Caffeine can enhance hallucinations

January 14, 10:26 AMScience News ExaminerMeg Marquardt

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Make a New Year’s resolution to cut back on the caffeine?  Well, here’s more motivation.  According to a study conducted at Durham University in the UK, “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.” [BBC]

Published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences, the study, which focused on healthy individuals, suggests that high amounts of caffeine can lead to hallucinations that wide range from hearing voices all the way to actually perceiving ghost-like apparitions.  

The scientific link between caffeine and hallucinations is the hormone coritsol.  When stressed, the body releases above average amounts of cortisol, and caffeine can cause an even greater increase.  It is thought that elevated level of cortisol is what leads to the hallucinations.

Stating that caffeine can ‘cause’ hallucinations may be too bold of a statement.  While it may enhance effects of those already suffering from hallucinations (triggered by trauma or mental illness), this study has not convincingly shown that it can explicitly induce hallucinations.  Consider, too, that the group studied was 200 students at Durham University.  It’s hard to make the definitive statement about caffeine and hallucinations when the experimental population consisted of notoriously stressed and caffeine-hyped college students.  The study would have been more persuasive if a wider population of people had been observed.

Like good scientists though, the group isn’t claiming that caffeine is the end-all of hallucination inducers.   Simon Jones, the PhD student who led the study, stated that more work needs to be done to find the exact link.  He stated that “stressed people may simply drink more caffeine. [And that] even if caffeine were responsible for hallucinations in some way, the part it plays would be small compared to other factors in life." [BBC]  

However, this one study is not enough to convince all scientists.  Dr. Euan Paul, of the British Coffee Association, told BBC, "There are literally thousands of well conducted published studies looking at all aspects of the coffee, caffeine and health debate and the overall conclusion clearly demonstrates that moderate caffeine intake, 400-500mg per day, is safe for the general population.”  The seven cups of instant coffee considered in the Durham study amounts to about 315 mg of caffeine. [LiveScience]

Nevertheless, just how nutrition in general impacts a healthy person’s tendency to hallucinate is poorly studied, so the group is not stopping at caffeine.  They also plan to investigate how fat and sugar intake impacts the frequency of hallucinations within the population.  Perhaps, in the end, knowing what can trigger a hallucination help doctor’s to structure diets that will attenuate the problem in people prone to hallucinations.

And here’s your fun fact for the day: "Hallucinations are not necessarily a sign of mental illness," Jones said. "Most people will have had brief experiences of hearing voices when there is no one there, and around three percent of people regularly hear such voices. Many of these people cope well with this and live normal lives." [LiveScience]