Recent Caffeine Drinking Associates with Cognitive Function in the UK Biobank.

Marilyn C Cornelis,Sandra Weintraub,Martha Clare Morris

doi:10.3390/nu12071969

Marilyn C Cornelis, Sandra Weintraub + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/nu12071969

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Journal: Nutrients	Publication Date: Jul 2, 2020
Citations: 11	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Northwestern University, Rush University

Abstract

Clinical evidence points to the premise that caffeine may benefit cognition, but whether these findings extend to real life settings and amidst factors that impact caffeine metabolism is unclear. The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of recent caffeine drinking on cognitive ability while additionally accounting for lifestyle and genetic factors that impact caffeine metabolism. We included up to 434,900 UK Biobank participants aged 37–73 years, recruited in 2006–2010, who provided biological samples and completed touchscreen questionnaires regarding sociodemographic factors, medical history, lifestyle, and diet. Recent caffeine drinking (yes/no in the last hour) was recorded during a physical assessment. Participants completed at least one of four self-administered cognitive function tests using the touchscreen system: prospective memory (PM), pairs matching (Pairs), fluid intelligence (FI), and reaction time (RT). Multivariable regressions were used to examine the association between recent caffeine drinking and cognition test scores. We also tested interactions between recent caffeine drinking and a genetic caffeine-metabolism score (CMS) on cognitive function. Among white participants, recent caffeine drinking was associated with higher performance on RT but lower performance on FI, Pairs, and PM (p ≤ 0.004). Similar directions of associations for FI (p = 0.09), Pairs (p = 0.03), and PM (p = 0.34) were observed among non-white participants. No significant and consistent effect modification by age, sex, smoking, test time, habitual caffeine intake, or CMS was observed. Caffeine consumed shortly before tasks requiring shorter reaction times may improve task performance. Potential impairments in memory and reasoning tasks with recent caffeine drinking warrant further study.

Highlights

Available from coffee, tea, and other food stuffs, caffeine is the most widely consumed psychostimulant in the world [1]
We examined the association between recent caffeine drinking and cognitive test scores using linear (FI, reaction time (RT), pairs matching (Pairs) tests) or logistic (PM test) regression, adjusting for age, sex, and ethnicity
We explored the association between recent caffeine drinking and cognitive function in subgroups of white participants defined by both habitual caffeine consumption and exam time (Table S11), and by both age and exam time (Table S12), but no evidence for effect modification was observed

Summary

Introduction

Available from coffee, tea, and other food stuffs, caffeine is the most widely consumed psychostimulant in the world [1]. Some argue that most of these effects reflect restoration of cognitive function impaired by caffeine withdrawal [7,8]. In acute clinical studies of caffeine and cognition, habitual caffeine consumers are often asked to abstain from caffeine overnight or longer, which may induce withdrawal symptoms [11,12,13]. Others, reject this hypothesis since some studies report similar performance improvements for habitual consumers and non-consumers of caffeine or improved performance in non-withdrawn consumers [5,14]

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