All the smart people love cereal

Tucking into a bowl of cornflakes washed down with orange juice and coffee will boost your IQ and put you in a better mood, new research has found.

Breakfast-eaters performed up to 10 per cent better in memory tests, in recording lists of words and in the ability to think logically, the British Psychological Society's annual conference heard yesterday.

In another study looking at the long-term effects of eating breakfast, cereals emerged as the optimum food. Andrew Smith, Professor of Psychology at Bristol University, told the conference in Edinburgh: "People feel better - cereals boosted their mood."

In the study, nearly 50 people had their mental functions and mood measured before eating. Half were then given breakfast and half subsisted on a cup of decaffeinated coffee. In subsequent tests, the breakfast-eaters proved 10 per cent better at mental tasks. The key factor, said the professor, could be the glucose from the food which remedied low blood sugar levels.

To test the long-term improvement from regular breakfast eating, Professor Smith surveyed 600 people. Those who did not bother with the first meal of the day had the most negative effects - such as the most gloomy mood - with cereal eaters being the happiest.

Of the elderly people tested, those who eat cereal regularly had a sunnier outlook and the highest intelligence scores, although the professor warned that this could simply mean that more-intelligent people tended to eat breakfast. In another study, Professor Smith said that those who had a high intake of caffeine performed most efficiently throughout the day. Workers who imbibed 200 milligrammes of caffeine or more - four cups of coffee or five cups of tea - had the highest level of efficiency at the end of the day.

To complete the perfect breakfast, said Professor Smith, it could be time to look at orange juice, as vitamin C had also been shown to have health benefits. A study in the British Medical Journal showed that cognitive ability in the elderly was higher in those who had a high vitamin C intake.