Smokers in the throes of nicotine withdrawal when they wake up in the morning may crave not just a cigarette but a cup of coffee along with it.
Science can explain that.
Researchers have identified two compounds in coffee that directly affect certain nicotine receptors in the brain.
Study author Roger Papke, a pharmacology professor in the University of Florida College of Medicine, said he wondered why the two habits seemed to go hand in hand, similar to the way people enjoy both alcohol and tobacco in the evening.
“Many people look for coffee in the morning because of the caffeine. But was the coffee doing anything else to smokers? We wanted to know if there were other things in coffee that were affecting the brain’s nicotine receptors,” Papke said in a university news release….