Coffee could be bad for post-gig hangover

There are few greater pleasures in life than seeing your favourite band live, but according to a new study, loading up on coffee the next day could be bad for your hearing

The intensity of the music and roar of the crowd can leave many music fans with ringing ears and a pounding head the next morning (especially if they’ve made a few trips to the venue bar).

And the natural response to the post-gig hangover is much like any other; grab a cup of hot coffee, and sip until everything feels better.

But according to a new study, that could be one of the worst things you could do if you want to keep your hearing intact.

According to the findings, published by JAMA Otolaryngol Head Neck Surgery, consuming caffeine the day after a gig could be damaging to your health. Though they had some rather strange ways of determining this.

The study, conducted at the McGill University Auditory Sciences Laboratory, exposed three groups of guinea pigs (why they couldn’t find human ones is a mystery) to either caffeine, 110 decibel “pure tone sound” or both for 15 days.

The test found that the group exposed to both caffeine and sound had a slower recovery rate in their hearing than than those who were subjected to just sound.

Halfway through the two-week experiment, the group of guinea pigs who had just listened to audio almost fully recovered their hearing, while the group exposed to both had issues regaining their hearing in various frequency ranges, with the problems only getting worse towards the end of the trial.

Aside from the experiment being a little bit weird, it also potentially strikes a blow for coffee lovers everywhere, who’d usually count on that morning cup of the brown stuff to get them into work the morning after a gig.