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 Coffee makes pain go away – study 

Published on news.com.au – April 01, 2009

 COFFEE can make mornings more tolerable, but is it making them less painful?

 

 A US study into the effect of caffeine on cyclists found those who took a pill containing the stimulant reported less muscle pain, ensuring they could exert themselves for longer.

 

The study took in 25 fit men who were put through a series of different intensity trials on a stationary bicycle. The riders abstained from caffeine for 24 hours before the tests and they were then given a nondescript tablet – either a pill containing the equivalent of two to three cups of coffee or a placebo.

 

Oxygen consumption, heart rate and their work rate were monitored as the cyclists were also quizzed on their “perceptions of quadriceps muscle pain” during the trials.

 

 “We’ve shown that caffeine reduces pain reliably, consistently during cycling, across different intensities, across different people, different characteristics,” said Robert Motl of the University of Illinois.

 

 The riders were also selected to represent heavy coffee drinkers – an intake of three to four cups daily or 400 milligrams of caffeine – and those who drank little to no coffee.

 

 Professor Motl said this was designed to show whether a higher tolerance to the stimulant would, as anticipated, dull any other effect the caffeine could have on the riders.

 

“What we saw is something we didn’t expect – caffeine-naive individuals and habitual users have the same amount of reduction in pain during exercise after caffeine,” he says.

“If you regularly consume caffeine, you have to have more to have that bigger mental-energy effect but the tolerance effect is not ubiquitous across all stimuli.”

 

Prof Motl said the caffeine was known to affect the adenosine neuromodulatory system in the brain and spinal cord, and this system was heavily involved in pain processing.

The study was published in the International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism. Prof Motl, a former competitive cyclist, said the research would come as no surprise to the many cyclists who have a coffee before a gruelling training ride or those people who down one on the way to the gym.

 

“I think a lot of people are taking caffeine before a workout and they don’t realise the actual benefit they’re experiencing,” he said “That is they’re experiencing less pain.”