions in sleep length varying from 11 to 229 minutes, the researchers noted that the highest estimates were likely unrealistic, with more reliable causal matching pointing to a reduction of about 11 to 13 minutes per night. The paper was published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology.
Caffeine has been part of human diets for centuries. It is now considered the most widely consumed psychoactive substance in the world. Caffeine occurs naturally in foods and beverages such as coffee, tea, and chocolate. It is added to many energy drinks. Because of this, the regular consumption of caffeine is extremely common.
When intentionally consuming caffeine-rich beverages, people generally do it to feel more alert and energetic, to improve concentration, or to cope with stress. They also consume caffeine-rich beverages because they enjoy their taste and smell, and because these drinks are parts of social customs that facilitate social interaction (e.g. drinking coffee or tea). Because caffeine use is so widespread, its possible effects on health have attracted considerable scientific interest.
One particularly important topic related to caffeine consumption is sleep. Sleep supports essential processes ranging from memory and emotional regulation to immune and cardiovascular functioning. However, studies have shown that caffeine can make it harder to fall asleep, that it shortens sleep duration, reduces sleep efficiency, and alters the depth and structure of sleep.
Moreover, studies looking for substances that help people avoid sleepiness and stay awake regularly examine the effects of caffeine. However, much of this evidence comes from controlled laboratory experiments in which regular caffeine users temporarily abstain before receiving caffeine or consume caffeine as an experimental treatment, situations that may differ substantially from everyday consumption.
Study author Benjamin Stucky and his colleagues conducted a Mendelian randomization study with the goal of estimating the causal effect of habitual caffeine intake on sleep quality. A Mendelian randomization study uses naturally occurring genetic differences associated with a studied characteristic to test whether that characteristic is likely to have a causal effect on an outcome. In this case, study authors wanted to estimate the effects of different habitual caffeine consumption levels on both objective and subjective sleep characteristics recorded at home.
The study authors used data from the UK Biobank and the HypnoLaus cohort. The UK Biobank is a very large open access prospective study conducted in the UK involving a total of 485,511 participants. The HypnoLaus cohort is a population-based study conducted in Lausanne, Switzerland. Its dataset contains data on caffeine intake, genetic data, and objective sleep characteristics data collected using at-home polysomnography (a comprehensive sleep study that records brain waves, oxygen levels, heart rate, and breathing) for 1,702 participants. The polysomnography data were collected during one night.
The study authors used UK Biobank data to estimate the association between various gene variants and caffeine intake, and the HypnoLaus data to estimate the association between each gene variant and objective and subjective measures of sleep quality. Aside from genetic data, study authors used data on the consumption of caffeinated beverages, expressed as the number of cups per day, and data on sleep characteristics.
The sleep characteristics included total sleep time, sleep latency (the time between lights-off and N2 sleep, the second stage of non-rapid-eye-movement sleep, which is a light-to-moderate stage characterized by slower brain activity), number of awakenings during the night, percentage of REM sleep per total sleep time, and some characteristics of EEG (electroencephalogram) activity during sleep, which measures the brain’s electrical signals. Participants also completed self-report assessments of sleep quality (the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index), daytime sleepiness (the Epworth Sleepiness Scale) and morningness-eveningness (the Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire).
The results showed that participants’ self-rated sleep quality and morningness-eveningness (i.e., whether they are an evening or a morning person) did not depend on the consumption of caffeinated beverages. However, statistical models revealed that four or more caffeinated beverages consumed per day shorten total sleep time compared to three or fewer caffeinated drinks per day.
The estimated reduction in sleep length varied from 11 to 229 minutes, though the researchers caution that the higher end of this range is an overestimation caused by statistical uncertainty in the genetic modeling. Interestingly, the shorter sleep in high habitual caffeine consumers was characterized by increased non-rapid-eye-movement sleep depth (as indicated by a specific pattern of electrical brain activity known as delta power).
“The data show that high habitual caffeine intake alters the characteristics of sleep in the general population, while sparing the major physiological principles of sleep-wake regulation possibly due to adaptation,” the study authors concluded. In other words, while people slept less, their bodies compensated by sleeping more deeply, maintaining the natural homeostatic balance of sleep.
The study contributes to the scientific understanding of the likely effects of caffeine on sleep quality. However, it should be noted that the key piece of data the study was based on the number of cups of caffeinated beverages consumed per day was self-reported, leaving room for recall bias and estimation errors to have affected the results. Additionally, the study did not take into account the type of caffeinated beverage consumed, even though different beverages can contain substantially different amounts of caffeine. It also did not consider dietary sources of caffeine that are not beverages.
