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Coca leaves are widely used to relieve symptoms of altitude sickness in some South American countries, either chewed or brewed into a tea. Wikipedia says that no study has studied their effectiveness for this purpose, citing this as a source: https://www.wemjournal.org/article/S1080-6032(14)00257-9/fulltext

That was from 2014 and I could not find anything more recent on altitude sickness specifically, but https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3001837/ says

These experimental findings suggest that chewing coca leaves is beneficial during exercise and that the effects are felt over a prolonged period of sustained physical activity

suggesting that there could be some positive effect. Given how widely used coca leaves seem to be, I would be really surprised that nobody has studied this at all.

Nate Eldredge
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    Welcome to the site! Nice question. – Nate Eldredge Apr 08 '19 at 22:15
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    I’ll be surprised if it has no effect, because I heard it was a hell of a drug. :p – Andrew Grimm Apr 09 '19 at 02:34
  • The lack of research shouldn't be too surprising. [Coca is largely prohibited](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca#International_prohibition_of_coca_leaf) and that usually includes a de facto prohibition on scientific investigation. – sfmiller940 Apr 11 '19 at 18:11
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    well if you're talking about fatigue or headache, there's lot of evidence to show stimulants would counter that. If you're talking about sleeplessness, then notsomuch. In short, it's indicated by _some_ symptoms, but not others. I guess that would make it "true", since there are some symptoms relived by coca. – dandavis Apr 11 '19 at 21:48
  • I don't have hard evidence, only anecdotal from friends traveling here its effects are likely of a strong coffee while being even less addictive. – jean Apr 12 '19 at 16:19

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