MIDDLE-AGED people who drink moderate amounts of coffee significantly reduce their risk of developing Alzheimer’s Disease, a study by Finnish and Swedish researchers showed.
Middle-aged people who drank between three and five cups of coffee a day lowered their risk of developing dementia and Alzheimer’s disease by between 60 and 65 percent later in life,” said lead researcher Miia Kivipelto, a professor at the University of Kuopo in Finland and at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm.
The Study, conducted in cooperation with the National Public Health Institute in Helsinki and published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, was based on repeated interviews with the 1,409 people in Finland over more than two decades.
They were first asked about their coffee-drinking habits when they were in their 50’s, and their memory functions were tested again in 1998, when they were between65 and 79 years ago.
A total of 61 people had by then developed dementia, 48 of whom had Alzheimer’s, the researchers said.
“There are perhaps one or two other studies that have shown that coffee can
improve some memory functions [but] this the first study directed at dementia and Alzheimer’s in which the subjects are followed for such a long time,” Kivipelto said.
She said it remained unclear exactly how moderate coffee drinking helped delay or avoid the onset of dementia, but pointed out that coffee contains strong antioxidants known to counter Alzheimer’s.
Some studies have also shown that coffee helps protects the nerve system, which can also protect against dementia, she said, pointing out thet yet other studies show that coffee protects against diabetes, which is also linked to Alzheimer’s.
“Going forward, researchers should try to nail down exactly what the protective elements in coffee consist of,” Kivipelto said.
The Finnish-Swedish research faced results surfaced after a separate study
published by psychologist at Durham University showed a link between heavy coffee drinking and hallucinations.
“I guess this shows that you shouldn’t exaggerate,” Kivipelto said when asked
about the British Study. She pointed out that her research showed “insignificant” benefits to drinking more than five cups of coffee a day when it
came to protecting against dementia. “Too much is simply too much,” she said.
Meanwhile a separate Swedish study found that eating fast food could contribute to the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.
Researchers at the Karolinka Institute fed mice on a diet rich in fat, sugar, and cholesterol for nine months to study their behavior.
“On examining the brains of this mice, we found a chemical change not unlike that found in the brain of Alzheimer’s sufferers,” said Susanne Akterin, who conducted the experiment for her doctoral thesis.
The study detected increased levels of phosphate, which makes the cells of
persons with Alzheimer’s become tangled and eventually lead to their death.
The cause of the disease remains unknown, but previous studies indicate diet could be a factor.
Alzheimer’s is the most common form of dementia and there are believed to be more than 24 million sufferers worldwide, a figure set to double every 20 years.