Caffeine can improve analgesic effects of common pain relievers

 

A Cochrane review that included twenty studies with a total of 7238 participants has examined whether caffeine improves the analgesic effects of common pain relievers such as paracetamol, ibuprofen, and acetylsalicylic acid in several pain conditions like headache, migraine, toothache, and menstrual periods. The conclusion was that adding 100mg of caffeine to analgesics can improve the level of pain relief by 5% to 10%. Pharmacologically it isn’t well understood why caffeine is a good adjuvant in analgesic preparations, but the proposed mechanisms could be an increased gastric blood flow and decreased gastric pH that increases the drug absorption. Caffeine can also decrease clearance, block nociceptive adenosine signaling, downregulate the transcription for COX-2, and many others.

References:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6485702/