The paper, “Community-based causal evidence that high habitual caffeine consumption alters distinct polysomnography-derived sleep variables,” was authored by Benjamin Stucky, Leonard Henckel, Marloes H. Maathuis, José Haba-Rubio, Pedro Marques-Vidal, Francesca Siclari, Raphaël Heinzer, and Hans-Peter Landolt.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/heavy-caffeine-drinkers-sleep-less-but-have-deeper-sleep-study-finds/
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #CaffeineAndSleep #SleepQuality #CaffeineConsumption #SleepDepth #HypnoLaus #UKBiobank #SleepScience #NightTimeRest #CircadianHealth #WakefulnessToRest
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What 3,600 adults with diabetes revealed about lifestyle and heart health
A UK Biobank analysis followed more than 3,600 adults with type 2 diabetes to examin…
#dining #cooking #diet #food #MediterraneanDiet #cardiovasculardisease #Diabetes #heart #heartfailure #IschemicStroke #Mediterranean #Mortality #MyocardialInfarction #physicalactivity #sleep #stroke #type2diabetes #UKBiobank
https://www.diningandcooking.com/2777096/what-3600-adults-with-diabetes-revealed-about-lifestyle-and-heart-health/ -
What 3,600 adults with diabetes revealed about lifestyle and heart health https://www.diningandcooking.com/2777096/what-3600-adults-with-diabetes-revealed-about-lifestyle-and-heart-health/ #CardiovascularDisease #Diabetes #diet #food #heart #HeartFailure #IschemicStroke #Mediterranean #MediterraneanDiet #Mortality #MyocardialInfarction #PhysicalActivity #sleep #stroke #Type2Diabetes #UKBiobank
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#UKbiobank "We are planning for a phased re-opening of access to the UK Biobank Research Analysis Platform (UKB-RAP) from September. In recognition of the disruption caused to research by its abrupt closure in April, all projects will be extended by 6 months, as will any compute credits.
Later this year, we will introduce a manual Output Checking System (OCS) with only limited capacity to allow results to be downloaded.
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#UK #Biobank health data listed for sale in #China
Technology minister #IanMurray said information of all members of the database was found for sale on #Alibaba
Murray told MPs charity which runs #UKBiobank had reported #databreach. He said the information did not include names, addresses, contact details or telephone numbers
However he said it could include gender, age, month and year of birth, socioeconomic status, lifestyle habits, and measures from biological samples
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpvxgl3n138o -
UK health data is listed for sale on Alibaba in China.
The British government is investigating how health data volunteered to a charity for research purposes wound up for sale via three vendors on the Alibaba e-commerce site in China.
One listing had 500 000 people’s data.
#UK #Health #DataBreach #Data #HealthData #UKBiobank #Research
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UK Biobank leak: Health details of 500 000 people are offered for sale
https://www.bmj.com/content/393/bmj.s781
#HackerNews #UKBiobank #DataLeak #HealthPrivacy #MedicalEthics #DataSecurity
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🎉 Breaking news: UK Biobank's ultra-secret health data plays hide-and-seek on GitHub! 🕵️♂️ Because apparently, 20,000 researchers missed the memo on "don't hit upload" 🤦♀️—making sure British volunteer info gets the global exposure it never asked for. 😂📂
https://biobank.rocher.lc #UKBiobank #GitHub #DataPrivacy #ResearcherOops #HealthDataLeak #HackerNews #ngated -
UK Biobank health data keeps ending up on GitHub
#HackerNews #UKBiobank #GitHub #DataPrivacy #HealthTech #DataSecurity
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Looks like UK Biobank are going for the "Data Breach of the Year Award".
A strong contender, I think.
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UK Biobank data security update https://www.ukbiobank.ac.uk/news/a-message-to-our-participants-uk-biobank-data-security-update/
"Listings offering access to UK Biobank data (which did not contain any personally identifying information) were found on a Chinese consumer website. These listings were swiftly removed before any purchases were made"
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Phenome-wide analysis of copy number variants in 470,727 UK Biobank genomes https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-10087-x
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"A large federally-funded study coming out of [US]America, published in Nature, 'marijuana users have enhanced cognitive abilities' ... [they] analysed brain imaging and cognitive data, from 37929 people. The cannabis consumers consistently outperformed the non-users in the cognitive tests. They had brain network characteristics typically associated with younger brains."
