If you're so dependent on your morning caffeine fix that you can barely even dress yourself before gulping down a scalding cup of joe, don't feel guilty. After all, it's good for you.

Science has already proven that coffee has a wide range of health benefits. For instance, it can help protect you from skin cancer, it reduces the risk of liver cancer, and it keeps those pesky eyelid twitches at bay. But now, it even looks like a few cups of coffee each day can maintain your current genius IQ level – if you're of the female persuasion that is. Sorry, guys, but you're out of luck.

In a recent French study, researchers followed more than 7,000 senior citizens over a 4-year-period, paying close attention to how much coffee and tea they drank on a daily basis and regularly testing them on visual and verbal skills.

The results, released in the August 7th issue of Neurology, showed that 65-year-old women who drank 3 or more cups of coffee each day were one-third less likely to lose significant verbal abilities than women who drank a cup a day or less. By age 85, the gap between caffeine addicts and abstainers is even wider – the ladies who drank 3 or more cups a day were 70 percent less likely to suffer memory loss. Unfortunately, coffee intake had no significant effect on the brainpower (or lack thereof) of the males in the study group.

So does coffee addiction really help keep women smart? It's too soon to say, according to researcher Karen Ritchie, who warns, "to suddenly start drinking large quantities of coffee is still really premature as a preventive measure."

But if you're a woman who already knows the shortcuts to every Starbucks in the city, go ahead – drink all the lattes you want. One day, your brain just might thank you for it.