Consuming caffeine can help your brain?

Caffeine isn’t just a drug you wish you could shoot into your veins before a workout. According to a new study, caffeine can also reduce the amount of gray matter in your brain. That’s a good thing!

Twenty subjects were asked to either take three tablets of caffeine per day for 10 days or three placebo tablets. At the end of the program, their gray matter was measured through fMRI and sleep activity was measured through EEG.

For subjects that took 10 days of caffeine, their gray matter was significantly reduced. For those subjects on the placebo, their gray matter remain relatively unchanged. Plus, those taking caffeine didn’t suffer any from any sleep problems.

The right medial temporal lobe was the part of the brain that was affected. This area includes the hippocampus and takes care of memory creation and spatial cognition.

Unfortunately, this reduction in gray matter is only temporary as the the brain “recovered” quickly after stopping caffeine.

Previous studies on older subjects found caffeine also helped slow cognitive decline caused by Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

So, if you need to justify that $5 of coffee everyday, here you go.