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Caffeine Addicts Get No Additional Perk, Only a Return To Baseline
Dthief writes "Bristol University researchers found that coffee drinkers develop a tolerance to both the anxiety-producing and the stimulating effects of caffeine, meaning that it only brings them back to baseline levels of alertness, not above them. 'Although frequent consumers feel alerted by caffeine, especially by their morning tea, coffee, or other caffeine-containing drink, evidence suggests that this is actually merely the reversal of the fatiguing effects of acute caffeine withdrawal,' wrote the scientists, led by Peter Rogers of Bristol's department of experimental psychology."
As a former caffeine addict, I would *love* to see some serious studies come out describing the long term consequences to long term caffeine use. Of course, we'll never see that because there's more money behind caffeine than alcohol and tobacco, combined.
I don't respond to AC's.
This study asked people to 'rate their levels of alertness' after being given either caffeine or a placebo. The people who normally consumed caffeine rated their alertness levels the same after receiving caffeine as the non-caffeine users rated their alertness levels after receiving a placebo.
Now this could mean a couple of things. One meaning could be what the study authors said; that caffeine addicts need their caffeine to be at the same level of alertness that non-caffeine users need. OR it could mean that the non-caffeine users aren't used to the higher levels of alertness that caffeine gives you, and therefore don't use the same scale to rate their alertness that caffeine users do. A caffeine user may think that the 'normal' (non-caffeinated) level of alertness is actually low (because they are used to being more alert from caffeine) even though they have the same 'actual' level of alertness. In other words, non-caffeinated people might not realize how un-alert they are.
A much better test would be to actually TEST their alertness, instead of relying on a subjective self-assessment. Make them do tasks that require alertness, and measure the differences. You might get different results.
US TV shows can't resist putting in the effects of sugar on kids. And nobody ever noticed that anywhere else in the world. Maybe because IT IS NOT TRUE. Yes you can energy from sugar but the human body has plenty of sugar all the time on a normal diet. It isn't going to hyper because you add more fuel to it, you just get fatter because the body can now store fat for later instead of burning it as it should.
Clinical trials have shown that kids have no sugar rush UNLESS the parent who thinks kids get a sugar rush are present and then the kids do indeed become hyper active. So over-sensitive parents cause hyper-active children. Not sugar. (That parents infleuence the actions of they child is well known, simple experiment: put a baby who can crawl on a surface and let it crawl over a gap covered by a glass plate. The baby will have no reaction of its own to the height below it. If the mother shows delight then the baby will show it, and cross happily. If the mother shows horror, the baby will react in fear trying to determine what danger it is in. This is how we learn, how all animals with parents learn. But we can learn wrong if the input is wrong. Over-protective parents cause over-sensitive children. Yes, sometimes kids just need to walk it off and funnily enough, they do. Watch a child playing on its own. It falls, nobody panics, it continues.)
Same with coffee. Some writer probably thought it was funny and now everyone believes sitcom rules apply to the real world. Yes, cafine is different from sugar in that it is a drug and does have an effect but you need to be the kind who drinks energy drinks as if they were water, with no water. Not just a cup of coffee. Even half a dozen.
It think part of it is that people act the way they think they are supposed to act. And yes, that would be very intresting to study more because it might have a serious effect on health care. For instance the use of medication when it ain't needed. If you think you need a pill for everything, you will need a pill for everything and indeed get a pill for everything. The US is the most medicated nation on the planet and yet they aren't any healthier. What is all the non-needed drugs doing? Not just to health but to the health care costs? If media is causing people to think they have to behave in a bad way, perhaps it can be reversed as well. Less pill swallowing for every ailment in popular media content could perhaps translate to lower medicine costs?
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