[JoshTriplett]

> What happens when you develop a tolerance to caffeine after prolonged use? Study doesn't really explain that.

I've seen a couple of studies on the effects of coffee/caffeine on alertness. They showed that initial usage produced heightened alertness, but the body adapts relatively quickly, resulting in lower baseline alertness and a need to use caffeine to reach an alertness level roughly matching (or often not quite matching) the original pre-caffeine baseline.

So: you start drinking coffee, you get short-term alertness, long-term you have to keep drinking it to get back to the alertness you started with before you started drinking coffee.

[M4v3R]

So it basically works like heroine or other hard drugs, it's bad side effects are just not as apparent.