A study co-published by Clarkson University mathematics Ph.D. student Daniel T. Fuller and Associate Professor of Physical Therapy and Biology Ali Boolani suggests that a person’s pre-disposition toward feelings of energy and fatigue can determine how one responds to caffeine.
The research appears in a special issue of the peer-reviewed scientific journal Nutrients.
The study for the researchers’ scientific paper, “Trait Energy and Fatigue Modify the Effects of Caffeine on Mood, Cognitive and Fine-Motor Task Performance: A Post-Hoc Study,” examined the effects of trait (long-standing pre-dispositions to) mental and physical energy and fatigue to changes in moods, and cognitive and fine-motor task performance after consuming a caffeinated beverage and a non-caffeinated placebo.
The study results indicate that pre-dispositions to mental and physical fatigue and mental energy modified the effects of caffeine on vigor, anxiety, physical, and mental fatigue.
It found that those who already had high traits of physical and mental fatigue and low-trait mental energy reported the greatest benefit of caffeine on improvements in mood and cognitive task performance. Also, those who were high-trait mental and physical fatigue reported the greatest benefit of caffeine consumption on fine-motor task performance.
The researchers suggested that future research on the effects of caffeine on acute moods and cognitive and fine-motor task performance should take into account subjects’ long-standing predispositions to mental and physical fatigue and mental energy.
Texas A&M University Associate Professor Matthew Lee Smith of the Center for Population Health and Aging and the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health was a co-publisher of the paper.
Read the full study at https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/13/2/412.