Group items tagged

High Caffeine Intake Linked To Hallucination Proneness ScienceDaily (Jan. 14, 2009) — High caffeine consumption could be linked to a greater tendency to hallucinate, a new research study suggests

‘High caffeine users’ – those who consumed more than the equivalent of seven cups of instant coffee a day - were three times more likely to have heard a person’s voice when there was no one there compared with ‘low caffeine users’ who consumed less than the equivalent of one cup of instant coffee a day.  With ninety per cent of North Americans consuming some of form caffeine every day, it is the world's most widely used drug.

“Our study shows an association between caffeine intake and hallucination-proneness in students. However, one interpretation may be that those students who were more prone to hallucinations used caffeine to help cope with their experiences. More work is needed to establish whether caffeine consumption, and nutrition in general, has an impact on those kinds of hallucination that cause distress.”

Caffeine, stress, and proneness to psychosis-like experiences: A preliminary investigation

cortisol released in response to stressors is proposed to play a role in the development of psychotic experiences. Individual differences in cortisol response to stressors are therefore likely to play a role in proneness to psychotic experiences.

Caffeine intake, stress, hallucination-proneness and persecutory ideation were assessed by self-report questionnaires in a non-clinical sample (N = 219). Caffeine intake was positively related to stress levels and hallucination-proneness, but not persecutory ideation. When stress levels were controlled for, caffeine intake predicted levels of hallucination-proneness but not persecutory ideation.

If you think I'm cherry picking, these are actually fairly typical.