More coffee - stronger protection against dementia
Last reviewed: 23.04.2024
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Scientists from the universities of South Florida and Miami (both US) for the first time received direct evidence that consumption of coffee / caffeine is associated with a reduced risk of dementia or a delay in 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), Alzheimer's disease is not terrible. But those who had a low concentration of caffeine in the blood at the time the study began developed dementia.
None of the subjects with a slight history of cognitive impairment, which was later affected by Alzheimer's, at the beginning of the observation had a caffeine in the blood above the "critical level" of 1,200 ng / ml (equivalent to consuming several cups of coffee a couple of hours before taking blood samples) . For comparison: many "stable" participants, whose memory problems for four years of research did not develop into dementia, the level of caffeine in the blood was higher than the above indicator.
According to the authors of the work, coffee was the main source of caffeine for subjects with mild cognitive impairment. This was confirmed by experiments in mice: rodents with Alzheimer's disease, who were given coffee with caffeine, had a similar profile of immune markers in the blood as people. And in animals that received pure caffeine or decaffeinated coffee, the immune marker profile was different.
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