“The mechanism of open-label placebo probably involves the body automatically and non-consciously reacting to the embodied ritual of coffee-taking that makes the central nervous system - in some people some of the time - respond with similar reductions of symptoms as if it was taking a real cup of coffee.” It is certainly not out of the realm of possibility to think they could have a robust conditioned response to the stimuli surrounding caffeine consumption even in the absence of expectancy.” “I think it would be a mistake to discount the role that cognition and learning can play. “Importantly, expectations were not involved with this decaf effect, which supports long-term clinical research on clinical patients that expectations are not a component of honest placebo effects.” “It provides a proof-of-principle that honest decaf coffee used as open-label honest placebo can serve as an aid to reducing withdrawal symptoms, at least in the very short time frame of the study.”Ībout the symptom reductions for the group of participants who knew they were drinking decaf, Dr. Ted Kaptchuk, a leading investigator of placebo effects who was not involved in the study:
“But surprisingly, the group we told the truth to also reported a reduction in their caffeine withdrawal, although not as large a reduction as the group we lied to.”Īccording to Harvard Medical School’s Dr. “The group we lied to had a sizable reduction in their caffeine withdrawal,” said Dr. The third, which was the control group, received water.įorty-five minutes after downing their beverage, participants again filled out the questionnaire. One group was under the impression they would be drinking coffee, and one group was told they would be drinking decaf. Researchers divided the individuals into three groups. At the end of that period, participants filled out a withdrawal-symptom questionnaire. Mills said.įor the study, 61 heavy coffee drinkers used to three or more cups a day took a 24-hour break from consumption. “Despite Sydney folks being notorious coffee snobs, our participants were pretty easy to trick,” Dr. Mills told Medical News Today that decaf should work as long as it “does not taste like decaffeinated coffee.”įor the study, researchers used a U.S. “But our study suggests that even if they are aware it’s decaf, their withdrawal still subsides.”ĭr. Llew Mills tells the University of Sydney News. “A convincing cup of decaf has the power to reduce withdrawal symptoms a lot when the person drinking it is unaware it’s decaf,” the study’s lead author Dr. These symptoms were reduced or alleviated by decaf in the new study. The study appears in the Journal of Psychopharmacology. The University of Sydney study may offer a means of escaping caffeine addiction for those who want to quit drinking coffee. 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. Participants sometimes gain the expected benefits of drugs being tested when they do not know they’ve been given a placebo. The placebo-receiving control group provides baseline measurements against which researchers can assess the drug’s effect on those who have received it. Other participants receive the actual drug being tested. The study is one of many describing the often-surprising beneficial effects that placebos produce in clinical studies.Ī placebo is a substance with no therapeutic effect, often administered to some participants in a controlled drug study. Interestingly, withdrawal symptoms also receded in the group who knew what they were imbibing. Some individuals in the study were unaware that they were drinking decaf, while others knew what they were drinking.
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.
Whether participants believed they were drinking standard coffee or decaf after 24 hours without coffee, they felt better afterward.Good decaf reduces symptoms of caffeine withdrawal in a new study.Share on Pinterest A study found that high quality decaf coffee can help ease caffeine withdrawal symptoms.
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