I keep a weblog like it's still the 90s. For commentary and dissent please visit jontaylor.ca, or various other purveyors of thought online.

Sunday, November 8, 2009

Real vs Placebo Coffee

Neuroskeptic: Real vs Placebo Coffee: "Or does it? Are the benefits of coffee really due to the caffeine, or are there placebo effects at work? Numerous experiments have tried to answer this question, but a paper published today goes into more detail than most. (It caught my eye just as I was taking my first sip this morning, so I had to blog about it.)

The authors took 60 coffee-loving volunteers and gave them either placebo decaffeinated coffee, or coffee containing 280 mg caffeine. That's quite a lot, roughly equivalent to three normal cups. 30 minutes later, they attempted a difficult button-pressing task requiring concentration and sustained effort, plus a task involving mashing buttons as fast as possible for a minute."

Blog Archive