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Discussion (49 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews
There is an interesting effect in mood related studies where every group usually improves on average, even if they receive only placebo. The real measure of any depression study is therefore the improvement above and beyond the control group.
The effect is so predictable that it has become an easy way to produce studies showing positive effects from something: All you have to do is track some group of people and then give ALL of them your supplement, and their scores will improve. It makes great headlines because most people don’t know you could have given them sugar pills and the scores would also improve.
EDIT: As another commenter pointed out, this person has an unusual long list of financial affiliations with companies that produce drink products, too. This study should probably be ignored
And decaf is not caffeine-free. Decaf coffee still contains about 5-10% of the original caffeine content compared to the same beans but not decaffeinated.
And then there’s the tiny sample size :( and no control group. This is worse than useless. This is the kind of waste that news stations will pick and advertise.
The process was mostly without discomfort: I bought decaf beans and started cutting my coffee grounds with 50% decaf. After two weeks, 75% decaf. Then 87.5%, etc. About two months later I stopped experiencing withdrawals if I don't drink any coffee at all.
Before I started cutting I would get massive headaches and become irritable if I don't drink coffee in the morning. Now I'm free!
I encourage all heavy coffee drinkers try drinking less. At some point, it stops improving your cognitive functions but instead just maintains a mediocre baseline, which I suppose is the same as almost all substance reliance.
> In fact, none of the sleep researchers or experts on circadian rhythms I interviewed for this story use caffeine.
https://www.theguardian.com/food/2021/jul/06/caffeine-coffee...
A mug of decaf has about 3% of the caffeine of a mug of non-decaf coffee, at most. It is negligible as a stimulant. The only people who would need to avoid it are those with an allergy.
I feel these disclaimers should be posted under every post about nutritional research that's linked on here. Not saying it proves anything in favour or not, but it's good to know who's getting paid to say what.
So it could easily just be cessation of withdrawal symptoms.
The point I'm making is that a non-coffee drinker won't have "withdrawal symptoms", so OP's suggestion that the beneficial effects they observed were just "cessation of withdrawal symptoms" doesn't make any sense. As in literally nonsense: "a non-coffee drinker's withdrawal symptoms" is nonsensical in the same way the idea of a square circle is.
And is the effect chemical, or there's also something about the ritual?
Has anyone compared groups that either drank coffee or took the same quantity in pills?
> "Our findings reveal the microbiome and neurological responses to coffee, as well as their potential long-term benefits for a healthier microbiome. Coffee may modify what microbes do collectively, and what metabolites they use. As the public continues to think about dietary changes for the right digestive balance, coffee has the potential to also be harnessed as a further intervention as part of a healthy balanced diet."
That would explain why it works for decaf too. i.e. it's healthy gut, healthy mind.
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/drinking-morning-c...
>The study also found differences in gut bacteria between coffee drinkers and non-coffee drinkers, including increases in species such as Eggertella sp and Cryptobacterium curtum, which are thought to play roles in gut function and metabolism.
>Cognitive effects varied depending on coffee type: decaffeinated coffee was associated with improvements in learning and memory, while caffeinated coffee was linked to reduced anxiety, improved vigilance and attention, as well as a reduced risk of inflammation.
The actual journal article has a lot more information, the clickbait headline doesn't really do it justice https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-71264-8
Fun fact: on the same day I noticed and stopped taking it coffee, 5 days later I had terrible muscle pain in my lower back (I could hardly sleep). 2 days later I had no more pain. I researched later and saw that this type of pain could also be caused as an effect of caffeine withdrawal.
> In fact, none of the sleep researchers or experts on circadian rhythms I interviewed for this story use caffeine.
https://www.theguardian.com/food/2021/jul/06/caffeine-coffee...
Although, it doesn't make me feel anxious on most days, it's really only if I already have a prior reason, it just exacerbates it.
>In CD participants, indoles such as indole-3-propionic acid (IPA) and indole-3-carboxyaldehyde (ICA) and the neurotransmitter γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) were significantly decreased.
GABA is an anti-anxiety neurotransmitter, it's what benzodiazepines mimic.
This is a terrible sentence. As I understand it, you can't "reintroduce" coffee to non-coffee drinkers.
As such, the improvement seen when they start drinking coffee could simply be a placebo effect. Coffee making is a nice daily ritual that helps being grounded in the present, as do sents, tastes and the feeling of a warm beverage.
The study is also fairly low power, as you have 62 people in four groups: coffee drinker with caffeine, coffee drinker with decaffeinated, non-coffee drinker with caffeine, non-coffee drinker with decaffeinated.
(Again, a big problem in many human studies is that it is very hard to recruit enough people, both for financial and organization reasons, so don't read this as a knock against the research team).