Mental health professionals have long debated about the effect of caffeine
on mental functioning. A article published in MedPage Today January 13, 2009
examines this issue.The article reports on a study published online recently in Personality and Individual
Differences. The researchers surveyed, …”219 university students regarding
typical caffeine intake over the prior year (including coffee, tea, chocolate,
soda, energy drinks, and caffeine tablets), stress level, and psychotic
symptoms using a questionnaire scale…The students averaged 141 mg of caffeine
per day, similar to student populations in previous studies, the researchers
noted. By comparison, a cup of instant coffee contains 45 mg of caffeine, one
Starbucks coffee has 188 mg of caffeine, and Red Bull energy drink contains 80
mg of caffeine.” The results were interesting. “Not surprisingly, the students
reported higher caffeine intake when their stress level increased…Higher
caffeine intake also increased the likelihood of hallucination-like experiences
(P0.02), which included reports of seeing things that were not there,
hearing voices, and sensing the presence of dead people….caffeine intake
predicted hallucinations even after controlling for age, gender, and stress
levels (P0.05)….Having the equivalent of eight or more cups of instant coffee a
day tripled the chance of having heard a person's voice when no one was there
compared with less than a cup a day.” The results of this study raises several
important issues. First, individuals with a history of psychiatric disorders
should be very cautious about their use of caffeine. Second, this study
suggests that the less caffeine the better in terms of mental functioning.
The
Bottom Line: The results of this study
suggest that large quantities of caffeine can cause hallucinations even in
individuals with no prior psychiatric history.
Additional Sources of Information:
Great Youtube Video on Tips on How To Maintain Your Mental Health
Great Informational Websites Created by Dr. Speller and Dr. Korkosz:
Sources: See blogposts in Psychiatric Disorders: General and Psychiatric Disorders: Depression, Youtube
Additional Resources:
- For related articles on the Web, click on: “Sphere: Related Content” located at the bottom of this blog post.
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Dr. Jeffrey Speller Dr. Tanya Korkosz
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