Research on the benefits of drinking coffee shows that drinking coffee in moderation is good for your health

Researchers at Kuopio University in Finland and Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, said in a recent press release that assuming global coffee consumption is high, the results may have important implications for preventing or delaying the onset of dementia/Alzheimer's disease. The findings need to be confirmed by other studies, but it opens the door to dietary interventions that may alter the risk of dementia/Alzheimer's and may help in the latest treatments for these diseases.

Drinking moderate amounts of coffee at a young age can reduce the risk of dementia and Alzheimer's disease in old age, new research suggests. Finnish and Swedish researchers examined records of coffee drinking habits of 1409 participants in middle age.

Researchers reported earlier this year in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease that people who drank three to five cups of coffee a day in middle age were less likely to develop dementia and Alzheimer's disease over a follow-up period of more than 20 years.

Those who drank the most coffee a day had the highest total cholesterol and smoking rates in middle age, and those who drank less coffee had the highest rates of dementia and Alzheimer's disease in later life, as well as the highest depression index. Kivipelto said their goal was to study the association between drinking tea and coffee in middle age and the risk of dementia and Alzheimer's disease later in life, because whether caffeine has long-term effects on the central nervous system is still unknown, and the pathological processes leading to Alzheimer's disease begin decades before the disease is clinically confirmed.

In the study, participants in middle age (average age 50) were asked how much coffee they drank in 1972, 1977, 1982, and 1987, and then divided into three groups: those who drank a small amount of coffee (zero to two cups per day), moderate coffee (three to five cups), and heavy coffee (more than five cups per day).

Among the participants, 15.9 percent drank a small amount of coffee, 45.6 percent moderate coffee, and 38.5 percent heavy coffee; on average, 1409 people aged 65 to 79 were retested 21 years later, for a total of 61 classified as dementia and 48 Alzheimer's.

The results showed that coffee drinkers had a lower risk of dementia and Alzheimer's disease in middle age than those who drank little or no coffee, and moderate coffee drinkers had the lowest risk, the researchers noted, with moderate coffee drinkers reducing their risk of dementia by 65 to 70 percent and Alzheimer's disease by 62 to 64 percent compared with those who drank little coffee.

The researchers note that coffee drinking improves cognitive performance, caffeine reduces the risk of Parkinson's disease, and it's unclear how much coffee is needed to prevent dementia, but coffee drinking is also associated with a reduced risk of type 2 diabetes, a risk factor for dementia, and the researchers speculate that the effect may be related to coffee's antioxidant capacity in the blood.

Studies have also shown that drinking tea is not associated with a reduced risk of dementia or Alzheimer's disease.