Our happy hour fact to amaze your drinking buddies with.

Drinking caffeine doesn't give addicts an edge over their non-caffeine-consuming counterparts.

After having them refrain from any caffeine for 16 hours, researchers at the University of Bristol gave 379 regularly caffeinated beverage drinkers and people who consumed little or no caffeine either a caffeine pill or a placebo. Each subject was then asked to rate his or her level of alertness.

While the caffeine drinkers who received the real pill were more perky than those who received the placebo, their level of alertness was no better than the non-caffeine drinkers who took the placebo. In other words, when compared to folks who don't depend on caffeine to get them going, caffeine just makes a coffee drinker feel normal -- with no added boost.

We recommend that you wait until after your caffeine-addicted buddy has had his morning cup of coffee before you break this sad news.