Possible Interaction: Caffeine and Morphine

“ Caffeine has potential properties to counteract the central effects of morphine.”

“When combined with morphine, caffeine can augment, inhibit or have no effect depending on the dose, route of administration, nociceptive test and species; inhibition reflects spinal inhibition of adenosine A(1) receptors, while augmentation may reflect the intrinsic effects noted above.”

“ Caffeine antagonized these effects of morphine.”

“These results indicate that PIA can facilitate, and caffeine can antagonize the actions of morphine and that caffeine may be exerting some of its actions independent of adenosine receptor antagonism.”

“In the case of combination of morphine and cocaine or caffeine , preference rates for these drugs increased like the case of morphine.”

“In a recent double-blind randomized placebo-controlled crossover study of patients with advanced cancer, the effects of 200mg of caffeine combined with a subtoxic dose of morphine showed an amelioration of the cognitive performance (3).”

“However, 62.5 mg and 125 mg of caffeine administered simultaneously with 10 mg of morphine or 60 mg of codeine intramuscularly produced significant antagonism of the respiratory depression.”

“ Caffeine , a P1 purinoceptor antagonist, was able significantly and in a concentration dependent manner to increase morphine withdrawal whereas quinidine, a P2 receptor antagonist, reduced it.”

“However, in the thalamus, the combination of caffeine and morphine did increase cell death to a significantly greater extent than caffeine alone.”

“On the contrary, caffeine-containing coffee even enhanced the analgesic effects of morphine in mice.”

“ Chronic caffeine treatment most significantly modulated the effects of nicotine, ethanol, and morphine in Fischer-344 rats.”