14 DAY TRIAL // Scientists say that the memory loss diabetics experience as a result of their condition can be staved off by caffeine, the main active element in coffee and some teas. This study highlights an unobtrusive way in which memory decline can be addressed in those suffering from diabetes.
The research also shows how this condition affects an area of the human brain called the hippocampus, which is known to play a significant role in coding memories. The paper the team published on its discoveries also shows how caffeine acts to prevent this from happening.
Experts studied rat models of type II diabetes for these experiments. They decided to conduct the study because poorly-managed diabetes is known to affect memory and learning in patients, while at the same time placing sufferers at higher risks of developing dementia. How this link occurs is unclear.
What the team learned is that diabetes causes neural degeneration of the same type that occurs during the earliest stages of Alzheimer's and Parkinson’s disease. This suggests that caffeine may be used by people suffering from those conditions as well.
Studies such as this one are extremely important given that more than 285 million people (6.4 percent of all humans) suffer from diabetes, of which 90 percent have type II diabetes. By 2030, officials expect these numbers – which do not include pre-diabetic individuals – to double.
Experts published details of their research in the latest issue of the open-access, peer-reviewed journal PLoS ONE, which is edited by the Public Library of Science. They decided to investigate coffee because of its effects as a psychostimulant.
More than 500 billion cups of the beverage are consumed every year. If caffeine is indeed as effective as researchers believe in staving off some forms of dementia, and prevent memory loss caused by diabetes, then many people benefit from this effect.
The work was carried out by scientists with the Center for Neuroscience and Cell Biology, at the University of Coimbra in Portugal. Investigators here were led by João Duarte and Rodrigo Cunha.
The team says that the caffeine doses used in this research were a bit excessive, the rough equivalent of eight cups of coffee per day. They do not encourage people to drink so much coffee for any reason.
“Indeed, the dose of caffeine shown to be effective is just too excessive. All we can take from here is that a moderate consumption of caffeine should afford a moderate benefit, but still a benefit,” Cunha says, qoted by AlphaGalileo.
“Such experimental design is common in pre-clinical studies: in order to highlight a clear benefit, one dramatises the tested doses. But it's an important first step. Our ultimate goal is the design of a drug more potent and selective (i.e. with less potential side effects) than caffeine itself,” the expert concludes.