June 28/London/Globe and Mail -- A new study to be released at the Society of Experimental Biology annual meeting in Salzburg, Austria, argues that caffeine can help boost older muscles and could thereby help prevent falls and injuries among the elderly. The aim of the study was to determine whether the age of a muscle was a factor in how it reacted to caffeine.
Using two different types of muscles from mice -- the diaphragm and a leg muscle -- sports-medicine researchers from Coventry University in Britain observed that elderly muscles were still stimulated by caffeine, though less so than younger adult muscles. The study’s main author Jason Tallis said that “despite a reduced effect in the elderly, caffeine may still provide performance-enhancing benefits.”