DRUGS WHICH INDUCE ANXIETY - CAFFEINE

Regular consumption of high levels of caffeine can lead to a condition known as ''caffeinism'' which is characterised by chronic subjective anxiety. The condition is unresponsive to treatment with conventional benzodiazepine anxiolytics since caffeine is able to interfere with th e action of these drugs. While not necessarily initiating anxiety, the re is clinical and experimental evidence that acute caffeine can exace rbate the effects of an anxiety-inducing situation or worsen an existi ng anxiety condition, especially panic disorder. It seems possible tha t caffeine's involvement in anxiety states is due to its ability to in terfere with the action of the sedative neuromodulator, adenosine, in the brain. Animal research has also suggested that daily consumption o f caffeine during pregnancy and lactation can produce, in offspring, l ong-lasting forms of behaviour that are interpretable as arising from a high levels of emotional activity which may be related to anxiety in humans.