Efficacy of caffeine in liquid vs pill form

Nutrition Q&A [Moderated]
1

Hi guys

By efficacy I mean the normal associations of caffeine, e.g alertness, the delay of fatigue etc.

By liquid I mean in the form of coffee or energy drinks (e.g Monster).

Assuming the same dose, and assuming the coffee is not drank at an ultra slow rate, is one more effective than the other?

Thanks.

2

Coffee and energy drinks contain a bunch of other things besides just caffeine that you don’t get if you take a caffeine pill, so the comparison isn’t exactly the same.

But if you had equivalent doses of “liquid caffeine” versus “pill caffeine”, yes, the physiologic effects would be the same. There may be some differences observed due to placebo, however, as it’s well known that the type and route of administration of medicines results in different degrees of placebo effect.

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On this topic, is there evidence of physical dependence of caffeine?

I usually drink a lot of black coffee, and sometimes I get headaches when i spend too many hours/days without drinking it - which is gone in minutes after a good cup. Most likely a classic nocebo/placebo or something more elaborate?

I’m not really worried about it, it’s more like a curiosity.

4

T,

You’d have to define physical dependence to make sure we’re talking about the same thing. If you’re talking about pure addiction where someone continues to engage in a behavior even though it’s causing them harm then that is pretty rare.

If you usually drink coffee with caffeine and stop suddenly you can get withdrawal symptoms, yes.

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5

The definition I had in mind is like an addiction, yes. A situation in which you have a need for the substance (caffeine), otherwise there are adverse effects - but not if they are solely caused by psychological factors (not sure if I was clear). Not sure about the harm caused by coffee consumption, though.

Anyway, the last part of your reply basically asnwers my question, thanks!

6

Caffeine withdrawal headaches are very common in daily coffee drinkers. While technically I suppose that withdrawal symptoms are a marker of some sort of dependence, this generally would fall short of anything we would describe as “addiction,” though some people would use “dependence” and “addiction” interchangeably (which is confusing and inaccurate).

i would say that withdrawal headaches are the price one must pay if you enjoy significant daily amounts of caffeine. Just like soreness is the price you must pay sometimes if you enjoy training (or enjoy being trained… the training itself might not be enjoyable. :slight_smile:

incidentally, if someone is NOT a regular user of caffeine, then a dose of caffeine can be a very effective headache remedy.

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Doing something habitually that is not harmful to you in any way does not constitute an addiction and I think it’s important to distinguish these things.

8

Yeah, I think I may have misused the definitions, as Sully’s (ha!) comment also mentioned.

Thanks for both responses!

9

On the topic of caffeine, you guys might find this interesting:

Doherty M & Smith PM (2005) Effects of caffeine ingestion on rating of perceived exertion during and after exercise: a meta‐analysis. Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports 15: 69–78.

The take-away is that caffeine lowers RPE, I don’t read too many papers on exercise science so the fact that they used RPE as the outcome variable tickled me; not necessarily surprised about the findings.