Paraxanthine Explained: What It Is, Benefits, Dosage, Safety & Caffeine Comparison

Key Takeaways

• Paraxanthine is a metabolite of caffeine that offers similar benefits to caffeine but no major downsides

• It supports dopamine levels, brain health, and mental and athletic performance

• Paraxanthine doesn’t get you wired like caffeine, and may outperform it in certain areas

• Human trials on paraxanthine are just emerging, but so far it’s been shown to be safe and effective

Paraxanthine Explained: What It Is, Benefits, Dosage, Safety & Caffeine Comparison

What if you could take caffeine, filter out all the stuff you don’t like about it, and be left with only the energy and mental sharpness that you really want? That’s the idea behind paraxanthine, a natural metabolite of caffeine that is gaining traction as a supplement all by itself.

Let us explain what paraxanthine is all about, clear up some questions you may have, and Korrect some misconceptions about this fast-growing, performance-supporting compound.

What Is Paraxanthine?

Paraxanthine is one of many methylxanthines—compounds that appear naturally in several plants that are commonly used to make drinks, such as coffee and tea. It is also a component of caffeine. When you ingest caffeine, your body breaks it down into a few different metabolites, and paraxanthine is the most prominent one.

Recent scientific studies have shown that paraxanthine can have a powerful effect on both mental and physical performance, just as caffeine does.† The big difference between paraxanthine and caffeine seems to be with the drawbacks: caffeine is associated with jitters and an energy crash hours after use, while paraxanthine has no major negatives.†

Benefits of Paraxanthine

Paraxanthine has been found to support dopamine levels, brain health, cognitive function, and athletic performance.† Here’s what the science is saying:

Paraxanthine supports dopamine and brain health

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter and a hormone that helps you feel more alert and positive. It plays a role in decision-making and problem-solving, as well as muscle function. Supplementing with paraxanthine promotes dopamine levels in the brain, so it helps you wrap your mind around whatever you want to accomplish and see it through.†

Research indicates that paraxanthine may help to maintain the dopamine-signaling circuits in the brain as well, thereby supporting normal functions and long-term brain health.†

Paraxanthine helps memory and cognitive function

A 2021 trial published in Nutrients concluded that men and women who took paraxanthine had greater short-term memory, reasoning, and response time when completing cognitive challenges designed by the researchers.†

Another study from the same time showed that subjects on paraxanthine made fewer errors on cognitive tests, suggesting that paraxanthine helped sustain their attention and improve their accuracy.†

Paraxanthine promotes athletic performance

A 2024 study on experienced runners examined if paraxanthine with or without caffeine affected cognition around exercise. When the athletes took it pre-workout, they were able to maintain attention during a 10K treadmill run, offsetting cognitive fatigue and improving reaction time.† The addition of caffeine did not enhance the effects of paraxanthine alone, leading researchers to include that paraxanthine could be a suitable alternative to caffeine for cognitive performance.†

Paraxanthine Vs. Caffeine

At this point, you may be thinking that paraxanthine sounds superior to caffeine, and wondering if you can replace your morning coffee entirely.

Caffeine has been studied for decades, and there’s enough research supporting its benefits for mental and physical performance to fill a library, so we’re not throwing out our coffee beans just yet. That said, paraxanthine does seem to be caffeine’s equal, or at least a great substitute for people who don’t like how they feel on caffeine.

Paraxanthine shouldn’t get you wired

Like caffeine, paraxanthine is a stimulant, but it doesn’t act on your body entirely the same way. “Caffeine works by blocking the adenosine receptors,” says Vince Kreipke, PhD, a research scientist specializing in dietary ingredient safety and efficacy. “It helps prevent signals that you’re fatigued from getting to your brain, so you can keep working.” Paraxanthine acts on adenosine too, but remember that it also affects dopamine, so you end up more motivated than stimulated.†

It’s also worth noting that paraxanthine doesn’t rev up your heart in the same way as caffeine: it produces less of an increase in diastolic blood pressure.†

If you take too much caffeine, you can become overstimulated, and if you take caffeine too late in the day, it can interfere with your ability to sleep.

Caffeine has a half-life of around five hours. That means that if you take in 300mg at 6:00 p.m., you’ll probably have around 150mg still in your system come 11:00. That’s the equivalent of about a cup and a half of coffee, and it could keep you awake longer than you’d like.

Paraxanthine’s half-life is about three hours, so you can take it later in the day and it should clear your system by the time you’re ready for bed.

Paraxanthine may outperform caffeine

We explained that paraxanthine helps protect the circuitry in the brain.† Studies have shown that caffeine offers only marginal protection in this area, so between the two, paraxanthine appears to be the better choice for keeping your brain sharp as you age.†

Is Paraxanthine Safe?

Every paraxanthine trial to date shows it to be safe and well-tolerated in humans, with few downsides reported.† Paraxanthine produces less toxicity than caffeine, so it’s fair to think of it as a more filtered, purified version of the stuff.† Still, paraxanthine is a stimulant, so, like caffeine, you should be moderate in your use and careful about when you take it so it doesn’t keep you from sleeping. Government recommendations on caffeine use warn against ingesting more than 400mg in a day, and the same limit should be applied to paraxanthine for the time being. 

If your body doesn’t tolerate caffeine well, it’s likely that it won’t tolerate paraxanthine well either, so if you’re interested in trying it, experiment with small doses at first.

What Is The Recommended Dosage of Paraxanthine?

Most of the research on paraxanthine shows that 200mg is the sweet spot for cognitive benefits.†

Paraxanthine Addiction Risk: Myth vs. Reality

Some skeptics have proposed that because people can develop a dependence on caffeine, the same might be true for paraxanthine. We need more research to say for sure with paraxanthine, but the fact is, caffeine isn’t addictive. It’s true that you may experience headaches and feel run down if you go from drinking coffee habitually to cutting it out completely, but research shows your body will recalibrate within nine days.† 

In the meantime, we can probably assume a similar effect for paraxanthine. If you do take it for a while and then stop and notice withdrawal sensations, your system will get itself back online before long.

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