In other words, caffeine increases cortisol and makes people more prone to hallucinations, yet doesn’t necessarily cause them.
Entitled ‘Caffeine, stress, and proneness to psychosis-like experiences: a preliminary investigation’, the authors of the study asked 219 non-smoking students to fill out questionnaires on their caffeine consumption, lifestyle and whether they hallucinated or felt persecuted. The answers ruled out a link with stress or delusions of persecution.
On average, the students consumed 141mg of caffeine a day. A cup of coffee can contain between 77-180mg, while a can of the energy drink Red Bull contains 80mg and a can of Coca-Cola Classic 34.5mg.
The experiment has been widely reported in the media as conclusive of caffeine’s ability to create hallucinations, quoting the following: “The present study offers some support for our first hypothesis, namely that when levels of stress are accounted for, caffeine intake is positively related to levels of psychosis-like experiences.”
However, the study couldn’t determine a causal link, relied on a non-clinical sample and, more importantly, that the retrospective measure of caffeine self-reported by students has not been independently validated.
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