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For anyone who's ever said that decaf just won't do in the mornings, a new study might prove you wrong.
New research from the University of East London has found that the buzz we get from caffeinated coffee might just be in our heads. The small study suggests that if we expect a certain effect from caffeinated coffee, we'll act accordingly, even if we actually downed decaf -- just like a placebo effect.
To come to this conclusion, researchers gave coffee to 88 volunteers. Some were knowingly given caffeinated coffee, some were given caffeinated coffee but were told it's decaf, some were knowingly given decaf coffee and some were given decaf coffee but told it's caffeinated.
The study participants drank their coffee in five minutes and then waited for 55 minutes before undergoing a number of tests of their mental performance, reaction times and mood, MSNBC reported.
However, the people who drank the decaf coffee thinking it was caffeinated coffee did just as well on the tests as the people who really did have the caffeine, The Telegraph reported.
"Both caffeine and expectation of having consumed caffeine improved attention and psychomotor speed," researchers wrote in the study.
05:33 PM on 9/04/2011
While there is no question that cigarettes are lethal, it’s a little ridiculous to compare coffee to cigarettes. First of all, people all over the world have been drinking coffee for thousands of years, and they have yet to prove that it is cancer-causing or harmful. In fact, they are actually proving that it prohibits certain types of cancerous tumor growth. Drinking it in moderation is most likely good for you as they have already proven. Obviously drinking it excessively isn’t good, but doing anything in excess is harmful. It is also full of beneficial antioxidants.
05:29 PM on 9/04/2011
coffee’s been around since 5 AD. I highly doubt people are going to quit drinking it.. And I quit smoking but I’m not and I mean not, going to give up my coffee..
10:58 AM on 9/04/2011
Phillips Morris cigarettes maker have been replaced by Starbucks Coffee, it took 50 years to convince people that smoking is bad and will take another 50 years to prove the coffee is bad for your health.
05:47 PM on 9/04/2011
nuh, uh…everyone knows that all the men signed up to fight them nazis…what’s wrong with you! /snark off/
…yes i know in reality most ww2 g.i.’s waited to be drafted – something that you’ll never hear from the "greatest generation" propagandists…
04:24 PM on 9/04/2011
During WW2,persons called up in the draft used to drink a lot of coffee before the physical to raise their blood pressure and flunk the physical.
11:29 AM on 9/04/2011
Dumb. Caffeine is a drug. Give it to a rat and his heart rate goes up. Or is that placebo too?
11:58 AM on 9/03/2011
it IS real…, and your reality is (partly) created by your mind…
03:39 PM on 9/02/2011
yeah try to convince me that something i experience is not real.
08:18 PM on 9/03/2011
coffee is both good and bad for you. It has multiple positive health affects, along with multiple negative effects. The things that coffee is good at preventing run in my family so I drink coffee every day. The things that coffee can cause are not health concerns for me. As far as ageing the skin – how does an anti oxidant do that?? Ageing is caused by free radical damage to the cells, coffee contains two ingredients that flush free radicals from the body.
01:45 AM on 9/03/2011
But it tastes great with a bit of chocolate something dessert.
05:26 PM on 9/02/2011
Coffee is poison. It raise your bodys acid level and lowers you alkaline.
Deseases need acids to survive, so your feeding the cancer or whatever.
coffee also makes your face age.
Coffee companys want rush to tell you this. ( I cut down to 1/3 a cup)
05:56 AM on 9/03/2011
Roasting really has little to no effect on caffiene content on a dry weight basis. Caffeine is very stable. Bean variety is a bigger factor. http://www.overcaffeinated.org/caffeine-in-coffee.php Just FYI. Cheers.
06:10 PM on 9/02/2011
I can totally believe this. I worked at a coffee shop for years and folks would often complain that the darker roasts were too hi-caf for them and made them jittery. Nothing could convince them that the darker the roast-the less caffein there is…It just has a stronger taste that I always figured people mis-took for stronger caffeine.
