Nature 264, 354 - 355 (25 November 1976); doi:10.1038/264354a0

Effect of caffeine on coffee drinking

LYNN T. KOZLOWSKI

Department of Psychology, Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut 06457

CAFFEINE is one of the world's most widely-used drugs and coffee drinking is a major form of its use¹. The levels of caffeine intake in coffee drinking have significant, predominantly stimulatory, physiological and behavioural effects². Surprisingly, the role of caffeine in the self-administration of coffee has not yet been studied. This research indicates that coffee drinkers drink more low-caffeine coffee than non-decaffeinated coffee.

References

1.	Brecher, E. M. Licit and Illicit Drugs (Little, Brown, Boston, 1972).
2.	Ritchie, J. M., in The Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics (edit. by Goodman, L. S., and Gilman, A.), 358–370 (Macmillan, New York, 1970).
3.	Dreisbach, R. H. and Pfeiffer, C. J. lab. clin. Med., 28, 1212–1219 (1943).
4.	Goldstein, A., Kaiser, S. and Whitby, O. Clin. pharmacol. Ther., 10, 488–497 (1969).
5.	Johnson, L. C. and Lubin, A., in Handbook of Psychophysiology (edit. by Greenfield, N. S., and Sternbach, R. A.), 125–158 (Holt, Rinehart, Winston, New York, 1972).
6.	Kozlowski, L. T. Psychopharmacologv (Berl.), 47, 165–168 (1976).
7.	Deneau, G. A. and Inoki, R. Ann. N. Y. Acad. Sci., 142, 277–279 (1967).