Caffeine Low

I gave up caffeine nearly two years ago and was not happy when I saw the headline inside yesterday’s newspaper that read,  “High caffeine intake could prevent dementia, study hints”.  As if I needed one more thing to cause concern over an aging mind.  When I talk with friends and family about this common syndrome, we seem to be amused at our inability to remember words for common things but underneath that occasionally there lies an undercurrent of actual concern.  I laughed with a friend recently when she told me she couldn’t come up with the word “billboard” and had to resort to explaining what she was talking about by describing “those big, rectangular signs next to the highway that advertise stuff”. I sat there this morning with my mug of decaffeinated herbal tea, feeling moderately sulky about the article and quoted it to my husband. As I read the story to him, I watched my husband gleefully reach into the refrigerator and pull out a bottle of Mountain Dew.  He took a a big swig, declaring that he felt smarter already. I am undecided if I should go back to drinking caffeine or just accept my fate. In the infamous words of Tony Soprano, “Whaddaya gonna do?”