07:50 PM on 9/02/2011
Etymological Irony:
hysterical
1610s, from L. hystericus "of the womb," from Gk. hysterikos "of the womb, suffering in the womb," from hystera "womb" (see uterus). Originally defined as a neurotic condition peculiar to women and thought to be caused by a dysfunction of the uterus. Meaning "very funny" (by 1939) is from the notion of uncontrollable fits of laughter. Related: Hysterically.
07:23 PM on 9/02/2011
MEN ARE THE HYSTERICAL ONES!
Aha! I knew that I was right afterall! Men are more hysterical than women. There’s other recent research with findings that there is a gender-effect with caffeine — it’s more addictive for men than for women. Males must be more susceptible to the placebo effect than females:
http://www.ethicsoup.com/2010/01/caffeine-gender-effect-caffeine-more-addictive-for-boys-than-girls.html
And, yet another research study found that drinking a lot of cola and caffeine lowers men’s sperm count:
http://www.ethicsoup.com/2010/04/whos-your-daddy-drinking-a-lot-of-cola-and-caffeine-means-low-sperm-count.html
07:48 PM on 9/02/2011
Given how insanely robust(a) the placebo effect is, I’m not surprised.
Sorry for the corny coffee joke.
11:03 PM on 9/02/2011
Well, if it IS just a placibo effect… thanks a LOT, dill-holes.
11:52 PM on 9/02/2011
wow … and i thought i was odd cuz’ i drank coffee for the taste and because it’s a downer for me not an upper or morning coffee buzz!! lol
08:10 PM on 9/03/2011
The need a real science section instead of these AOL fluff pieces.
12:11 AM on 9/03/2011
Real or not, I can count on the HuffPost whoring itself over it.
12:29 AM on 9/03/2011
This study is small scale and it is unknown how carefully it was done. In any case, there are literally thousands of rigorous double blind studies that prove caffeine improves mental speed, visuo-spatial reasoning, memory and verbal fluency. For the full, real story about caffeine, go to WorldofCaffeine.com, a web site hosted by the authors of the leading academic, trade, and self-help books on caffeine. In any case, the placebo effect is very old. People frequently respond to sugar pills as if they contained other drugs if they have been told and believe that these pills contain these drugs.
12:42 AM on 9/03/2011
No mention of robusta vs arabica beans. Nor the roast of the beans. Subjects probably drank a typical mild arabica blend that is popular because it’s smooth tasting (bland). Think Bud Light of coffee. I can easily accept the results for that. Now, take a decent Sumatra or even 100% Kona, and you can absolutely tell the difference between regular and decaf. Well, I can anyway.
05:36 AM on 9/03/2011
Yes, placebo effect is real. Just look at acupuncture, reikki, and homeopathy for evidence. But without reading this study we have no believable conclusions. Journalists are good with hype but generally ignorant about the science journals they attempt to interpret. For instance many decaf coffees are very high in caffeine. Was the decaf checked?
08:55 AM on 9/03/2011
This is a bizarre conclusion.
Just because the placebo effect is at work doesn’t mean caffeine isn’t having a real effect on the body. The body’s response to caffeine is it’s attempt to flush this toxin from it’s system. In doing so it also flushes water and essential minerals with it, compromising health.
Listen to your mother, not disjointed studies: Eat your vegetables and everything in moderation.
11:10 AM on 9/03/2011
I don’t think this is a "placebo effect" seems more like a condition response.
12:16 PM on 9/03/2011
For me, I’ve always felt that the taste of coffee wakes me up more than anything. All placebos aside- that bitterness wires me, even when it’s decaf. It’s why I like dark roasts, even when, contrary to popular belief, they have less caffeine. Yum.
05:34 PM on 9/04/2011
omg ,, I thought I was the only one.. I have it in the morning, but if I drink it later in the day, I can’t keep awake..
10:22 PM on 9/03/2011
Chocolate has the same effect on me.
09:35 PM on 9/03/2011
No one believes me, but it makes me sleepy.
02:32 PM on 9/03/2011
Coffee has no huge impact on me, but I love it.