Coffee in the morning is an indispensable habit for almost 80 percent of Italians. A caffeine “blow” that helps to wake up from the night torpor and start the day with the right charge. Or at least, that’s what we are used to thinking. But is it really the case? A study published in the magazine Helivon actually raises some doubts: for the usual coffee drinkers, in fact, the effect of the small dose of caffeine contained in a cup would not be different from that of a placebo.
Drinking a coffee, on the other hand, is a habit that does not end with the drinking drink. It is a daily appointment, with important social and psychological aspects. And it is therefore not easy to destroy the effects of the active ingredient, caffeine, from those of the gestures and the psychological expectations that make up the coffee rite. Especially in the usual drinkers, whose organism responds to caffeine in a different way from that of those who are not used to consuming it, and in which the effects of coffee are also linked, in part, to dependence and addiction phenomena to the substance.
The placebo effect of coffee
To deepen the question, the authors of the study-a team of researchers from different Slovenian and Dutch universities-has recruited 20 usual coffee drinkers university students, with an average pro-capita consumption of about 3 cups per day. Before going to the researchers’ laboratories to be subjected to a test battery, volunteers were asked to sleep for at least seven hours, abstain from the consumption of coffee for 8-11 hours, and not to consume food in the previous two hours.
Upon arrival in the laboratory, their basal electroencephalogram was then measured, several cardiovascular parameters, and were therefore subjected to cognitive tests and reflections. Half of the participants then drank a traditional coffee, and the other half a decaffeinated, before repeating the analyzes from the head.
The results of the second battery of tests revealed a partly unexpected situation: both groups, in fact, showed changes in their physiological and cognitive parameters, but no significant differences emerged between those who had drank the normal coffee and those who had received it decaffeinated. The only aspect in which caffeine seems to make the difference are the reaction times, the improvement of which was statistically significant for the participants who had consumed normal coffee, but not for those who had received the deca.
Even the cardiovascular reactions to the intake of coffee, which consist in the increase in pressure and the reduction of heart rate, have been identical in the two groups of participants. To demonstrate how much the placebo effect count in the psychological and physiological responses that we experience when we consume this drink.
“As far as we know, similar results had never been described before – the researchers write in their study – they could be due to the expectations that arise from the habit of drinking coffee. And in fact, it has been shown that usual coffee consumers show a reduction in reaction times even in the presence of its smell”.