Caffeine for more than a jolt

Secret weapon alert! Gata Kamsky
with a nice cup of... grapes?!
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There has been quite a buzz about a recent study showing caffeine improves
short-term memory. It was tested by observing brain activity and by giving recall
tests to the study participants while they were under the influence - of the
amount of caffeine found in a cup of coffee. Here are a few of the reports,
from WebMD
and the Seattle
Times.
We've covered a few "brain
drug" reports in the past
year, as well as drug
testing in chess, and everyone knows that caffeine staves off drowsiness.
Of course this is quite different from proving that a few cups of coffee will
improve your tournament results. There are simply too many factors that go into
playing a game of chess.
Tests would take hundreds, even thousands of games and you would have to have
a control group with blind testing and placebos, as well as ensuring the testers
weren't taking any caffeine beforehand.
Testing could be speeded up by solving puzzles instead of playing, but of course
these aren't the same thing either. What if caffeine helped you with your tactics
but made you too jittery to play a steady endgame?
A suspicious can... |
A few excerpts from different reports:
"The findings revealed increased activity in the frontal lobe, where
working memory is centered, and in the anterior cingulum, which controls attention,
in volunteers after consuming 100 milligrams of caffeine, the equivalent of
about two cups of coffee. These areas showed no increased activity when the
subjects drank a liquid without caffeine.
"The increased activity means you are more able to focus," Koppelstäetter
said. "You have more attention and your task management is better.'"
"Participants
who were subjected to a 12-hour period without caffeine and a four-hour period
without nicotine, another recognized stimulant found in cigarettes, were better
able to remember a sequence of letters after consuming 100 milligrams of caffeine.
Reaction times on short-term memory tests also improved.
Caffeine is the world's most widely used stimulant, according to the research
presented at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America.
Global daily consumption of caffeine averages 76 milligrams, equal to 1 1/2
cups of coffee. In the United States, average consumption is 238 milligrams
per day, equal to that found in 4 1/2 cups of java."
Vanessa West with a familar caffeine and sugar cocktail.