Coffee Can Help Lower Alzheimer’s Disease Risk – But For How Long?

Brett Smith for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

Like chocolate and red wine, coffee is one of those items which seem to make headlines for its positive or negative health effects every few weeks.

This week, research sponsored by the Institute for Scientific Information on Coffee (ISIC) and presented at an Alzheimer Europe session indicated that at least three cups of coffee per day could help lower short-term risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.

“Cognitive decline is a feature of aging, and although some changes can be expected in all of us, there is some evidence that diet and lifestyle may be related to cognition,” said Iva Holmerov, Alzheimer Europe’s vice chairperson, according to Yagana Shah of the Huffington Post. “In fact epidemiological studies suggest that certain lifestyle factors and nutritional elements, including the consumption of coffee and caffeine, may help to slow age-related cognitive decline seen in the older generation.”

The ISIC researchers pointed to two components of coffee that could explain why it lowers the risk for dementia: caffeine and polyphenols. Caffeine helps in avoiding the development of amyloid plaques and neurofibrulary knots in the brain, both of which are factors in Alzheimer’s disease development. Also, both caffeine and polyphenols lessen inflammation and reduce the wearing down of brain cells, especially in the hippocampus and cortex, which are both vital to memory function.

ISIC said its researchers had noticed a significant lack of study collectively involving the long-term and short-term effects of coffee when it comes to Alzheimer’s – although there have been studies that looked at these time frames independently.

The institute therefore commissioned an evaluation of a study with about 5,000 middle-aged participants which tracked self-reported coffee intake from 1989 to 1991. Participants in the study were tracked after this initial period from 1997 to 2011.

The study team found that three or more cups a day lowered the risk for dementia in a four-year follow-up period. However, after those four years – the protective relationship diminished significantly, to the point where there was actually a negative relationship between high coffee consumption intake and dementia.

The study team theorized that the subsequent negative relationship could be due to “a reverse causal effect,” in which the short-term protective effects simply put off the development of Alzheimer’s.

“The majority of human epidemiological studies suggest that regular coffee consumption over a lifetime is associated with a reduced risk of developing Alzheimer’s Disease, with an optimum protective effect occurring with three to five cups of coffee per day,” noted Arfram Ikram, an assistant professor in neuroepidemiology at Erasmus Medical Centre in the Netherlands who presented the findings.

“The findings presented in this report are very encouraging and help to develop our understanding of the role nutrition can play in protecting against Alzheimer’s disease,” Holmerova concluded. “Coffee is a very popular beverage enjoyed by millions of people around the world and I’m pleased to know that moderate, lifelong consumption can have a beneficial effect on the development of Alzheimer’s disease.”

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