Coffee Consumption May Help Alzheimer's Patients

From a previous DHB alert you've heard about research linking caffeine and Alzheimer's patients, now another study offers very promising results - moderate caffeine intake reverses memory loss in mice bred to develop Alzheimer's.

The caffeine also reduced the level of beta-amyloid protein (a hallmark protein found in the brains of patients with Alzheimer's) in both the blood and brains of the mice. The study is set to appear in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease and brings high hopes of trials that could begin on humans very soon.

Alzheimer's, for those fortunate enough not to know about this life altering condition, is an irreversible and progressive disease that destroys thinking and memory.

In the end, patients don't have the ability to do even the simplest everyday things, cooking, dressing, driving a car, making decisions, running errands.

This isn't the normal forgetfulness of aging... rather the limitations are such that they interfere with your daily life. In the majority of cases Alzheimer's symptoms show up after age 60. Recent estimates have as many as 2.4 to 4.5 million Americans living with this awful disease.

This highly promising work builds on earlier studies by the team of researchers at the Florida Alzheimer's Disease Research Center that found caffeine intake in early adulthood prevented the onset of memory problems in mice bred to develop Alzheimer's disease.

The team became interested in caffeine's potential for treating Alzheimer's after some Portuguese researchers reported that those with Alzheimer's had consumed less caffeine in the last 20 years than those without the disease.

There have been several uncontrolled trials that reported moderate caffeine intake might protect against normal memory decline due to aging, though this latest work is more highly controlled, allowing experts to isolate the effects of caffeine on memory.

"The new findings provide evidence that caffeine could be a viable 'treatment' for established Alzheimer's disease, and not simply a protective strategy," researcher Gary Arendash, PhD, a neuroscientist at the University of South Florida, says in a news release.

"That's important because caffeine is a safe drug for most people, it easily enters the brain, and it appears to directly affect the disease process."

In the work, 55 mice bred to have Alzheimer's symptoms were divided into two groups; one was given 500 mg (equal to 5 eight-ounce cups of regular coffee, 14 cups of tea or 20 sodas) of caffeine in their daily water supply after they started to exhibit memory problems. The other group of mice got plain, de-caffeinated water.

After 2 months the caffeine-drinking mice did much better on tests of their memory and thinking skills. The skills were the equal of normal mice without dementia who were the same age.

The mice who drank water without the added caffeine, the control group, kept doing poorly on the tests of thinking and memory.

The brains of the caffeine-drinking mice also saw the level of beta-amyloid, the protein that forms the sticky clumps of plaques found in Alzheimer's patients brains, cut almost in half.

Taking things one step further, the team also studied long-term caffeine intake in normal mice, but after 10 months of treatment with caffeine, there wasn't an improvement in their memory or thinking skills.

The investigators suspect that the caffeine might help to restore memory by reducing the enzymes that are needed to create beta-amyloid. Caffeine might also help to reduce inflammatory changes in the brain that might also lead to an over-abundance of the protein.

Researchers cannot tell us what begins the Alzheimer's process, though experts know that the damage begins 10-20 years before any symptoms appear on the outside.

If you've noticed changes in you, or someone you love, know that early diagnosis gives you the heads up - helping you preserve as much cognitive ability as possible.

While you can't repair the deterioration process that's happened silently over the years, you can learn more about treatments (or clinical trials) that can give you a chance to hold on to your brain function for months or even years.

Early diagnosis for Alzheimers patients also gives you the time to plan... to make your own choices about where you'll live, as well as make financial and legal decisions you want to have control over before a condition like Alzheimer's makes this impossible.

Next just head on over to the Daily Health Bulletin for more information on how coffee consumption effects your health, plus get 5 free fantastic health reports.

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