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There’s a reason your cup of morning coffee isn’t cutting it anymore – your age
As youve gotten older, do you find that you need more caffeine to get you through the day? Or less?
Our ability to metabolize caffeine changes with age, but it doesnt stop changing when we reach adulthood, as logic might suggest. Whether we drink it on an empty stomach, drink three cups a day in a bid to stave off heart disease, or mix Marmite into it because we saw someone on the Internet do it and we thought it was a good idea, the coffee we drink has a different effect on our bodies as we get older.
Your ability to metabolize caffeine decreases as you age
When you drink a cup of coffee, caffeine enters your body and stimulates your central nervous system, heart, and muscles.
Over several hours, your liver breaks it down using metabolizing enzymes. For a healthy young adult, it takes about six hours for the liver to cut the amount of caffeine in your system by half. This is what scientists call a half-life. Caffeine’s half-life is about six hours.
- TRY THESE INSTEAD: Five natural alternatives to your morning cup
This means that if you consume 63mg of caffeine the normal amount of caffeine in a single espresso you will probably have about 30mg in your body after six hours.
However, the speed at which we metabolize caffeine changes as we age. It slows down, according to a new study into what changes the human body undergoes as it biologically ages.
Curiously, however, the way we metabolize caffeine doesnt change gradually. There appear to be two periods after we enter adulthood during which it changes relatively quickly.
Why you may feel a difference in your taste for coffee at 40 and at 60
The way you metabolize caffeine undergoes a notable alteration (i.e. big change) at two ages, once you reach adulthood: 40 and 60.
We previously reported on research that showed how human bodies go through giant molecular changes in the 40s and early 60s, which this research appears to support.
In this case, the change in our ability to metabolize caffeine could be down to something as simple as how much coffee we drink, or how much exercise we do, according to the researchers.
Or, it could be due to a metabolic shift.
Either way, there appears to be a decline in kidney function around the age of 60, and the same changes happen to the bodys ability to metabolize alcohol.
So if you reached the age of 40 recently and suddenly found yourself drinking less or more coffee, or finding coffee has longer, lingering effects, your metabolism may be to blame. Or, your decision to drink more or less coffee (and do more or less exercise) may be to blame for the change in your bodys ability to metabolize the caffeine in your morning cup of Joe&
What came first, the chicken or the egg? Maybe well never know.
