Study: Caffeine May Help Treat Alzheimer's
My mother, who is approaching 80, used to drink 15 to 20 cups of coffee a day. I kid you not. Finally, her doctor told her she just had to cut back. And she did ... to about 10 cups a day.
So I think she'll be glad to hear that a study has found that the caffeine equivalent of drinking five cups of coffee a day may help prevent or treat Alzheimer's disease. ScienceDaily reports that separate studies also show that using certain blood pressure drugs or taking fish oil may help as well.
The blood pressure drugs appear to block the formation of the sticky wads of protein called amyloid plaques that build up in brains of Alzheimer's patients. Tests with caffeine and fish oil showed they were effective in reducing the plaques in animals.
Gary Arendash, a researcher at the Byrd Alzheimer's Institute in Tampa, Fla., says giving Alzheimer's mice the human equivalent of five cups of coffee, or 500 milligrams of caffeine, breaks apart the sticky plaque. His institute has begun clinical trials with older people. "Caffeine could be a surprisingly effective treatment against this disease,'' Arendash told Bloomberg. "It's almost too good to be true.''
I used to give my mom a hard time about drinking so much coffee. But maybe it's not so bad.
1:33 PM ET | 11- 8-2007 | permalink
