In the news this morning...

[mdlbear]

Scientists determine that caffeine is addictive. (/. discussion here)

This is news? (Actually, as a /. poster points out, the actual scientific article "documents biological activity of caffeine at lower doses than heretofore recognized. The general approach to investigating the effects of low drug doses may have broad application in human psychopharmacology research for characterizing other subtle psychotropic effects" and has, as usual, been totally misinterpreted by the mainstream media. This is news?)

Comments

[jilara.livejournal.com]

Yes, it's a "Well,duh." But I also thought, on reading this, that they need to establish a baseline before saying withdrawal "causes depression." Before you can say that, you need to establish that the subject was not depressed before starting drinking coffee. Nowhere did it say that this baseline reading was established beforehand.

I've always contended that the high coffee consumption of the northern European countries is an attempt to self-medicate Seasonal Affective Disorder, which causes depression.