Drinking coffee has been shown to have some health benefits, but one researcher wanted to know what happens when you drink a lot of coffee. As it turns out, it’s the exact opposite of what happens when you smoke weed.

Marilyn Cornelis, an assistant professor of preventive medicine at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, found that as coffee drinking increased, various metabolite levels changed, sometimes drastically.

One of these changes was witnessed in the endocannabinoids – neurotransmitters in the body that regulate things like appetite, sleep and mood. They get their name from the striking similarities they have with the psychoactive component of cannabis THC. They also activate when you consume cannabis, producing those trademark effects of sparking up.

But coffee interacts with the endocannabinoid receptors in an opposite manner, suppressing them instead of activating them.

And while the study didn’t look at what would happen if you smoked a joint and drank some joe at the same time, Cornelis hypothesizes that at least some of the effects of one or the other substance would be neutralized.

Originally posted via Civilized