Posted on 01/14/2009 4:06:49 AM PST by Schnucki
People who drink too much coffee could start seeing ghosts or hearing strange voices, UK research has suggested.
People who drank more than seven cups of instant coffee a day were three times more likely to hallucinate than those who took just one, a study found.
A Durham University team questioned 200 students about their caffeine intake, the journal Personality and Individual Differences reported.
However, academics say the findings do not prove a "causal link".
They also stress that experiencing hallucinations is not a definite sign of mental illness and that about 3% of people regularly hear voices.
"This is the first step toward looking at the wider factors associated with hallucinations," said psychology PhD student Simon Jones, who led the study.
Under stress
He said previous research had suggested factors such as childhood trauma could be linked to hallucinations.
When under stress, the body releases a hormone called cortisol which is produced in greater quantities after consuming caffeine.
The extra cortisol boost could be what causes a person to hallucinate.
Therefore, Mr James added, it made sense to examine the link between caffeine and mood.
Besides coffee, sources such as tea, chocolate, "pep" pills and energy drinks contain caffeine.
After asking the students about their typical intake, the research team assessed their susceptibility to hallucinatory experiences and stress levels.
Pregnancy problems
Among the experiences reported were seeing things that were not there, hearing voices, and sensing the presence of dead people.
However, Mr James stressed more work was needed to pin down the link.
He said: "Stressed people may simply drink more caffeine."
And he added: "Even if caffeine were responsible for hallucinations in some way, the part it plays would be small compared to other factors in life."
The researchers now plan to investigate whether other aspects of
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...
What a pantload. Hey, what was that? Did y’all see it?
Quick, let’s outlaw coffee, throw lots more people in jail for using it, create criminal coffee cartels.
I’m sure the liberals and their cohorts the trial lawyers would go on a crusade against “America’a coffee addiction,” were it not for the fact that they all drink coffee.
Pass the cream please!
One man’s hallucinating is another man’s lucid dreaming; and yet a third man’s eidetic imagery.
All of the UK has flipped with or without coffee.
I think I found the problem and it ain't volume.
Maybe they should talk to this kid.
Other factors like being insane, for example?
experiencing hallucinations is not a definite sign of mental illness
Right. Of course not.
about 3% of people regularly hear voices.
Sure they do. Right.
I wonder:
The growth of Starbucks coffee clatch culture
and Bush derangement syndrome....
Related?
(second cup and counting)
I knew a young woman who started drinking coffee and soda’s. Within a very short time she started having problems with her balance. When she stopped her intake of coffee and soda’s the problem stopped.
Makes *me* wonder about Mohammed.
Cheers!
The screen in front of you is a hullucynation...a hoolynas.....holynotion.. it ain’t really there.
Instant coffee?
Git a rope.
Lack of sleep? That’s a proven cause of hallucinations. Why are they drinking so much coffee?
Yeah, I thought they said coffee caused hallucinations.
Bunch of sharp cookies here, they didn't even use coffee for the test. Gee, I wonder if all the chemical processing may have any effect on our test? Nah. It's hot and black, has to be coffee.
Coffee? Take mine black. At home today. The voices told me to skip work, and clean my guns.
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