Coffee drinkers are ‘like addicts’ who don’t actually enjoy the drink more than others

People who drink large amounts of coffee aren’t connoisseurs who love the taste of caffeine.

Instead, the way people respond to coffee is more like the way drug addicts crave a fix, researchers have said.

Scientists analysed the responses of heavy coffee drinkers, or those who consume three or more cups a day.

Researchers from the University of Friedrich Schiller University Jena in Germany compared two groups of people – heavy coffee drinkers and those who either didn’t drink coffee, or drank it rarely.

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They found that heavy coffee drinkers don’t like the drink any more - they just want it more, a hallmark of addictive behaviour.

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The researchers write: “These data confirm that heavy coffee consumption is associated with strong wanting despite low liking for coffee, indicating that wanting becomes independent from liking through repeated consumption of caffeine.

“This dissociation provides a possible explanation for the widespread and stable consumption of caffeine-containing beverages.”

The researchers said that this shift between ‘liking’ and ‘wanting’ is characteristic of addictive behaviour: “Dissociations of wanting and liking have been observed with a wide range of drugs in animals.”

The shift from ‘liking’ to ‘wanting’ is observable in people who drink more than three cups of coffee per day, the researchers said.

“The main difference between highly addictive drugs (eg, alcohol or cocaine) and substances with lower addictive strength (eg, caffeine) may mainly be a quantitative rather than a qualitative one.”

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Previous research has shown that young people who rely on energy drinks such as Red Bull for a quick stimulating boost could be paving a path towards cocaine addiction.

Scientists at the University of Maryland studied young adults across a five-year period and found that regular energy drink users were more likely to use drugs – in particular, stimulants.

People who drank energy drinks regularly were more likely to abuse cocaine, to use prescription stimulants and to be heavy drinkers.

Those who consistently drank energy drinks were most at risk, the Maryland researchers said, with 51.4% of the 1,099 participants, aged between 21 and 25, falling into this group.

“The results suggest that energy drink users might be at heightened risk for other substance use, particularly stimulants,” said Dr Amelia Arria, associate professor of behavioural and community health.

“Because of the longitudinal design of this study, and the fact that we were able to take into account other factors that would be related to risk for substance use, this study provides evidence of a specific contribution of energy drink consumption to subsequent substance use.”

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