High Blood Caffeine Levels in Older Adults Linked to Avoidance of Alzheimer’s Disease
June 7th, 2012Medicine.
Via: Alpha Galileo Foundation:
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 people older than 65 found that all those with higher blood caffeine levels avoided the onset of Alzheimer’s disease in the two-to-four years of study follow-up. Moreover, coffee appeared to be the major or only source of caffeine for these individuals.
Researchers from the University of South Florida (www.usf.edu) and the University of Miami (www.miami.edu) say the case control study provides the first direct evidence that caffeine/coffee intake is associated with a reduced risk of dementia or delayed onset. Their findings will appear in the online version of an article to be published June 5 in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, published by IOS Press (http://health.usf.edu/nocms/publicaffairs/now/pdfs/JAD111781.pdf). The collaborative study involved 124 people, ages 65 to 88, in Tampa and Miami.
“These intriguing results suggest that older adults with mild memory impairment who drink moderate levels of coffee — about 3 cups a day — will not convert to Alzheimer’s disease — or at least will experience a substantial delay before converting to Alzheimer’s,” said study lead author Dr. Chuanhai Cao, a neuroscientist at the USF College of Pharmacy and the USF Health Byrd Alzheimer’s Institute. “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.”
a hypothesis for the main mechanism, or a complementary mechanism in this: high levels of iron in the blood contribute to cholesterol and also formation of plaques involved in alzheimer’s, and a few other conditions such as gout. Coffee and tea inhibit iron absorption. Anemia (lacking sufficient iron for hemoglobin in your blood) also poses health problems, and people with anemia are told that vitamin C helps absorption, coffee inhibits.
A supporting piece of evidence is that men often develop heart and cholesterol problems at earlier ages than women, before menopause when they stop losing a volume of blood every month. Blood donation is considered therapeutic for people with high iron. http://www.aps.anl.gov/Science/Highlights/Content/APS_SCIENCE_20110615.php
http://scientopia.org/blogs/scicurious/2009/10/18/things-found-at-sfn-iron-cholesterol-and-alzheimers/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2732125/
Sounded like a coffee advert…
So I checked the study… seems to be a few *minor* limitations… ha
“…we did not take multiple blood samples for caffeine analysis during the 2–4 year study period, only at the study’s inception.
This is because the study was created retrospectively from available blood (taken at initial clinical exam).”
…
“We also did not ask participants when their last caffeine intake was prior to coming in for the initial visit/blood sample. As well, we did not ask subjects about their long-term caffeine/coffee intake habits,”
How does that turn into… “older adults with mild memory impairment who drink moderate levels of coffee — about 3 cups a day — will not convert to Alzheimer’s disease”??
Smoking is good for you! And popcorn makes you stronger!