Dr Mike Donio posted on X:
Caffeine DOES NOT exist.
Coffee DOES NOT have caffeine.
Synthetic caffeine IS NOT chemically identical to “naturally occurring caffeine” because it was never scientifically proven to exist in the first place.
Caffeine was ALLEGEDLY “discovered” by German chemist Friedrich Ferdinand Runge back in 1819–how did he discover it?
He took coffee beans and made them into a powder, added boiling water to the powder, and then added chloroform or ether, and potassium hydroxide—after adding all of those, he claimed that the final substance he had was isolated caffeine from the coffee beans.
He conducted ZERO controls for his experiment—it’s completely pseudoscientific.
This experiment laid the foundation for all modern “caffeine” research.
Now by saying this, I’m not saying that some people don’t get increased energy, or enhanced concentration and focus after consuming coffee. I’m just pointing out the holes in his experiment for allegedly discovering caffeine—effects do not prove a cause!
(Tom: I think he would have been better saying caffeine has not been proven to exist rather than that it does not exist. It may still exist even though the method for isolating what was called caffeine was unscientific and invalid.)