Coffee may reduce pain, according to study
Norwegian scientists have found YET ANOTHER benefit to drinking coffee (“he” wrote after just consuming yet another cup today 
) – it may reduce physical pain! Although some do not drink coffee for other health or religious reasons, other researchers have found evidence that the practice can help with weight loss, reduce the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease or dementia, boost muscle growth, protect against certain types of cancers, reduce the risk of premature death, and provide many other benefits.
The Norwegian study of 48 volunteers who agreed to perform 90 minutes of “fake” computer tasks known to cause pain in the shoulders, neck, forearms, and wrists allowed some test subjects to drink coffee (DOH! Introduction of another variable…! 😉 ) “to avoid unpleasant effects of caffeine (1,3,7-trimethyl-1H-purine-2,6(3H,7H)-dione 3,7-dihydro-1,3,7-trimethyl-1H-purine-2,6-dione [Sorry. Those who know me know that I HAD TO do it! ]) deprivation, e.g. decreased vigor and alertness, sleepiness, and fatigue.” The researchers were TRYING to see how people with chronic pain and people who were pain-free tolerated the computer tasks. Perhaps the researchers should have been issued firearms to “shoot themselves in the foot” before beginning the research, as well! 😉 Or perhaps the researchers were M.D.’s…! 😉
The “punchline…?” The researchers from Norway’s National Institute of Occupational Health and Oslo University Hospital observed that the 19 people who drank coffee reported a lower intensity of pain than the 29 people who did not!
Hmmmm…. Maybe that explains why those of us in the real world who perform/ed 12-14 hours or more of computer tasks each day drink so much coffee! 😉 Or maybe it is/was to reduce the “psychic pain” of working for the occasional, bad manager…. 😉
The study was published this week in the journal BMC Research Notes (a provisional version of the study is online, and YES, it is peer-reviewed). The researchers note that since the study wasn’t designed to test coffee’s influence on pain, the results come with many uncertainties. (Like, for example, whether the researchers will get more grant money since they introduced ANOTHER VARIABLE into the work…! 😉 )
One of the uncertainties was that the researchers do not know HOW MUCH coffee the coffee drinkers drank (WHOOPS! Another variable! 😉 ) before taking the computer tests. Researchers also doubt that the coffee drinkers and non-drinkers were the same in all respects except for their coffee consumption. (Genetic differences are one big reason that identical twins are used as controls in studies – they have the SAME genetics.)
All in all, the research reminds me of an email (with a space-filling model of the caffeine molecule) that I sent to the suppliers of Tech Support’s caffeine when I worked at Netscape, and which began, “Caffeine, which is known to the State of California to be necessary for software creation and support….” (You have to live in California to understand THIS one! 😉 )
However, the strange brew of coffee has a lot of other goodies in it, beside caffeine.
Maybe, if the granting agency is forgiving, the Norwegian researchers will get more money to do the studies correctly! There may be some really important discoveries to be made!
-Bill at
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