Well, only if you are a Jane, or Juanita, or Janaki… And old, aged 65 or over.
Research in France, that great coffee drinking nation, finds that while drinking 3 cups of coffee a day may help mental alertness in older women, it has no effect on men. Or as the study, published in Neurology, so elegantly puts it “Caffeine consumption is associated with a wide range of socio-demographic, lifestyle, and clinical variables which may also affect cognitive decline. Multivariate mixed models and multivariate adjusted logistic regression indicated that women with high rates of caffeine consumption (over three cups per day) showed less decline in verbal retrieval, and to a lesser extent in visuo-spatial memory over 4 years than women consuming one cup or less. The protective effect of caffeine was observed to increase with age. No relation was found between caffeine intake and cognitive decline in men. Caffeine consumption did not reduce dementia risk over 4 years.”
The researchers do not know why this is the case. But they do advise that “in any case, please don’t rush out and start drinking coffee. To suddenly start drinking large quantities of coffee is still really premature as a preventive measure.”
It may even land you in hospital, especially if you start on too much caffeine, too early, as this 17 year old girl found to her peril yesterday.