[Stitcher]

The caffeine buzz
Research suggests it might protect against Alzheimer's, Parkinson

Last Updated: 6:03 am | Sunday, December 31, 2006
http://news.enquirer.com:80/apps/pbc...612310347/1086

BY KATHLEEN FACKELMANN | GANNETT NEWS SERVICE
It's not the kick from caffeine that Sandy Schneider is after.

Instead, she's hoping new research that shows the drug may protect against Alzheimer's pans out. The West Harrison, Ind., resident's 80-year-old mother has the incurable disease.

"I do not drink coffee, and I typically drink decaffeinated tea," says Schneider, 57. "But I am going to start drinking coffee. I thought this morning I might stop and get a cup."

Schneider and others are betting on research suggesting that caffeine will offer protection not just against Alzheimer's but also against Parkinson's. Together these degenerative brain diseases affect about 6 million people in the United States. Cases of both diseases are expected to explode in the next few decades.

"Boomers are coming of age, and large numbers of them will develop neurodegenerative diseases," says Zaven Khachaturian, president and CEO of the Lou Ruvo Brain Institute in Las Vegas and the former director of the Alzheimer's unit at the National Institute on Aging.

The coming epidemic has fueled a search for drugs and other interventions that might slow the onset of these diseases, he says. If research by Gary Arendash and others holds up, boomers might be able to get some protection simply by enjoying an espresso.

"Caffeine is the most widely used psychoactive drug in the world," says Arendash, a researcher at the Byrd Alzheimer Institute in Tampa, Fla. "We think it might protect against Alzheimer's."

The research on caffeine ranges from a just-released mouse study by Arendash and colleagues to large-scale trials of coffee and tea drinkers. Such research might lead to the development of better drugs, Khachaturian says. Right now drugs for Alzheimer's and Parkinson's treat the symptoms but can do nothing to stop the underlying damage, he says.

Scientists like Arendash are searching for ways to stop diseases like Alzheimer's at an early stage.

At later stages, Alzheimer's destroys the brain's memory centers, leading to severe forgetfulness and confusion.

Arendash and his colleagues wondered if caffeine, the stimulant in coffee and tea, would slow this process in mice bred to develop an Alzheimer's-like disease.

Arendash gave young Alzheimer's mice either plain water or water spiked with caffeine - the human equivalent of about five cups of coffee a day.

Months later Arendash and his colleagues gave the older mice a series of brain challenges. They found that Alzheimer-stricken mice that had guzzled caffeine could easily find their way through a maze. Mice that got just water had more signs of brain disease and got confused in the maze, he says. The team just published the study online in the journal Neuroscience.

The human research seems to suggest that caffeine might shield the brain from subtle problems with forgetfulness - a possible early sign of Alzheimer's.

A study of more than 600 men published in the August European Journal of Clinical Nutrition suggests that coffee drinkers may be protected from mild memory and thinking problems that come with old age.

A 2002 study in the European Journal of Neurology found that people who consumed more caffeine in midlife appeared to be protected from developing Alzheimer's later on.

Studies on caffeine and Alzheimer's are just starting to roll in, but the literature on Parkinson's is well-established:

A study of more than 8,000 men in the Journal of the American Medical Association by G. Webster Ross and colleagues found that those who drank the most coffee (more than three cups a day) were the least likely to get Parkinson's.

Another large study, published in 2003 in the Journal of Neurological Sciences, found that tea and coffee drinkers were protected from Parkinson's.

The list of large human studies linking caffeine to a reduced risk of Parkinson's keeps growing, says Caroline Tanner, director of clinical research for the Parkinson's Institute in Sunnyvale, Calif.

The evidence on caffeine and Parkinson's makes a strong case for coffee, but it still falls short of scientific proof, Ross and others say. To get a more solid picture of caffeine's potential benefit, researchers will need to do much larger human studies of caffeine, then watch for early signs of Alzheimer's or Parkinson's, Khachaturian cautions.

So where does that leave people like Schneider?

Ross, a neurologist at the Honolulu Department of Veterans Affairs in Hawaii, says in most cases, drinking coffee and other caffeinated beverages can't hurt. But people with high blood pressure or a history of sensitivity to caffeine should first talk to their doctor.

Connie Lesko of Wimauma, Fla., who has two parents with Alzheimer's, says she knows enough about the disease to take a chance on caffeine. She says that her father can still discuss current events, but her mother has more advanced disease and sometimes cannot remember family members, including Lesko.

