Aside from its widely
known stimulating effects, caffeine has been shown to possess a variety of
beneficial health applications. It is present as an ingredient added to common pain-relieving
medicines which are available without prescription, such as paracetamol,
ibuprofen and aspirin (Derry et al., 2012). Caffeine functions as an adjuvant,
which is a substance added to a medicine to make it work better. Studies have
found that adding caffeine at a dose equivalent to a mug of coffee to a
standard dose of common analgesics increases the number of people with acute
pain who will experience a good level of pain relief by 5% to 10%. (Figure 1)
Figure 1. L’Abbé plot showing the consistent effect of added caffeine (all doses in
all conditions) irrespective of pain relief from analgesic alone. The position
of the circles above the lines indicate that the treatment (analgesic +
caffeine) is more effective than the control (analgesic alone).
Caffeine can also
function as a bronchodilator, which widens the airways. Studies involving
people suffering from mild to moderate asthma have found that caffeine, even at
low doses (less than 5 mg/kg of body weight), appears to improve lung function
for up to two hours after consumption. (Welsh et al., 2011)
Aside from these
clinical trials in humans, caffeine is being studied for possible medical
applications in the future. One of these cases is the study of Alzheimer’s
disease. Studies in mice have demonstrated that caffeine treatment can improve
working memory. (Arendasha et al., 2009) Further studies need to be performed
to find possible applications in humans for this and other diseases.
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