Caffeine addiction and determinants of caffeine consumption among health care providers: a descriptive national study.

OBJECTIVE: Caffeine is the most commonly used psychostimulant compound with a long history of worldwide consumption. Consuming low to moderate doses of caffeine is generally safe and quite beneficial; however, several clinical studies show that high doses could be toxic.  Additionally, caffeine users can become dependent on the drug and find themselves unable to reduce consumption despite impending and recurrent health problems associated with continued use. This study was conducted to explore the prevalence, determinants, and positive and negative effects of caffeine consumption among governmental health care providers (HCPs) who were caffeine users. It aims to determine the frequency of caffeine dependence and addiction in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) in January 2020. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: This cross-sectional study recruited 600 randomly selected HCPs from all regions of KSA, who fulfilled the selection criteria through a self-administrated, online-validated questionnaire composed of three main parts using the DSM-IV to diagnose dependence and probable addiction. RESULTS: The majority of the studied HCPs were females (67.8%), nonsmokers (82.0%), and Saudis (80.5%), with a mean age of 35 years. According to the DSM-IV, the prevalence of caffeine consumption was 94.3%. Caffeine dependence was reported in 270 (47.7%), while 345 (60.9%) were diagnosed as addicts. The most commonly consumed caffeine-containing substances were coffee and its variants/types (70%), tea (59%), and chocolate (52%), with each person spending about 220 SR per week on them. The main reported adverse effects, in descending order, were sleep disturbances, stomach problems, and cardiac symptoms. The most positive effects reported of caffeine consumption were feeling active, alert, confident, and happy. These findings were significantly affected by sex, occupation, and general health. CONCLUSIONS: Caffeine use, dependence, and addiction are common among government HCPs in KSA. Caffeine has both positive and negative effects on this population and further research is necessary to better understand the long-term consequences of caffeine consumption.

Effect of dietary supplementation of organic zinc on laying performance, egg quality and some biochemical parameters of laying hens.

This study was conducted to evaluate the effects of zinc methionine (Zn-Met) supplementation on the performance, egg quality, antioxidant status and some biochemical parameters of blood serum in laying hens from 22 to 34 weeks of age. A total of 120 Hisex Brown laying hens of 22-week-old were randomly allocated into five treatments with six cage replicates for each (four hens/replicate). Dietary treatments consisted of the basal diet with no Zn-Met supplementation (control group) and basal diet supplemented with 25, 50, 75 or 100 mg Zn-Met/kg diet. No significant differences were observed on body weight, body weight gain or feed conversion ratio due to dietary Zn-Met supplementation. However, highly significant impact was observed on daily feed intake. Egg number, egg weight and egg mass were increased in the group fed diet supplemented with the highest level of Zn-Met (100 mg/kg of diet) as compared to other groups. All egg quality traits were statistically (p > .05 or .01) affected as a response to dietary Zn-Met supplementation except egg shape index, shell percentage and yolk index. In comparison with the control group, dietary supplementation of 25, 50, 75 or 100 mg Zn-Met/kg decreased serum triglyceride and LDL-cholesterol levels. Serum cholesterol level was increased with all dietary levels of Zn-Met in comparison with the control group. Dietary Zn-Met supplementation increased the serum content of zinc, where the highest values were recorded with 50 and 100 mg Zn-Met/kg diet. Dietary Zn-Met levels did not affect the antioxidant indices in blood serum except for the activity of copper-zinc superoxide dismutase (Cu-Zn-SOD). The activity of Cu-Zn-SOD was increased with Zn-Met supplementations with no differences among supplemental zinc levels. It is concluded that dietary Zn-Met supplementation reduced serum triglyceride, LDL-cholesterol and increased Zn status and resulted in promoting antioxidant ability of laying hens, and the addition of 100 mg Zn-Met/kg to layer diet was appropriate for improving the above parameters in addition to egg production indices and Haugh unit score.