The consumption of painkillers for all sorts of ailments is becoming an ever-increasing problem. In the USA, there is talk of a painkiller epidemic that claims thousands of lives every year. A new study claims that caffeine could also be used to combat pain – and thus gives hope for new therapy approaches.
Scientists from the University of Alabama (USA) wanted to find out whether heavy caffeine consumption affects the perception of pain. To do this, they examined 62 adults between the ages of 19 and 77.
That’s how the study went
For a week, the subjects documented their intake of caffeinated foods and beverages such as coffee, tea, energy drinks and chocolate. On the seventh day, they underwent a pain test in the laboratory. The sensitivity to heat and pressure on the skin was checked.
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The results show that the more caffeine the subjects consumed in the previous week, the higher their pain tolerance. The average caffeine consumption of the group studied corresponded to about two cups of coffee per day.
Although this recently published study gives hope for new pain therapy approaches with caffeine, the results must be evaluated with caution. On the one hand, because the number of test subjects was very small at 62 and, on the other hand, because the study did not take place under clinical conditions, the test subjects only had to go to the laboratory for the pain test.
Caffeine supports the effects of painkillers
However, there is other evidence that caffeine can make a positive contribution to pain management. As early as 2012, scientists from the Oxford University Hospital in England showed that the addition of 100 mg of caffeine to painkillers such as paracetamol, ibuprofen and aspirin can contribute to significantly better pain relief. However, the positive effect was only observed in five to ten percent of the 7238 people examined.
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The caffeine helped with headaches, after dental treatments and childbirth, but not with menstrual cramps. The minimum amount for a pain-relieving effect was 100 mg, which is roughly equivalent to a cup of coffee.
Nevertheless, it cannot be concluded from this: the more coffee, the less pain. If only because caffeine has a different effect on each person and does not work with all pain.