That pains Lesko and brings up worries about the future. "If you've lived with this disease - if it is part of your life - you can't help but be fearful," she says.

So Lesko now drinks more caffeinated beverages, including coffee and several cups of black tea every day. The prospect of staving off this disease even by a little has pushed her to change her habits.

"It's worth a shot," she says.

[reverett123]

1: J Nutr. 2004 Mar;134(3):562-7.

Intakes of antioxidants in coffee, wine, and vegetables are correlated with
plasma carotenoids in humans.

Svilaas A, Sakhi AK, Andersen LF, Svilaas T, Strom EC, Jacobs DR Jr, Ose L,
Blomhoff R.

Lipid Clinic, Medical Department, Rikshospitalet, University of Oslo, Oslo,
Norway.

The consumption of fruits and vegetables reduces the risk of major chronic
degenerative diseases. The active compounds and the mechanisms involved in this
protective effect have not been well defined. The objective of this study was to
determine the contribution of various food groups to total antioxidant intake,
and to assess the correlations of the total antioxidant intake from various food
groups with plasma antioxidants. We collected 7-d weighed dietary records in a
group of 61 adults with corresponding plasma samples, and used data from a
nationwide survey of 2672 Norwegian adults based on an extensive FFQ. The total
intake of antioxidants was approximately 17 mmol/d with beta-carotene,
alpha-tocopherol, and vitamin C contributing <10%. The intake of coffee
contributed approximately 11.1 mmol, followed by fruits (1.8 mmol), tea (1.4
mmol), wine (0.8 mmol), cereals (i.e., all grain containing foods; 0.8 mmol),
and vegetables (0.4 mmol). The intake of total antioxidants was significantly
correlated with plasma lutein, zeaxanthin, and lycopene. Among individual food
groups, coffee, wine, and vegetables were significantly correlated with dietary
zeaxanthin, beta-carotene, and alpha-carotene. These data agree with the
hypothesis that dietary antioxidants other than the well-known antioxidants
contribute to our antioxidant defense. Surprisingly, the single greatest
contributor to the total antioxidant intake was coffee.


And by a factor of six!

[rd42]

I love coffee and use to drink a ton of it, but now just two cups willdrive my symptoms crazy. May be I should try decaf, I wonder if it has the same antioxidant effect?

[K Hamilton]

RD42:
(does the "42" have anything to do with the answers to the ultimate questions about life , the universe, and everyhing?")

Caffeine is definitely not the only psychcoactive chemical in coffee. I remember that when I would drink black tea during the weekend and coffee during the week, the tea would do nothing for the headache or depression and fatigue that go along with quitting the coffee habit. The effect was independant of the strength of the tea, or the weakness of the coffee I realized I was going to have to start drinking coffee during the weekend. Switching to decaf during the week also made no difference in the headaches, etc, if I drank only tea during the weekend. Ergo, it is something else besides caffeine that gets us (me, anyway) hooked, and may quite possibly hold off the bad stuff for a while.

[rd42]

Originally Posted by K Hamilton

RD42:
(does the "42" have anything to do with the answers to the ultimate questions about life , the universe, and everyhing?")

I never thought of the connection to Hitch Hiker's Guide, that's neat. rd42 was my first user name when I started college, I was the 42nd student with the initials, rd.

[Stitcher]

Goodness, I have never ever been a coffee drinker!!


Not so contoversial anymore -- panel says moderate coffee drinking reduces many risks

Public release date: 30-Apr-2007
Contact: Sylvia Wrobel
ebpress@bellsouth.net
770-270-0989
Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releas...-nsc042207.php

Although the American Society for Nutrition’s popular “controversy session” at Experimental Biology 2007 focuses on the health effects of coffee drinking, panel chair Dr. James Coughlin, a toxicology/safety consultant at Coughlin & Associates, says that recent advances in epidemiologic and experimental knowledge have transformed many of the negative health myths about coffee drinking into validated health benefits.

Indeed, panel co-chair Dan Steffen, who follows coffee and health issues in the Scientific and Regulatory Affairs group of Kraft Foods, note that the “controversy” is often to educate a wider audience about this transformation in understanding.

Coffee is among the most widely consumed beverages in the world, and Dr. Coughlin says that the preponderance of scientific evidence - some by the panelists - suggests that moderate coffee consumption (3-5 cups per day) may be associated with reduced risk of certain disease conditions, such as Parkinson’s disease. Some research in neuropharamacology suggests that one cup of coffee can halve the risk of Parkinson’s disease. Other studies have found it reduces the risk of Alzheimer's disease, kidney stones, gallstones, depression and even suicide.

