New research exploring the placebo effects of caffeine highlight competitive athletes who believe caffeine gives them an edge, despite doubts that it works.
The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) removed caffeine from its list of banned substances in sport 4 years ago, just before the Athens Olympics.
“This was presumably because WADA considered (caffeine’s) performance-enhancing effects to be insignificant,” said Mark Stuart, in the journal BMJ Clinical Evidence.
Stuart has worked with doping control for past Olympic Games and helped train medical staff for the upcoming Beijing Olympics.
He said studies indicate that many athletes still use the stimulant.
Researchers found that of 193 UK track-and-field athletes they surveyed, one-third used caffeine to enhance performance — as did 60 percent of 287 competitive cyclists, according to the study last month.
It’s possible that the placebo effect plays a role in why so many athletes continue to pop caffeine pills, Stuart told Reuters Health.
Meaning athletes may perform slightly better after taking caffeine because they believe it works.
Two small studies specifically addressed the placebo effect as it relates to caffeine and athletic performance, Stuart said.
In one, seven male cyclists were told that they would be given either caffeine or a placebo, but in fact none received caffeine. The researchers found that cyclists who believed they had taken the placebo showed a decline in their cycling performance compared with their baseline tests. In contrast, cyclists who believed they had been given caffeine improved their performance.
A similar study of 14 male cyclists published this year showed what seemed to be a “nocebo” effect: athletes who knew they were being given a placebo instead of caffeine showed a decrease in their performance. In other words, their performance may have suffered because they knew they were not getting caffeine.
However, Stuart said given the small stature of the studies, “results should be interpreted with extreme caution.”
But “the placebo effect does offer a possible explanation to ponder as to why some athletes continue to use (caffeine),” Stuart said.
“There is an obvious difference in the perception of caffeine as a performance-enhancing substance between WADA and the many elite athletes who continue to use it.”
He added: “Regardless of this difference and given the evidence-driven backing of WADA from the scientific community, the potential for widespread caffeine use at this month’s Olympics will, hopefully, not threaten the integrity of fair play in sport.”
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