The truth about drinking caffeine as we get older

If you're feeling jittery after just one coffee, you could be showing your age. Helen Coffey asks experts about caffeine intolerance and whether we can get our fix elsewhere

- Helen Coffey

Ah, coffee. It’s such an accepted vice these days, it’s even spawned its very own “live, laugh, love”-style culture, complete with cringe-making merch (T-shirts reading: “Just give me coffee and no one gets hurt!”; mugs with slogans like: “First I drink the Coffee, then I do the Things!” – you get the picture).

While I’ve never gone so far as to partake in the caffeine equivalent of an “It’s wine o’clock somewhere!” bit of tat, coffee has, for me, always remained steadfast as one of the low-key joys that make daily life worth living.

But suddenly, almost overnight, this friendly pick-me-up seems to have become my nemesis. More than a cup a day (and even that is sometimes a bridge too far) leaves me jittery and anxious, with a stomach tied in the kind of knots I’d normally associate with exam-taking or waiting for a handsome man to message after a first date. It was such an unfamiliar feeling that, at first, I couldn’t for the life of me work out what was going on. Maybe it was the perimenopause, blamed for seemingly everything past the age of 35? Maybe work stress? Maybe the general melee of war, Trump, and an upsurge in far-right rhetoric taking hold across the nation?

"Have you considered that you might be intolerant to caffeine?" a more level-headed acquaintance proposed instead. This theory, while reasonable, seemed grossly unfair; why would my body, after 38 years on this planet, suddenly turn on me? Am I just a weakling, or is this yet another of the garbage effects that come with ageing?