Coffee and Tea Decrease the Risk of Dementia

People at midlife who drink coffee and tea responsibly may be at a lower risk of developing dementia in their senior years, a new prolonged scientific study, conducted in Finland, showed. Some of the test subjects in the new research had been under survey for more than 37 years, starting 1972, so experts from the University of Kuopio and the National Public Health Institute, both in Finland, and the Karolinska Institute, in Stockholm, Sweden, had extensive medical records to work with. They analyzed approximately 1410 individuals, for an average of 21 years, before ending the study.

Upon completion, they learned that 71 percent of the population managed to survive the entire length of the survey, and that approximately 61 people had developed signs of dementia. According to the data, people who at midlife were found to drink high quantities of coffee – more than 5 cups per day – had a significantly lower chance of developing dementia later in their lives, as opposed to those who consumed no or only little coffee (less than 2 cups per day).

"We aimed to study the association between coffee and tea consumption at midlife and dementia/AD risk in late-life, because the long-term impact of caffeine on the central nervous system was still unknown, and as the pathologic processes leading to Alzheimer's disease may start decades before the clinical manifestation of the disease," explains Miia Kivipelto, University of Kuopio associate professor, and a member of the Karolinska Institute in Sweden. She was also the lead researcher on the current study.

"Given the large amount of coffee consumption globally, the results might have important implications for the prevention of or delaying the onset of dementia/AD. The finding needs to be confirmed by other studies, but it opens the possibility that dietary interventions could modify the risk of dementia/AD. Also, identification of mechanisms of how coffee exerts its protection against dementia/AD might help in the development of new therapies for these diseases," she adds.