Myrtle Beach, S.C. — A jolt of joe in the morning might get you going, but an afternoon coffee break could be more important for keeping all your mental pistons firing particularly if you're a senior citizen.
That's the assessment of a University of Arizona study that looked at the impact of caffeine on the memories of people older than 65.
The findings aren't a surprise to Rae Rehfeldt. The Toledo, Ohio, snowbird has been drinking coffee for decades. Now, at 68, she finds an afternoon cup keeps her perking along.
"It's an addiction," she said Thursday, as she poured cream into a tall black coffee at a book store in Myrtle Beach.
The Arizona study shows it is fairly easy for senior citizens to counter afternoon memory loss and also vindicates folks who live and die by their coffee pots, said psychologist Lee Ryan, who led the study.
Ryan tested the memory skills of 40 people older than 65 both in the morning, when most seniors are the sharpest, and again in the late afternoon, when many seniors' mental acuity slows. The group got 12 ounces of both regular coffee and decaffeinated.
On decaf, their memories continued the afternoon slide. But caffeinated seniors caught a mental second wind.
Participants in the study were regular coffee drinkers in good health.
People who don't drink coffee regularly could get edgy and distracted without seeing any mental benefits, Ryan said. Caffeine, not coffee, was the key to the mental turn-out, Ryan said.
Noncoffee drinkers such as Rehfeldt's husband, Paul, a lifelong "Pepsiholic," could get the same benefit.
There's little indication that caffeine has the same effect on people younger than the study group, Ryan said.
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