Smith A, Thomas M, Perry K, Whitney H
Department of Psychology, University of Bristol, UK.
J Psychopharmacol. 1997;11(4):319-24. doi: 10.1177/026988119701100406.
An experiment was carried out to determine whether caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee removed the malaise (reduced alertness, slower psychomotor performance) associated with having a common cold. One hundred volunteers were tested when healthy and 46 returned to the laboratory when they developed colds. Those subjects who remained healthy were then recalled as a control group. On the second visit subjects carried out two sessions, one pre-drink and another an hour after the drink. Subjects were randomly assigned to one of the following three conditions, caffeinated coffee (1.5 mg/kg caffeine/body weight), decaffeinated coffee or fruit juice. Subjects with colds reported decreased alertness and were slower at performing psychomotor tasks. Caffeine increased the alertness and performance of the colds subjects to the same level as the healthy group and decaffeinated coffee also led to an improvement. These results suggest that drugs which increase alertness can remove the malaise associated with the common cold, and that increased stimulation of the sensory afferent nerves may also be beneficial.
进行了一项实验，以确定含咖啡因咖啡和脱咖啡因咖啡是否能消除与患普通感冒相关的不适（警觉性降低、精神运动表现迟缓）。100名志愿者在健康时接受测试，46人感冒后返回实验室。那些保持健康的受试者随后被召回作为对照组。在第二次就诊时，受试者进行了两个阶段的测试，一个是饮用前，另一个是饮用一小时后。受试者被随机分配到以下三种情况之一：含咖啡因咖啡（1.5毫克/千克咖啡因/体重）、脱咖啡因咖啡或果汁。感冒的受试者报告警觉性下降，执行精神运动任务的速度较慢。咖啡因将感冒受试者的警觉性和表现提高到与健康组相同的水平，脱咖啡因咖啡也带来了改善。这些结果表明，提高警觉性的药物可以消除与普通感冒相关的不适，并且感觉传入神经刺激的增加可能也有益处。
