Photo: Julius Schorzman (CC)
Interesting – all those people who say they can’t function without coffee may be kidding themselves. Via the Daily Mail:
Many people swear they can’t start their mornings without a steaming cup of coffee, but a new study has found its stimulating effect could all be in the mind.
Researchers from the University of Bristol found there was no real benefit to be gained from that first shot of caffeine. The reason you may feel more alert is because the strong brew simply reverses the tiring effects of acute caffeine withdrawal.
Lead author Professor Peter Rogers, said: ‘Our study shows that we don’t gain an advantage from consuming caffeine – although we feel alerted by it, this is caffeine just bringing us back to normal.’
But the report also found that those who drank coffee developed a tolerance to its anxiety-producing effects. The team tested 379 people who abstained from caffeine for 16 hours. Half were non or low caffeine consumers while the other half were medium or high caffeine consumers.
They were asked to rate their personal levels of anxiety, alertness and headache before and after being given either the caffeine or the placebo. The participants showed little variance in levels of alertness when they were then tested for a range of responses…
[continues in the Daily Mail]