Dr. Coughlin and two distinguished researchers discussed some of the benefits - and a couple of the remaining increased risk factors (possible increase in blood pressure and plasma homocysteine) - on April 30 at the Experimental Biology meeting in Washington, DC.

Dr. Rob van Dam, an epidemiologist at the Harvard School of Public Health and the Harvard Medical School, studies the link between diet and the development of type 2 diabetes. Worldwide, an estimated 171 million persons have diabetes, mostly type 2 diabetes, and an alarming increase to 366 million persons is expected for the year 2030. While increased physical activity and restriction of energy intake can substantially reduce risk of type 2 diabetes, he believes insight into the role of other lifestyle factors may contribute to additional prevention strategies for type 2 diabetes.

In recent epidemiological studies in the U.S., Europe and Japan, persons who were heavy coffee consumers had a lower risk of type 2 diabetes than persons who consumed little coffee. Interestingly, he says, associations were similar for caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee, suggesting that coffee components other than caffeine may be beneficial for glucose metabolism.

Coffee contains hundreds of components including substantial amounts of chlorogenic acid, caffeine, magnesium, potassium, vitamin B3, trigonelline, and lignans. Limited evidence suggests that coffee may improve glucose metabolism by reducing the rate of intestinal glucose absorption and by stimulating the secretion of the gut hormone glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) that is beneficial for the secretion of insulin. However, most mechanistic research on coffee and glucose metabolism has been done in animals and in lab tubes and therefore metabolic studies in humans are currently being conducted. Further research may lead to the development or selection of coffee types with improved health effects.

Dr. Lenore Arab, a nutritional epidemiologist in the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, notes that the first coffee controversy dates back 430 years when in 1570 some monks petitioned the pope to condemn this drink, so popular among Muslims. Pope Clement VIII, liking how it kept the monks from falling sleep during mass, purportedly blessed it instead. The rest, including the United States’ wholesale conversion to coffee following the Boston Tea Party, is history.

In reviewing the latest epidemiologic literature on cancers and coffee, Dr. Arab has found there to be close to 400 studies of the associations between coffee consumption and cancers various at various sites. The earlier controversy with regard to colon cancer was based on flawed analyses, she says. More thorough analyses and the accumulation of evidence suggest no negative effect on the incidence of colon cancer, and possible protective effects for adenomas of the colon as well as for rectal cancer and liver cancer. Mechanisms which might contribute to a possible anticarcinogenic effect include reduction in cholesterol, bile acid and neutral sterol secretion in the colon, increased colonic motility and reduced exposure of epithelium to carcinogens, the ability of diterpenes to reduce genotoxicity of carcinogens, and lower DNA adduct formation, and the ability of caffeic acid and chlorogenic acid to decreased DNA methylation. In other cancers - breast, ovarian, and prostate - the evidence is not suggestive of either risk or protection. There are two areas, says Dr. Arab, in which there is some evidence of increased risk: leukemia and stomach cancer. The evidence for the former is intriguing, for the latter insubstantial. She concludes that a systematic review of the newer data for liver, rectal, stomach cancer and for childhood leukemia is due.

[Teretxu]

Sorry, but once more I don't fit in the statistics. I have been a coffee drinker all my life. In fact I started drinking coffee at the tender age of 11, when I started High School (school systems in Europe are different) and my mom would "stain" my milk with a shot of freshly brewed coffee, so I could start off my school day with a clear, sharp mind.

I have been drinking an average of 3 cups of coffee a day almost all my life and here I am, a parkie since my mid 30's.

[BEMM]

I've drunk gallons of coffee since I was 9 or 10. Everyone in Denmark drinks coffee. At 3:00 pm (or 15 o'clock) everything stops, and afternoon coffee is had by all, and I mean all. A Dane can not think of skipping afternoon coffee. Add to that the morning coffee, the elevenses coffee, and the after dinner and occasional evening coffee, and here should be a country free of PD - but alas, Denmark has a high incidence of PD in a small population.
And then the vegetables - they are no help either. I have eaten 'health foods' all my life. My mother was very keen on reading up on, and cooking health foods, and my own cooking has alway been as healthy and as full of vegetables as the diet I grew up eating - and still, I have PD.
Strangely, I don't like the taste of coffee any more. Ever since I began to take Requip, coffee, wine and beer no longer taste right to me, and I miss them.