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Old man drinking coffee. Drawing, Pencil, scratched, on watercolour paper
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Those cups of coffee
that you drink every day to keep alert appear to have an extra perk – especially
if you’re an older adult.
A recent study monitoring the memory and thinking processes
of 124 people, ages 65 to 88 found that moderate intake of coffee -- about 3
cups a day -- is
associated with a reduced risk of Alzheimer’s Disease or delayed onset.
“The results from this study, along with our earlier studies
in Alzheimer’s mice, are very consistent in indicating that moderate daily
caffeine/coffee intake throughout adulthood should appreciably protect against
Alzheimer’s disease later in life,” said study lead author Dr. Chuanhai Cao, a
neuroscientist at the USF College
of Pharmacy and the USF
Health Byrd Alzheimer’s Institute.
The study shows this protection probably occurs even in
older people with early signs of the disease, called mild cognitive impairment,
or MCI. Patients with MCI already experience some short-term memory loss and
initial Alzheimer’s pathology in their brains. Each year, about 15 percent of
MCI patients progress to full-blown Alzheimer’s disease. The researchers
focused on study participants with MCI, because many were destined to develop
Alzheimer’s within a few years.
Blood caffeine levels at the study’s onset were
substantially lower (51 percent less) in participants diagnosed with MCI who
progressed to dementia during the two-to-four year follow-up than in those
whose mild cognitive impairment remained stable over the same period.
No one with MCI who later developed Alzheimer’s had initial
blood caffeine levels above a critical level of 1200 ng/ml – equivalent to
drinking several cups of coffee a few hours before the blood sample was drawn.
In contrast, many with stable MCI had blood caffeine levels higher than this
critical level.
Since 2006, USF’s Dr. Cao and study co-author Dr. Gary
Arendash have published several studies investigating the effects of
caffeine/coffee administered to Alzheimer’s mice. Most recently, they reported
that caffeine interacts with a yet unidentified component of coffee to boost
blood levels of a critical growth factor that seems to fight off the
Alzheimer’s disease process.
Alzheimer’s pathology is a process in which plaques and
tangles accumulate in the brain, killing nerve cells, destroying neural
connections, and ultimately leading to progressive and irreversible memory loss.
Since the neurodegenerative disease starts one or two decades before cognitive
decline becomes apparent, the study authors point out, any intervention to cut
the risk of Alzheimer’s should ideally begin that far in advance of symptoms.
“Moderate daily consumption of caffeinated coffee appears to
be the best dietary option for long-term protection against Alzheimer’s memory
loss,” Dr. Arendash said. “Coffee is inexpensive, readily available, easily gets
into the brain, and has few side-effects for most of us. Moreover, our studies
show that caffeine and coffee appear to directly attack the Alzheimer’s disease
process.”
In addition to Alzheimer’s disease, moderate caffeine/coffee
intake appears to reduce the risk of several other diseases of aging, including
Parkinson’s disease, stroke, Type II diabetes, and breast cancer. However,
supporting studies for these benefits have all been observational
(uncontrolled), and controlled clinical trials are needed to definitively
demonstrate therapeutic value.
A study tracking the health and coffee consumption of more
than 400,000 older adults for 13 years, and published earlier this year in the
New England Journal of Medicine, found that coffee drinkers reduced their risk
of dying from heart disease, lung disease, pneumonia, stroke, diabetes,
infections, and even injuries and accidents.
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The above story is based on the June 4, 2012 news release by IOS Press BV
The research has been Epublished ahed of print in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease: Cao C, Loewenstein DA, Lin X, Zhang C, Wang L, Duara R, Wu Y, Giannini A, Bai G, Cai J, Greig M, Schofield E, Ashok R, Small B, Potter H, Arendash GW. High Blood Caffeine Levels in MCI Linked to Lack of Progression to Dementia. J Alzheimers Dis. 2012 Mar 19. [Epub ahead of print]
Click HERE for the Full Text.
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