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More coffee is a stronger defense against dementia
Last reviewed: 01.07.2025
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Scientists from the Universities of South Florida and Miami (both in the US) have obtained the first direct evidence that coffee/caffeine consumption is associated with a reduced risk of developing dementia or delaying the onset of this disease.
The study involved 124 people aged 65 to 88 years - residents of Tampa and Miami, who were diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment. The observation lasted from two to four years. The final examination showed that elderly people with mild memory impairment who drink moderate amounts of coffee (about three cups a day) are not at risk of Alzheimer's disease. But those who had a low concentration of caffeine in their blood at the beginning of the study developed dementia.
None of the subjects with a history of mild cognitive impairment who later developed Alzheimer's disease had blood caffeine levels above the "critical level" of 1,200 ng/ml (equivalent to drinking several cups of coffee in the hours before blood samples were taken) at the start of the study. By comparison, many of the "stable" subjects, whose memory problems did not progress to dementia over the four years of the study, had blood caffeine levels above that level.
According to the authors of the work, the main source of caffeine for subjects with mild cognitive impairment was coffee. This was confirmed by experiments on mice: rodents with Alzheimer's disease who were given caffeinated coffee had a similar profile of immune markers in their blood as people. And in animals given pure caffeine or decaffeinated coffee, the immune marker profile was different.
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