In relation to human nutrition, half life refers to the length of time it takes to clear half the quantity of a consumed substance from the body.
For example, the half life of caffeine in a newborn baby is 97.5 hours, meaning that it takes the body 97.5 hours to reduce the quantity of caffeine by half. This means that if a baby was exposed to 0.8 mg of caffeine at a given point in time (from the mother’s breastmilk), 0.4 mg of caffeine would remain in its system after 97.5 hours (about 4 days), and 0.2 mg would remain in its system 195 hours later (approximately 8 days), if the baby is not exposed to any further caffeine. Each further 0.8 mg of caffeine the baby was exposed to would also take 197 hours to reduce to 0.2 mg of caffeine, and so caffeine could quickly accumulate in the system of a young baby.
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