- Good decaf reduces symptoms of caffeine withdrawal in a new study.
- Whether participants believed they were drinking standard coffee or decaf after 24 hours without coffee, they felt better afterward.
- The study is an interesting addition to research regarding surprising placebo effects.
According to a new study, if a cup of decaffeinated coffee tastes sufficiently like real coffee, it may be able to reduce the unpleasant symptoms of caffeine withdrawal.
Researchers at the University of Sydney found that a cup of high quality decaf significantly reduced the withdrawal symptoms participants had been experiencing 24 hours after their last cup of caffeinated coffee.
Some individuals in the study were unaware that they were drinking decaf, while others knew what they were drinking. Interestingly, withdrawal symptoms also receded in the group who knew what they were imbibing.
The study is one of many describing the often-surprising beneficial effects that placebos produce in clinical studies.
A placebo is a substance with no therapeutic effect, often administered to some participants in a controlled drug study. Other participants receive the actual drug being tested. The placebo-receiving control group provides baseline measurements against which researchers can assess the drug’s effect on those who have received it.
Participants sometimes gain the expected benefits of drugs being tested when they do not know they’ve been given a placebo.
In other studies, the placebo effect also occurs in participants who receive “open-label” placebos — that is, they have been told that they were getting a placebo.
The University of Sydney study may offer a means of escaping caffeine addiction for those who want to quit drinking coffee.
The study appears in the Journal of Psychopharmacology.
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