There is an interesting effect in mood related studies where every group usually improves on average, even if they receive only placebo. The real measure of any depression study is therefore the improvement above and beyond the control group.
The effect is so predictable that it has become an easy way to produce studies showing positive effects from something: All you have to do is track some group of people and then give ALL of them your supplement, and their scores will improve. It makes great headlines because most people don’t know you could have given them sugar pills and the scores would also improve.
EDIT: As another commenter pointed out, this person has an unusual long list of financial affiliations with companies that produce drink products, too. This study should probably be ignored
I feel these disclaimers should be posted under every post about nutritional research that's linked on here. Not saying it proves anything in favour or not, but it's good to know who's getting paid to say what.
So it could easily just be cessation of withdrawal symptoms.
>The study also found differences in gut bacteria between coffee drinkers and non-coffee drinkers, including increases in species such as Eggertella sp and Cryptobacterium curtum, which are thought to play roles in gut function and metabolism.
>Cognitive effects varied depending on coffee type: decaffeinated coffee was associated with improvements in learning and memory, while caffeinated coffee was linked to reduced anxiety, improved vigilance and attention, as well as a reduced risk of inflammation.
The actual journal article has a lot more information, the clickbait headline doesn't really do it justice https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-71264-8
This is a terrible sentence. As I understand it, you can't "reintroduce" coffee to non-coffee drinkers.
And is the effect chemical, or there's also something about the ritual?
Has anyone compared groups that either drank coffee or took the same quantity in pills?
As such, the improvement seen when they start drinking coffee could simply be a placebo effect. Coffee making is a nice daily ritual that helps being grounded in the present, as do sents, tastes and the feeling of a warm beverage.
The study is also fairly low power, as you have 62 people in four groups: coffee drinker with caffeine, coffee drinker with decaffeinated, non-coffee drinker with caffeine, non-coffee drinker with decaffeinated.
(Again, a big problem in many human studies is that it is very hard to recruit enough people, both for financial and organization reasons, so don't read this as a knock against the research team).
