Laboratório de Ecologia Aquática, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ecologia, Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora, Juiz de Fora, 36036-900, Brazil.
Laboratório de Ecologia Aquática, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ecologia, Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora, Juiz de Fora, 36036-900, Brazil.
Environ Pollut. 2020 Jan;256:113343. doi: 10.1016/j.envpol.2019.113343. Epub 2019 Oct 10.
Caffeine is one of the most consumed substances, and it has been largely detected in aquatic ecosystems. We investigated the trends in caffeine consumption over three decades and its relationships with gross domestic product (GDP) and human development index (HDI) to understand global patterns and to identify potential hotspots of contamination. The total caffeine consumption is increasing mainly due to population growth. Moreover, caffeine consumption per capita is also increasing in some countries, such as Brazil, Italy, and Ethiopia. A high positive correlation between caffeine consumption per capita with HDI and GDP was found for coffee-importing countries in Europe, while a high negative correlation was found for coffee-exporting countries in Africa. The literature review showed that the highest caffeine concentrations coincide with countries that present an increasing caffeine consumption per capita. Also, approximately 35% of the caffeine concentrations reported in the literature were above the predicted no-effect concentration in the environment and, again, overlaps with countries with increasing per capita consumption. Despite the high degradation rate, caffeine consumption tends to increase in a near future, which may also increase the overall amount of caffeine that comes into the environment, possibly exceeding the thresholds of several species described as tolerant to the current environmental concentrations. Therefore, it is essential to prevent caffeine from reaching aquatic ecosystems, implementing sewage treatment systems, and improving their efficiency.
咖啡因是最常被消耗的物质之一，在水生生态系统中也有大量的检测。我们研究了三十年来咖啡因的消耗趋势及其与国内生产总值（GDP）和人类发展指数（HDI）的关系，以了解全球模式并确定潜在的污染热点。由于人口增长，咖啡因的总消耗量正在增加。此外，巴西、意大利和埃塞俄比亚等一些国家的人均咖啡因消耗量也在增加。在欧洲，对于进口咖啡的国家，人均咖啡因摄入量与 HDI 和 GDP 之间存在高度正相关，而对于非洲出口咖啡的国家，两者之间存在高度负相关。文献综述表明，咖啡因浓度最高的国家与人均咖啡因摄入量呈上升趋势相吻合。此外，文献中报告的咖啡因浓度约有 35%高于环境中预测无影响浓度，再次与人均消费呈上升趋势的国家相吻合。尽管降解率很高，但咖啡因的消耗在不久的将来仍有增加的趋势，这也可能增加进入环境的咖啡因总量，可能超过对当前环境浓度有耐受性的几种物种的阈值。因此，必须防止咖啡因进入水生生态系统，实施污水处理系统，并提高其效率。