#ChrisFowlie, 2025
https://95bfm.com/bcast/95bfm-drive-w-halfqueen-r%C4%81pare-august-14th-2025
#podcasts #95bFM #MarijuanaMedia #UKBioBank #cannabis #cognition #research
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I've been told that in the UKBB bgen files , the order of the alleles is ALT-first, REF-second.
1) can you confirm this ?
2) WWWWHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY ? -
Did you know you can access (if provided by authors, please do!) COHORT information?
www.ebi.ac.uk/gwas/ -> Download -> Files -> Studies. As shown in the figure,
#UKBiobank is the biggest contributor! -
Die #UKBiobank ist eine öffentlich finanzierte Forschungsdatenbank in Großbritannien: sie verknüpft die #DNA-Daten von 500.000 Brit*innen mit Daten zu Verhalten, sozialem Status und Gesundheit – eigentlich soll sie dazu dienen Krankheitsursachen zu ergründen und Therapien zu entwickeln. (2/5)
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In light of the latest "race science" genetics thing, I've taken some time to expand the #Wikipedia article on #UKBiobank - to collect some of the criticisms that have been raised over the years but that seemed quite absent.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_Biobank#Criticism
@alesssia @mbaudis @marcrr Let me know if I missed something!
(Also see the diff at https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=UK_Biobank&diff=1253586002&oldid=1251815251)
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@gedankenstuecke @gvwilson I went back to Xitter to screenshot what I wrote about those at the time. #UKBiobank
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‘Race science’ group say they accessed sensitive UK health data | Race | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/17/race-science-group-say-they-accessed-sensitive-uk-health-data#Race
#Racism
#RaceScience
#Eugenics
#ScientificRacism
#NHS
#UKBioBank
#HopeNotHate
#HumanDiversityFoundation
#Data -
Creepy tech bros and their desire to create a world of all-white Daughter-wives....
Someone white and male no doubt thought giving these creeps our sensitive data was in the Public interest. I think this person needs to explain themselves, whether they were tricked or not.
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#Proteins in #blood could provide early #cancer warning ‘by more than seven years’
Proteins in the blood could warn people of cancer more than seven years before it is diagnosed. #Scientists at the University of Oxford studied blood samples from more than 44,000 people in the #UKBiobank, including over 4,900 people who subsequently had a cancer diagnosis.
Study identifies 618 proteins linked to 19 types of cancer, which could lead to much earlier detection
https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/may/15/proteins-blood-cancer-warning-seven-years-study -
asking for AntoineRimbert@twitter https://twitter.com/AntoineRimbert/status/1767222542886953172 "I've been searching around for a file defining: "pvcf_blocks" in UKB-RAP for the pVCF 500k WGS. We did not get any answer from the community forum. Any help would be highly appreciated !" #ukbiobank
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https://afb.ukbiobank.ac.uk/ "The UK Biobank Allele Frequency Browser is a resource of variant allele frequencies and is being made publicly available." #ukbiobank #genetics #genomics
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https://www.ukbiobank.ac.uk/learn-more-about-uk-biobank/news/response-to-highly-misleading-article-in-the-observer "UKBiobank: Response to highly misleading article in The Observer" #ukbiobank
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https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/nov/12/private-uk-health-data-donated-medical-research-shared-insurance-companies "Private UK health data donated for medical research shared with #insurance companies" #ukbiobank
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Sensitive health information donated for medical research by half a million UK citizens has been shared with insurance companies despite a pledge that it would not be.
UK Biobank opened up its vast biomedical database to insurance sector firms several times between 2020 and 2023. The data was provided to insurance consultancy and tech firms.We predicted this would happen. This is why Palantir wants to get its hands on #NHS data.
#UKBiobank #Privacy #Data
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/nov/12/private-uk-health-data-donated-medical-research-shared-insurance-companies?CMP=GTUK_email -
"we are delighted to announce the release of #gnomAD v4, which includes data from 807,103 total individuals. This release is nearly 5x larger than the combined v2/v3 (...) including 416,555 individuals from the #UKBiobank" https://gnomad.broadinstitute.org/news/2023-11-gnomad-v4-0/ #genetics #genomics
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RT @: @chrisdwhelan presenting on the transformative potential of #proteomics in #UKBiobank for accelerated genetic targets and better treatment options for #health find out about the project here: https://ukbiobank.ac.uk/learn-more-about-uk-biobank/news/uk-biobank-launches-one-of-the-largest-scientific-studies…