Effects of Breakfast and Caffeine on Performance and Mood in the Late Morning and after Lunch

Abstract

The aim of the present study was to examine the effects of breakfast and caffeine on performance, mood and cardiovascular functioning in the late morning and after lunch. Forty-eight subjects were tested at 07.45 and subjects then assigned to one of the four conditions formed by combining caffeine and breakfast conditions. Subjects in the caffeine condition were given a dose of 4 mg/kg, the caffeine manipulation being double blind. At 11.15 subjects were given another coffee (subjects remained in the same caffeine condition) and had lunch at 12.30. Performance was examined prior to lunch (11.30) and after lunch (14.00). Effects of breakfast on recognition memory (lower false alarm rate) and logical reasoning (reduced accuracy) were found in the late morning but not after lunch. However, a semantic processing task was performed more slowly by the breakfast group after lunch. Caffeine improved performance on a sustained attention task, the logical reasoning task and semantic memory task. Subjects given caffeine also reported greater alertness and feelings of well-being, whereas the effects of breakfast on mood changed from the late morning to early afternoon. Few interactions between breakfast and caffeine conditions were obtained.

Is Caffeine a Cognitive Enhancer?

“…Caffeine was found to either (1) exert no effects on free recall performance in sixteen studies [7][8][9]11,[21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32]; (2) improve recall in six studies [33][34][35][36][37][38]; or (3) impair recall in three studies [8,12,39].…”

Efeito do processo de descafeinação com diclorometano sobre a composição química dos cafés arábica e robusta antes e após a torração

“…Por este motivo, muitos trabalhos têm sido realizados sobre os efeitos fisiológicos desta substância, resultando, até os dias de hoje, na impossibilidade de se chegar a um consenso sobre seus efeitos positivos e negativos. Enquanto alguns estudos sugerem uma possível associação entre consumo de café (integral) e doenças coronarianas 3 e incidência de câncer 4 , outros estudos correlacionam seu consumo à diminuição do risco de suicídios 5 e da incidência de cirroses 6 , ao aumento do estado de alerta, à diminuição da fadiga e à melhora do estado de espírito [7][8][9][10] . Tal dicotomia acaba por acarretar aumento do consumo de café descafeinado, muitas vezes por aconselhamento médico.…”

Development of a scale to measure 9–11-year-olds' attitudes towards breakfast

“…Laboratory research shows that consumption of an adequate breakfast is linked to short-term improvements in attention (Wesnes et al, 2003), memory (Benton and Sargent, 1992;Smith et al, 1992Smith et al, , 1994Smith et al, , 1999Benton and Parker, 1998;Wesnes et al, 2003), mood (Lloyd et al, 1996;Smith et al, 1994Smith et al, , 1999 and possibly motivation (Benton et al, 2001). …”